International Law

TEPCO disaster plans

By Karl-Friedrich Lenz

described in detail at the Wall Street Journal here.

After all the problems with the response on site, one would assume that those plans were not adequate. That would be correct.

They actually relied on fax to communicate instead of Internet services. The latest version of their “accident management-plan” was from 2002. In that plan, there was 1 (one) radiation-measuring vehicle 1 (one) satellite phone and 4 (four) protective suits with oxygen tanks.

The plan did not provide for any large-scale drills. That means the operators on site right now don’t even have the very limited experience gained from an occasional drill. Clearly they are not the best professionals on the planet for this particular situation.

And most damaging, the plan was completely without clue about outside resources and how to get them on site quick. Neither the Tokyo firefighters nor the Japanese or American military were mentioned.

It was clear from day one that TEPCO would never be able to deal with this only with their own assets. But they lacked the most important ability in that case, that of identifying and calling in quickly outside assets suited to the job.

I remember seeing television reports in the early days when a fire in Unit 4 was first observed that they actually called the firefighters of some local village.

They should have known whom to call in with which assets from day one. They did not.

Under those circumstances, waiting for their call to offer help is not a good idea. Everybody involved eventually later should have just shown up under their own initiative.

The same is true even now. The Japanese Government does not have a plan that tells them exactly which country has what assets. Therefore waiting for them requesting things under the current failed IAEA system does not work. Foreign holders of useful assets should put them in motion right about now and ask later if the Japanese Government wants to refuse help.

Even with all these problems, they still have managed to keep cooling going. That means that the liquidation will probably go for the long run instead of blowing just up in  a series of large-scale explosions. That in turn means that eventually the most valuable foreign assets will trickle in and reach the site.

But that is not the ideal way to handle this business.

Full post as published by Lenz Blog on April 01, 2011 (boomark / email).