Japan Issues Report on Nuclear Accident
A government panel investigating Japan’s worst nuclear accident said Friday that the pursuit of efficiency at the expense of safety directly caused the disaster.
In its final report concerning the Sept. 30 accident, the Science and Technology Agency panel urged officials responsible for the nation’s nuclear energy program to make efforts to rebuild international trust.
“By pushing efficiency, the company and its employees failed to maintain their ethical standards, and that caused the disaster,” the report said.
The accident occurred when three workers at the plant in Tokaimura, 80 miles northeast of Tokyo, were mixing uranium with nitric acid. The shortcuts they took set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.
Worker Hisashi Ouchi, 35, who received a massive dose of radiation in the accident, died Tuesday at Tokyo University Hospital. He is the first person in Japan to die of radiation exposure in a nuclear accident.
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