Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident Investigation Committee releases interim report

December 26, 2011, Tokyo, Japan - Engineering professor Yotaro Hatamura, the head of an independent committee investigating the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power staion, leafs through a copy of the 507-page interim report during a meeting in Tokyo on Monday, December 26, 2011. Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled plant, and its regulators were so unprepared for a major nuclear emergency that they lacked even the basic safety measures to respond to a disaster of the scale that hit the power plant, some 210km northeast of Tokyo, in the wake of the March 11 tsunami, the committee stated in the report of its findings following about six months of probe. The committee of 10 independent experts, commissioned by the government, also cited insufficient information gathering and poor communication among those in the government, the regulators and at the company as major factors that worsened the situation. (Photo by Natsuki Sakai/AFLO) [3615] -mis-