The unfolding disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant follows decades of falsified safety reports, fatal accidents and underestimated earthquake risk in Japans atomic power industry.
The destruction caused by last weeks 9.0 earthquake and tsunami comes less than four years after a 6.8 quake shut the worlds biggest atomic plant, also run by Tokyo Electric Power Co. In 2002 and 2007, revelations the utility had faked repair records forced the resignation of the companys chairman and president, and a three-week shutdown of all 17 of its reactors.
With almost no oil or gas reserves of its own, nuclear power has been a national priority for Japan since the end of World War II, a conflict the country fought partly to secure oil supplies. Japan has 54 operating nuclear reactors — more than any other country except the U.S. and France — to power its industries, pitting economic demands against safety concerns in the worlds most earthquake-prone country.
Nuclear engineers and academics who have worked in Japans atomic power industry spoke in interviews of a history of accidents, faked reports and inaction by a succession of Liberal Democratic Party governments that ran Japan for nearly all of the postwar period.
via Japan Nuclear Disaster Caps Decades of Faked Reports, Accidents – Bloomberg.