Global Security Newswire

The operator of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi atomic facility must develop before 2012 a new schedule for decommissioning reactors at the damaged site, Tokyo stated on Wednesday (see GSN, Nov. 8).

The six-reactor power plant was damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people missing or dead in Japan. Radiation releases on a level not seen since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster forced the evacuation of about 80,000 residents from a 12-mile ring exclusion zone surrounding the site in Fukushima prefecture.

Japanese Environment Minister Goshi Hosono said the updated schedule would "fully explain to the public and the international community how we are going to realize decommissioning" upon completion of the current disaster mitigation phase.

Tokyo Electric Power, the plant's operator, must begin withdrawing used atomic fuel from the plant in no more than 24 months to expedite the more involved task of pulling broken-down nuclear material from facility reactors, Hosono added (Kyodo News/Japan Times, Nov. 9).

Meanwhile, top specialists have established an autonomous investigatory panel to focus on the nuclear crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The group, funded by outside sources, would aim to address issues not considered by Japan's official auditing body, said former Japanese Science and Technology Agency chief Koichi Kitazawa.

"The government committee faces restrictions as it is created to serve the government's own goals," said Kitazawa, who heads the new panel. "People in Japan and those from abroad won't trust public announcements. Information must come from people who are free of such limitations" (Yuka Hayashi, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 9).