Tepco report reveals lack of preparedness (JAPAN)

[AsahinaKimi]

The deluge: Tsunami bear down on the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on March 11. KYODO

New timeline details early days of crisis

By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer/JapanTimes

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has released a 41-page timeline detailing its initial actions in the first days of the Fukushima nuclear plant crisis, and experts said it reveals a lack of preparedness and severe difficulty in coping with the world's worst atomic accident since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown.

According to Tepco, plant director Masao Yoshida ordered staff to prepare to lower the pressure in reactor No. 1 by venting steam from its containment vessel at 12:06 a.m. on March 12, more than eight hours after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunamic knocked out power to the plant and triggered the crisis.

But Tepco's records, released Saturday, show it did not have crisis-management manuals that detailed the procedure for manually opening the valves in the event of full power loss.

Only after the situation had turned into a full-blown crisis did Tepco send workers into a quake-damaged building at the compound to grab the documents needed to check the design and other specifications of the release valve to see if it could be opened manually.

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[PoliticAverse]

1. You can't expect the nuclear industry to prepare for things that "can never happen"... n/t