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Ex-TEPCO Officials To Be Indicted Over Fukushima

Posted by Soulskill on from the playing-the-blame-game-for-keeps dept.

AmiMoJo writes: Three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company will face mandatory indictment over the March 2011 nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The prosecution inquest panel of randomly-selected citizens voted for the indictment on Friday, for professional negligence resulting in death and injury. "Tokyo prosecutors in January rejected the panel's judgment that the three should be charged, citing insufficient evidence. But the 11 unidentified citizens on the panel forced the indictment after a second vote, which makes an indictment mandatory. The three are former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 75, and former executives Sakae Muto, 65, and Ichiro Takekuro, 69. Citizens' panels, made up of residents selected by lottery, are a rarely used but high-profile feature of Japan's legal system introduced after World War Two to curb bureaucratic overreach."

1 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Re:better late than never by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Informative

    I do kind of wonder about one thing, though... why are the engineers who designed that beast not being indicted? After all, nearly all of the vital pumps and generators were in the basements of both the Daiichi and Daini sites, with much of the critical equipment right next to the water, instead of uphill where they should have been (and at least not in basements... WTH, people?)

    Actually, the generators being under was not the problem. You can run generators underwater, provided you have a source for fuel and air above water and can keep it reasonably water tight.

    The real problem was the distribution gear got flooded.

    As in the electrical panels. Once the tsunami flooded the panels, they shorted out. The generators were running just fine with the water level, and even then, the generators were a backup to a backup.

    The first thing is if the reactors go offline, the power station draws power from the grid to run the equipment. And the plant was doing that since there was still power going in. That's the first backup. The second backup is if the grid power goes offline, then you have local generators.

    All of which means diddly when your electrical distribution panels get soaked and short out your switchgear, taking with it BOTH backup mechanisms. So now it doesn't matter that the generators or grid power was available - the panel's shorted out and you can't use either system.