“Safety measures” start to lead to accidents at precisely the moment we think “this is sufficient.” This is the way “safety” goes. According to the famous “Heinrich's Law,” a single big accident is accompanied by 29 “small accidents which could lead to bigger accidents,” which in turn are accompanied by 300 “close calls.” In the background of the recent nuclear accident were nuclear industry phonies, who glossed over “accidents” as “events” or “failures.”

On December 2, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company, Incorporated) released the “Fukushima Nuclear Accidents Investigation Report (Interim)” (hereafter referred to as “TEPCO’s Interim Report”), but just one reading of this report gave me the impression that the entire report was written for the purpose of “dodging their responsibility.”

TEPCO is one of the parties concerned, and many things are beyond the knowledge of us outsiders. Or rather, it is not an exaggeration to say that all the information and data is solely in the hands of TEPCO. Neither of the regulatory bodies, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Nuclear Safety Commission, or the investigative bodies, including the government’s Investigation Committee on the Accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations and the Accident Investigation Commission which will be established in the Diet soon, could act if TEPCO provided no information or data.

“TEPCO’s Interim Report,” which TEPCO itself prepared, contained not a single reference to “responsibility,” which should have been addressed in the report in addition to “authority,” even if it was only an “interim report.”

I really feel that “accident investigations” have no meaning if they are conducted without any “right of compulsory inspection.” The government’s Investigation Committee on the Accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations is said to be planning to release its “interim report” on December 26, but as Chairman Yotaro Hatamura himself has announced that “No finger-pointing will be done,” it is doubtful whether any truth-seeking accident investigation will be able to be conducted.

“Venting” is one example. “TEPCO’s Interim Report,” referring to the “venting” of Unit 1, said that the plant’s director (namely Director Masao Yoshida) “directed staff to proceed with the preparation for venting” based on “the recognition of a necessity for venting” immediately after the accident. Who decides on, conducts, and takes responsibility for “venting” in the first place? Depending on the conditions, “venting” may cause many citizens to be exposed to radiation.

Suppose you were an operator and were ordered to conduct venting. Could you open the valve of the vent despite concerns you may have about the possibility of many citizens being exposed to radiation? If you did conduct the venting, who would take responsibility? If you didn’t, would you be accused of “insubordination”?

The government’s “report” in September stated that the then Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Mr. Kaieda, “issued an order to contain the pressure on the pressure vessel” based on the Law for the Regulations of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Material and Reactors. Did the government issue this “order” having resolved to accept criminal liability?

I believe that an “accident report” which doesn’t refer to “authority” or “responsibility” is not worthy of being called a “report.” What do you think?

Meanwhile, it wasn’t until November 12, 2011, eight months after the accident, that members of the media were able to view the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. I was among the press corps who visited the actual site to gather news material. Filming was strictly limited, and during the three-hour news gathering session, we were not even allowed to get off the bus. However, actually viewing the reactor building, which I had seen many times on TV, brought the magnitude of the destruction home to me, and left me wondering how far we would have to go before the situation was really brought under control.

At ten o’clock on the morning of November 12, we boarded two buses and left J-Village, dressed in protective clothing. It was about a 40 minute ride to the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. On the way there, around the areas of Naraha-machi Tomioka-machi and Okuma-machi, all the cars we saw coming from the opposite direction were police cars, and not a soul could be seen in the towns. The houses ruined by the earthquake were left just as they were.

A signboard saying, “Beware of feral cows” caught my eye. Abandoned cows may have turned into half-wild animals. “When I returned home, I found my dog with a live chicken in its mouth,” said a citizen. The disaster of the nuclear accident is taking its toll on every living thing.

At any rate, while I was fascinated by the breathtaking beauty of the Japanese pastoral landscape, at the same time, I couldn’t help feeling the fragility of human nature when I saw the towns near the nuclear plant, which had become uninhabited.

Just before 11 in the morning, the buses arrived at the main gate. For security reasons, we were not permitted to film the main gate. About five minutes after entering the site, we came to a raised piece of land, from where we could look down over the whole area. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was originally built on a plateau 35 meters high. The six reactors were constructed after grinding the plateau surface down to a level 10 meters above sea level. When I looked over the area, it gave me the impression of an artificial sawtooth coastline. In contrast to incoming and outgoing tidal waves, the tsunami, which raised the sea level itself, must have sent the “leading wave” up the ground plateau in a burst. As seen in the video footage of the tsunami provided by TEPCO, the tip of the incoming wave crest extended well beyond the top of the 45-meter-high buildings.

By looking at Unit 1 through Unit 4, I felt I was able to grasp the full magnitude of the accident. At Unit 1, which was the site of a hydrogen explosion at 3:36 p.m. on March 12, the building was already covered in a shroud-like material. The white cover had an unnatural luster, making it appear as if nothing had happened.

Unit 2 was reported to have experienced an explosion in the vicinity of the pressure suppression chamber in the early hours of the morning of March 15, but “TEPCO’s Interim Report” said that, according to the seismometer records, it was likely that the reports had confused the explosion at Unit 4 with a hydrogen explosion at Unit 2. It is still not known what actually happened.

However, it is a fact that the pressure in the pressure suppression chamber of Unit 2 declined sharply early in the morning of March 15, and a large amount of radioactive material was released. This must be noted if the Investigation Committee on the Accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station is to throw light on the facts.

Unit 3 suffered the most devastation. The video images of the explosion at 11:01 a.m. on March 14, taken by a stationary camera and shown on Fukushima Central Television, were burned deep into my mind. This was because the explosion occurred just as I was commenting on the nuclear accident in a TV studio in Tokyo. The images were broadcast almost in real time, and they made an even bigger impact than the explosion at Unit 1.

At that time, firstly, I was surprised to see a large flame go up. The main constituent of the concrete of which the buildings are made is “water.” If the concrete is heated and the “water” dries up, the buildings crumble away. I was afraid that the buildings might collapse first.

At the same time, the upper structure of the building was blasted off in a vertical direction, and blackish smoke rose up like a black cloud. Considering the 120 meter height of the exhaust tower, the smoke probably went up much higher than 500 meters.

It immediately came to my mind that the cause of the vertical movement might be in the containment vessel. During the broadcast, I became quite upset. I even made the mistake of saying “phreatic explosion” when I meant to say “hydrogen explosion.” At that moment, to be honest, I felt “This is the end of everything.” As Unit 3 again appeared before my eyes, the nightmarish sight came back to me.

Additionally, knowing there were workers and other personnel buried under the mass of fallen debris, my heart ached. In fact, personnel from the Self-Defense Forces and other workers who were engaged in the water injection operation were also injured.

The damage to Unit 4 looked more serious than I had first thought. The announcement made by TEPCO and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency on March 15 mentioned “an occurrence of fire,” but in fact, it was a hydrogen explosion. From the raised piece of land where I was located, I could clearly identify the yellow lid of the containment vessel which had been removed for the regular inspection. Part of the spent fuel pool and the crane used to lift the fuel could be seen in the ruined building.

When I heard about the first report of the explosion in Unit 4 on the morning of March 15, I found myself at a loss for words. The unavoidable fact that “spent fuel pools have no containment” crossed my mind, and I felt “This really must be the end.”

As I looked at the four reactors from the higher ground, it felt really strange to be standing there.

The bus made its way down through the site towards the sea, and after passing by the centralized waste treatment building, we came to the seaside. The makeshift bulwark constructed by heaping up sandbags filled with gravel obstructed our sight. As the bus approached the turbine building of Unit 4, the survey meter began to show a higher radiation dosage. At an area between Units 4 and 3, the dose rate reached 1,000 μSv/h. This meant that the permitted yearly dosage had been reached in one hour.　

Operations at the site are being performed in an environment with a considerably high level of radiation. In addition, the protective clothing and masks get in the way of communication.

Though the press corps, including myself, was only allowed to gather information for around three hours, I could never forget the refreshing feeling I experienced when I took off the protective mask.

Finally, I visited the quake-proof building. If there had been no such building, the accident would have had more serious consequences. This is because the high radiation dosage in the central control rooms of the respective reactors prevented even the operators from staying there for long. Without the quake-proof building, the response to and investigation of the accident would have taken a weaving course without a control unit.

The biggest benefit of the on-site information-gathering was that I was able to listen to the comments of the field director, Mr. Masao Yoshida, directly. This was about the only chance for people to hear the real voice of Director Yoshida, as he was hospitalized and left his office on November 24.

“I think the most important thing is whether or not the reactors are in a stable condition,” he said. “I now believe the plants are stable. But issues including the definition of the term ‘cold shutdown’ and the conditions inside the cores will have to be assessed through analyses by the headquarters office or others. I’m confident that the plants are far from falling into an abnormal state today or tomorrow. Conversely, I would refuse to accommodate 3,000 workers inside them if they were in an unstable state...”

Director Yoshida clearly wanted to avoid using the term “cold shutdown.”

By saying, “I’m confident from the viewpoint of stability. The remaining issue is how well the headquarters office and others can explain the situation,” he chose words that could be taken as meaning “the plants are in a state which is just stable and nothing more.”

Mr. Yoshida cannot be worshipped as a hero. He is one of the officials responsible for the accident. However, no other TEPCO executive officers have ever spoken to the public in their own words as Mr. Yoshida did.

When I asked him, “What was the hardest time of all for you?” he answered as follows.

“As may be expected, the hardest time was the week following March 11. I was just doing the best I could in a situation that allowed no prediction of what would happen next. I feel that week was the hardest. It may sound a little extreme, but there were actually several times when I felt I would die.”

I sensed a sort of resolution to die in his words, “I would die,” which was different from metaphors like “I might die” or “I had a brush with death.”

I asked him, “Would you explain more precisely what you thought when you felt you would die?” He replied as follows.

“For instance, when the explosion occurred in Unit 1, I wasn’t aware of the situation in which it had occurred. It was horrible to see the workers coming back from the job site injured. I thought that if the containment vessel exploded, it would release a large amount of radioactive material and that in turn would make it impossible to control the situation. Then another explosion occurred in Unit 3. We had a hard time trying to inject water into the reactor of Unit 2, and I couldn’t be certain about what to do next. I imagined the worst case scenario, where a meltdown developed further at an accelerating pace and everything became uncontrollable. At that moment, I felt the end might be near.”

The government is expected to announce the completion of Step 2 of the progress schedule around the 16th of this month. People are already beginning to become fed up with the issues of accident response and radiation.

However, is there any point declaring a “cold shutdown state,” leaving the damaged containment vessels, the last line of defense, as they are, without knowing the whereabouts of the melted fuel?

There are also the additional risks of aftershocks and tsunamis caused by the aftershocks. Should a large-scale fire occur, everything would have to be abandoned. With as many as 3,000 workers engaged in the response to the accident under the inconvenient conditions of being dressed in protective clothing and masks, there have also been concerns about human error. Above all, there is a large amount of high-level radioactive effluent and it has been increasing without it ever having been managed.

If we turn our eyes away from the reality of the accident, another accident is bound to happen. In order to not hand down to posterity land contaminated with radioactive substances, we will have to look directly at the reality.

Chinese / French / Japanese