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Last week IAEA nuclear experts from 12 countries (Argentina, China, France, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States) arrived in Fukushima, Japan to conduct interviews with local officials and to visit nuclear facilities, including the earthquake and tsunami damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
They have produced a brief (3-page) preliminary assessment of the safety issues related to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. A full report will be delivered to the Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety at IAEA headquarters in Vienna in about 3 weeks.
They describe the level of cooperation, and access, their expert mission received as being `excellent’, and the response of the workers at the stricken plant as `exemplary’ and `brave’.
They also reassure that: To date no health effects have been reported in any person as a result of radiation exposure from the nuclear accident.
From today’s UPDATE: IAEA Fact-Finding Team Completes Visit to Japan (1 June 2011) on the IAEA website, we get an overview of the expert mission, and a synopsis of their findings:
The expert team made several preliminary findings and lessons learned, including:
- Japan's response to the nuclear accident has been exemplary, particularly illustrated by the dedicated, determined and expert staff working under exceptional circumstances;
- Japan's long-term response, including the evacuation of the area around stricken reactors, has been impressive and well organized. A suitable and timely follow-up programme on public and worker exposures and health monitoring would be beneficial;
- The tsunami hazard for several sites was underestimated. Nuclear plant designers and operators should appropriately evaluate and protect against the risks of all natural hazards, and should periodically update those assessments and assessment methodologies;
- Nuclear regulatory systems should address extreme events adequately, including their periodic review, and should ensure that regulatory independence and clarity of roles are preserved; and
- The Japanese accident demonstrates the value of hardened on-site Emergency Response Centres with adequate provisions for handling all necessary emergency roles, including communications.
While cloaked in the polite language of diplomacy, the bottom line is that what disaster planners and nuclear regulatory agencies assumed to be a `worst-case scenario’, and planned for – a 5.7 meter tsunami – turned out to completely inadequate on March 11, 2011 when a series of 14+ meter tsunamis slammed into the Fukushima nuclear power facility.
It has recently emerged that this wildly optimistic worst-case disaster scenario’ came from a 1-page, decade-old memo generated by Fukushima plant operators, and that it provided little in the way of scientific data to back up their assessment (see AP article AP Exclusive: Fukushima tsunami plan a single page).
Those expecting any sort of critical exposé here will find this report lacking. Given Japan’s level of social, political, and economic uncertainty in the wake of this three-pronged disaster, the IAEA is obviously (and understandably) treading carefully here.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan faces a no-confidence vote this week, the Japanese economy is reeling, public confidence in TEPCO and the Japanese government’s disaster response is waning, and the Japanese people are enduring a collective tragedy almost beyond comprehension.
So diplomatically, this report avoids assigning blame or directing criticism, so as not to aggravate what is obviously a precarious situation.
A full post-mortem analysis of what happened - and what continues to transpire as crews attempt to contain this nuclear crisis - will no doubt have to wait until the emergency has passed.
And given the size and scope of this disaster, that could be months or even years from now.
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