[Mingdi].
On February 7, a leak occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant's nuclear-contaminated water purification unit. Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company said that the current estimate is about 5The leakage of 5 tons of nuclear-contaminated water containing radioactive materials, including cesium, strontium and other radioactive materials, may have amounted to 22 billion becquerels, and the incident may have been caused by human error. The Fukushima nuclear power plant has been the scene of similar leaks of nuclear-contaminated water on a number of occasions, raising questions once again about TEPCO's safety management capabilities.
First, there is a lack of sense of responsibility. TEPCO said that on-site workers were cleaning a cesium adsorption unit that morning and found that the exhaust port was leaking, and that 10 of the 16 valves that were supposed to be manually closed during the cleaning were open. The leak is about 4 meters square, and most of the leak may have seeped into the soil below. TEPCO has reportedly started to leak into the soil, but the question is, why are the valves that should have been closed open? During this period of time when the water leakage has reached about 4 meters square, and most of it has seeped into the ground, the staff is in **?
In 2011, Japan's "March 11" major tsunami was triggered. Due to the dual impact of ** and tsunami, a large amount of radioactive materials leaked from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Realizing that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may be in bad condition, the relevant authorities in Japan requested an immediate assessment, but the Tokyo Electric Power Company office** went unanswered; TEPCO detected an anomaly in the radiation level at the nuclear power plant less than 3 hours later, but did not transmit the data to the relevant authorities until 6 hours later; In the face of the failure of the cooling system of the Fukushima nuclear power plant and the occurrence of the first phase of the plant, TEPCO was unable to minimize the disaster because it did not take measures to "shut down, cool, and close" at the first time. It can be seen that TEPCO's internal management is chaotic and disorderly, and there is a serious lack of sense of responsibility.
Second, the concept of safety is weak. According to Fukushima** TV, the purification unit where the nuclear-contaminated water leaked is currently in the maintenance stage. Unit 1 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reached the end of its 40-year service in 2011 and has undergone a series of aging phenomena. In August 2013, 300 tons of nuclear-contaminated water leaked from a water storage tank near Unit 4. Subsequent investigation found that the water storage tank had congenital "defects" in its design, and there was no water level gauge set up, resulting in an undetectable drop in water level. Moreover, the steel plate of the tank body is connected by screws instead of welding, which makes the joints prone to cracks or corrosion. At the same time, the Multi-Nuclide Processing System (ALPS), the core device used to filter nuclear-contaminated water, has been identified by the Nuclear Regulation Commission as "serious design problems" because TEPCO has neither investigated the cause nor formulated an inspection plan. Behind the weak concept of safety, there is more driven by interests. Because regular inspections and updates require power outages, and power generation cannot be generated due to shutdowns, TEPCO does not want to suffer its own economic benefits by regularly overhauling and updating equipment, so it frequently postpones equipment inspections and repairs despite the warnings of relevant experts.
Third, the emergency response is not effective. After the nuclear contaminated water leakage, TEPCO's performance was unusually "calm", only saying that the leaking area had been designated as a no-entry area, and said that it would treat this piece of soil as soon as possible. There is neither a corrective measure for compliance and accountability, nor a long-term plan for follow-up. This seems to have become a consistent practice at TEPCO. In October 2023, when the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was splashed with nuclear-contaminated water, on-site workers did not wear a plastic protective layer over their protective clothing as required, and supervisors did not give relevant warnings or suspend operations in a timely manner. Several members of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Commission (NRA) have pointed out problems with the safety management of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and asked TEPCO to rectify the situation. In addition, as early as September 2021, due to the sharp increase in nuclear waste in the temporary outdoor storage site of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Japan's Nuclear Regulation Commission pointed out that there were "deficiencies" in the safety management of nuclear power plants, and asked TEPCO to rectify them within a time limit.
The disposal of nuclear-contaminated water in Fukushima is related to the health of all mankind and the international public interest, and it is necessary to dispose of nuclear-contaminated water in a scientific, safe and transparent manner. In response to a reporter's question on the leakage of nuclear-contaminated water at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Japan further said that the repeated accidents on the Japanese side in the process of dealing with the nuclear-contaminated water have fully exposed the chaotic and disorderly internal management of TEPCO, and the ineffective supervision and supervision measures of Japan's nuclear contaminated water treatment unit, which once again proves that its nuclear-contaminated water treatment device has no long-term reliability, and further highlights the necessity of supervision by the international community.
Our correspondent in Tokyo, Ma Yu'an).