The utility that ran the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant yesterday acknowledged that its delayed disclosure of the meltdowns at three reactors was tantamount to a cover-up and apologized for it.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) president Naomi Hirose’s apology followed the revelation last week that an investigation had found Hirose’s predecessor instructed officials during the 2011 disaster to avoid using the word “meltdown.”
“I would say it was a cover-up,” Hirose told a news conference. “It’s extremely regrettable.”
TEPCO instead described the reactors’ condition as less serious “core damage” for two months after the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, wrecked the plant, even though utility officials knew and computer simulations suggested meltdowns had occurred.
An investigative report released on Thursday last week by three company-appointed lawyers said TEPCO’s then-president Masataka Shimizu instructed officials not to use the specific description under alleged pressure from the prime minister’s office, though the investigators found no proof of such pressure.
The report said TEPCO officials, who had suggested possible meltdowns, stopped using the description after March 14, 2011, when Shimizu’s instruction was delivered to then-vice president Sakae Muto in a memo at a televised news conference.
Government officials also softened their language on the reactor conditions around the same time, the report said.
Former officials at the prime minister’s office have denied the allegation.
Then-top government spokesman Yukio Edano, who is now secretary-general of the main opposition Democratic Party, criticized the report as “inadequate and unilateral,” raising suspicion over the report by the lawyers seen close to the ruling party ahead of an upcoming election in the Diet’s Upper House.
Hirose said he will take a 10 percent pay cut, and another executive will take a 30 percent cut, for one month each to take responsibility.
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