Atomic power safety questions still unanswered

Ten years after a nuclear accident killed two plant workers and shattered the "safety myth" surrounding atomic power generation, Japan still has much work to do in improving responses to cases of radiation exposure.

Experts and officials say the number of doctors and facilities that can provide emergency care is still insufficient, while more has to be done to prevent and respond to radiation emergencies.

The incident, at the JCO Co. nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Sept. 30, 1999, was the nation's first "criticality accident," a term used to describe the unintentional triggering of a nuclear chain reaction in fissile material.

Three workers processing uranium compounds strayed from standard procedure and poured too much uranyl nitrate solution from a bucket into a precipitation tank. This triggered a chain reaction of uranium fission around 10:35 a.m.

Heavily exposed to radiation, the three men were rushed to hospital, then airlifted to a specialized medical center. One died 83 days later and another 211 days later.

Tokai village requested residents within a 350-meter radius to evacuate at 3:30 p.m. on the day of the accident. The criticality continued for 20 hours.

More than 660 people, including ambulance workers and residents near the plant, were also exposed, though at much lower levels.

The accident broke out just as the Radiation Emergency Medicine Network Council, set up in 1998 centering on the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS), was discussing how best to respond to such events.

The network was formed after the government's basic disaster management plan was revised following the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995.

Looking back further to the 1980s, Tatsuya Kinugasa, deputy chief of the Radiation Emergency Medicine Research Center of the Nuclear Safety Research Association, described a woeful lack of preparations in those years.

"In Japan, construction of nuclear power plants and preparing for medical needs were not viewed as a single issue," Kinugasa said.

"There were no doctors or educational institutions specializing and working in emergency care for radiation exposure."

The JCO accident of 1999 revealed the need to prepare for such emergencies through coordination of related organs and a system for medical responses.

In March 2001, the government's Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan said in its annual white paper on nuclear power for fiscal 2000 that the "myth" that nuclear power generation is absolutely safe should be discarded.

In the same year, the commission also compiled guidelines on radiation emergency medicine.

Under the guidelines, those exposed to radiation would be accepted by designated local medical institutions able to provide first-aid. Those requiring specialized care would be sent to "secondary," or regional core hospitals.

In more serious cases, patients would be sent to Hiroshima University in western Japan or to the NIRS in eastern Japan.

Programs to train medical workers also got under way.

Kinugasa served as an instructor at a recent training session held at the Ibaraki Prefectural Central Hospital in Kasama, Ibaraki Prefecture.

In the session in early August, doctors and nurses wore protective clothing and special face shields.

In a room covered with protective sheeting, they simulated providing first-aid care to a dummy brought in on a stretcher after being "injured" by radiation exposure, while measuring radioactivity levels.

Participants thus learned what procedures to follow and what must or must not be done through lectures and workshops.

A total of 13,000 medical workers have taken part in those sessions.

Out of 19 prefectures that host nuclear-related facilities, 18 will have designated hospitals by this month.

"Medical care systems have made long strides in the past decade," said one official. Many others agree.

Nevertheless, there are still hurdles to clear. One is a doctor shortage, a problem increasingly shared by many hospitals, particularly in rural areas.

Kyoto Prefecture, located near the Tsuruga Power Station in Fukui Prefecture, had designated the Maizuru Municipal Hospital in Maizuru as a "secondary" facility.

But it had to cancel the designation in 2006 after the hospital closed its surgery division and round-the-clock emergency room because of staffing difficulties.

"With the current personnel and equipment, we cannot handle emergency radiation care," a hospital official said.

Meanwhile, no such designation has been made for other prefectures that have no nuclear plants or related facilities in them or in neighboring areas.

Some are worried those regions would not be able to quickly respond in an event of nuclear terrorism, the risks of which are said to have risen after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.

At a symposium at Sapporo Medical University on Sept. 5 to examine measures taken in the 10 years since the JCO accident, Gen Suzuki, a professor of immunology at the International University of Health and Welfare, sounded an alarm.

"Radiation care in the past was prepared only in prefectures with nuclear power plants and for a small number of patients," said Suzuki, who worked for NIRS when the accident occurred. "From now, we have to review disaster medical care preparations so we can respond even when a large number of people are affected."

To prevent accidents, the government has shifted its safety focus from facilities and equipment to rules for operation and maintenance, following the 1999 criticality case.

The JCO accident was the result of deviation from correct uranium-handling procedure. Moreover, fuel processing plants like JCO's were not obliged to undergo regular inspections.

To prevent intentional deviations, the government has revised the law on regulation of nuclear reactors and materials. It established a system to check operation and maintenance rules and created posts of safety inspectors to monitor operations on a routine basis.

In the government reorganization in 2001, the authority of safety control at nuclear facilities shifted from the Science and Technology Agency to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA).

Some question the validity of the arrangement, under which the agency in charge of safety regulation belongs to the industry ministry, which promotes nuclear energy use.

A NISA official says, however, "Double checks by the NISA and the Nuclear Safety Commission are working well."

Unifying a chain of command and information flow emerged as another challenge.

When the JCO accident hit, local governments, the Science and Technology Agency, the prime minister's office and others separately set up task forces, adding to the confusion.

Around 10:30 that night, Ibaraki Prefecture requested residents within a 10-km radius of the site to retreat and remain indoors.

"We did not know where to ask for advice," said Koji Yamada, now senior director of the prefectural government's Risk Management Division.

Two months later, the government enacted the Law on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness, which clarified the plant operator's responsibility and unified the chain of command in the central government's hand.

A key feature of the response is establishment of off-site centers, which will serve as local headquarters at the time of emergency.

The government has spent 800 million to 1 billion yen setting up each of 22 off-site centers across the nation, where specialists of nuclear disaster are assigned.

But the Niigata-Chuetsu-oki Earthquake of 2007 revealed problems in their operations.

The jolt caused a fire at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station, in Niigata Prefecture, of Tokyo Electric Power Co., leading to a very small amount of radioactivity to leak outside the facility.

But the NISA did not use the off-site center on grounds it "was not a nuclear disaster." No immediate information was given to local entities.

In the meantime, residents of communities that host nuclear power plants harbor distrust in the state as shown by a survey in 2000 by the Tokai village.

Asked which was reliable in an emergency, 19.6 percent chose the state, compared with 67.6 percent who chose their village.

Tokai Mayor Tatsuya Murakami said he had held doubts about host communities' ability to speak out about the nuclear power issue.

"While talking about the need for residents' understanding, (the authorities and industry) suppress them with money and power. Such an attitude must be dropped," he said.

Some local government leaders began to be more assertive about the government's nuclear policies, resisting pluthermal power generation or remaining cautious toward resumption of a power plant operation after a quake hit.

"Host communities have begun to seriously think about their 'post-nuclear power' future," said Baku Nishio of the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center.(IHT/Asahi: October 5,2009)