Journalists Tour Devastated Japanese Nuclear Plant

Posted February 20th, 2012 at 1:00 pm (UTC-5)
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Operators at Japan's earthquake and tsunami-ravaged Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant ushered journalists clad in protective clothing through the plant on Monday, just weeks ahead of the first anniversary of the March 11 disasters.

Reporters from about 30 Japanese and foreign media organizations entered the wrecked facility by bus and were allowed to leave the vehicle once. All carried respiration masks and radiation detectors, as they heard the plant's director apologize to nearby residents forced to flee their homes last year to avoid radiation contamination.

“We're deeply sorry about (the) great inconvenience we caused with the accident. It will soon have been a year since the occurrence and when I look back, the worst part of it was that we couldn't evacuate the local residents from their hometowns and the whole country the fear of radiation.''

The media visit — the second such tour since disaster struck — was conducted as the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency made its first thorough inspection of safety equipment crucial to keeping the plant's six reactors in stable condition. Reporters were not allowed in while those inspections took place.

The government announced late last year that the plant's reactors had been stabilized, and said it would take up to 40 years to safely decommission the facility. But officials also said at least some of the 80,000 residents evacuated from the area could be allowed to return home this year.

Authorities call plant cleanup an “unprecedented project” and say the disaster and the full range of its fallout were not “totally foreseeable.” The tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the plant, causing core meltdowns in three reactors and widespread radiation leaks.

There were also widespread reports of groundwater, livestock feed and crop contamination in the weeks following the disaster. The crisis was spawned by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and massive tsunamis that destroyed much of coastal northeastern Japan and left 20,000 people dead or missing.