Читать книгу Meltdown - Yoichi Funabashi - Страница 17

4:45 P.M. TEPCO reported an article 15.1 event (functional loss of emergency core cooling systems) under the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness (NEPA) to METI, NISA, and the relevant local governments. This was because they could not determine the reactor water level in Units 1 and 2.¹⁵

4:47 P.M. NHK reported that the cooling system had ceased to function due to the loss of all AC power.¹⁶

4:55 P.M. Kan held an emergency press conference. He was wearing light blue disaster gear. His expression was stern.

“My fellow citizens, as you are already aware from reports on TV and on the radio, today at 2:46 p.m., an enormously powerful earthquake of 8.4 magnitude struck, with its seismic center off the Sanriku coast. This has resulted in tremendous damage across a wide area, centered on the Tohoku region. I extend my heartfelt sympathy to those who have suffered.

“As for our nuclear power facilities, a portion of them stopped their operations automatically. At present, we have no reports of any radioactive materials or otherwise affecting the surrounding areas.”

It was clear, however, that things at Fukushima were serious. Kenichi Shimomura, counselor for public relations at the Cabinet Secretariat at the Kantei, thought, We need three governments. The three governments he had in mind were: one for normal business, one for earthquakes and tsunamis, and one for nuclear response. Just one administration was nowhere near enough.¹⁷

At around five p.m., Kan summoned Nobuaki Terasaka, director general of NISA; and TEPCO executives, including Ichiro Takekuro—a TEPCO liaison on assignment to the Kantei—to his office and questioned them about the reactor situation at Fukushima Daiichi.¹⁸

Takekuro received a general request for someone to come to the Kantei to explain about nuclear power while he was in the TEPCO Head Office Operations Center, immediately after the quake. He rushed over and remained there since. TEPCO sent three other staff members to the Kantei, in addition to Takekuro.¹⁹

Takekuro was a graduate of the University of Tokyo with a major in nuclear power engineering. He had been TEPCO’s deputy president (and director of the Nuclear Power and Plant Siting Division) up until June 2010. In 2002, when he was site superintendent at TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS (Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture), he had been penalized by a 30 percent pay cut for six months, when a cover-up was discovered.

Kan reacted fiercely to the AC blackout and the cooling system failure. He began by asking NISA’s Terasaka, “Do you have a technical background? Do you understand the technology and the structure?”

For a moment, Terasaka was taken aback.

“I graduated from the School of Economics at the University of Tokyo. I work in the office, but since I am the one responsible within NISA, I have come to explain.”

“If you’re not an engineer, what the hell do you know?!”

After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Terasaka had joined MITI in 1976. Kan had graduated in 1970 from the Applied Physics Department of the Science School at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He was by no means a nuclear power expert, but he prided himself on being good at technology. When the Democrats won power in 2009, he had served as the minister for Science and Technology Policy (as well as deputy prime minister) in the Hatoyama Cabinet.

Terasaka was perched upright on the edge of the sofa. To Kan, he looked completely devoid of confidence.

“Where are the emergency diesel generators located?!”

Terasaka failed to give a definite answer immediately.²⁰

“Do you know how serious a power loss is?”

Kan had an animal-like instinct for uncertainty, and when he sensed it, he would move in for the kill. Kan turned to an aide and ordered, “Get me an engineer. And call everybody who needs to be called in a case like this.”

Kan questioned in detail why the power had been cut. Takekuro did not have any definite information on the situation at Fukushima Daiichi Station, either.

“The battery needed to run the IC [Isolation Condenser] and RCIC [Reactor Core Isolation Cooling] systems for Units 1 to 3 will last about eight hours.”

“In the meantime, we need to get power back and keep pumping water into the reactors.”

Takekuro stated the general theory, but Kan wanted to know why the cooling system had stopped. When Takekuro could not respond, he said, “What? You don’t know? Get me the TEPCO president!” Terasaka could not answer, either. “Then get me someone who knows!”

Kan was annoyed. His aides even called one of the NISA section heads to the phone. Goshi Hosono, special adviser to the prime minister, glanced toward Manabu Terada, another assistant. Terada winked as though he understood. Hosono stepped in.

“Prime minister, I think what we need to know now is not why the power was cut, but what needs to be done now that it has stopped.”

Kan calmed down somewhat.²¹