Читать книгу Meltdown - Yoichi Funabashi - Страница 29

At the time, Prime Minister Naoto Kan was briefing the leaders of the opposition parties in the fourth-floor conference room of the Kantei. After enacting the budget and related laws for the current fiscal year by the end of March, the governing party urgently wanted to draw up a supplementary budget for the following fiscal year. In response, the opposition parties insisted that the ordinary parliamentary session be temporarily suspended and a supplementary budget drawn up for the current fiscal year.

Kan also briefed them, at the same meeting, about his visit that morning to Fukushima Daiichi NPS. Kan was extremely confident that there would be no hydrogen explosion. This was because he clearly remembered the words of Haruki Madarame, chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission, when they had spoken during the helicopter flight to Fukushima Daiichi.

“The reactor at Unit 2 is equipped with RCIC, but Unit 1 has an IC cooling system, doesn’t it? Why is that? Is it because its output is different?”

“What happens in the core when the cladding pipes and the water react?”

“That reaction creates hydrogen.”

“Well, if you release hydrogen, won’t that lead to a hydrogen explosion?”

“No, while hydrogen is being created in the pressure vessel, it’s released first to the containment chamber. Since it’s then all converted to vapor, the hydrogen doesn’t explode, because there’s no oxygen. If it’s vented out the top of the stack, it will burn there, but there won’t be a hydrogen explosion.”

Madarame stated this unequivocally. When Kan got back to Tokyo, he went around all the secretaries, telling them, “There won’t be a hydrogen explosion.” He also displayed his “grasp” of nuclear power in front of the opposition party leaders.⁵¹

After four p.m., Kan was back in his office, following the meeting with the opposition leaders. As soon as he returned, Tetsuro Ito, deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management, came up from the crisis management center in the basement.

“There’s been an explosion at Fukushima Daiichi. There’s smoke coming out.”

Five minutes after the explosion, a police officer, who just happened to be passing by, filed an eyewitness account, stating, “There was a boom, and then I saw white smoke coming out of Unit 1.”

Kan asked Madarame, “What’s the white smoke?”

“It’s probably a fire. Something volatile is burning, most likely.”

Ichiro Takekuro, the TEPCO fellow assigned to the Kantei, was called in and asked about it, but he merely replied, “I haven’t heard anything. I’ll call Head Office.”

Takekuro left the office and phoned TEPCO Head Office.

“They say they haven’t heard anything.”

Just as he returned to make this report, Manabu Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, opened the door and came rushing into the room.

“Prime minister, there’s been an explosion at the Unit 1 (RB). Please turn the television on right away.”

Terada grabbed the remote control and changed the television channel. NTV was broadcasting a news bulletin.

“I am reporting from Fukushima. We have news on the nuclear power plant. What you are seeing is an image of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station at approximately 3:36 p.m. What we believe to be water vapor is billowing out from Fukushima Daiichi. It seems to be coming from the vicinity of Unit 1.”

The Unit 1 (RB) had been blown to smithereens, and white smoke was pouring out into the sky. Madarame, his head in his hands and simultaneously rubbing his forehead on the table, groaned, “Oh, no.” Kan raised his voice.

“What’s this? It’s an explosion, isn’t it?”

Takekuro responded, “Yes, it’s an explosion.”

Trying to remain calm, Kan said, “Madarame-san, what is that?”

Madarame was at a loss for words. His mind was spinning round and round.

“Isn’t that a hydrogen explosion? Didn’t you say that there wouldn’t be a hydrogen explosion?”

Fukuyama muttered, “Isn’t that an explosion like the one at Chernobyl? Isn’t the same thing happening that happened at Chernobyl?”

Not answering Fukuyama directly, Madarame finally managed to squeeze out a response. “What I said only referred to the containment vessel.”

What he was trying to say was that he had only been talking about the possibility of an explosion in the containment vessel, and had never in his wildest dreams imagined a hydrogen explosion in the building. Kan issued a strong directive to his secretary.

“The locals will have immediately realized what happened with an explosion like that. Why hasn’t it been reported? Get me the information now!”

Just as Madarame, Takekuro was unable to answer. Takekuro later confessed, “All sorts of possibilities were going through my mind, like was it the hydrogen used to cool the turbines, but my hair was standing on end.”

Kan then opened the door to the adjoining reception room and shouted to Kaieda.

“Unit 1 has exploded. What’s going on?!”

Kaieda and the others at the time were discussing pumping in seawater and did not have the television on.⁵²

Koichiro Genba, minister for national policy, just happened to be in the mezzanine office in the basement. The television was broadcasting images of the explosion. He questioned the TEPCO liaison official watching with him, but he did not know. The official called TEPCO Head Office, but they did not know, either. Stuck for an answer, he said, “I guess an aftershock has shaken loose all the dust that has collected on the roof after the quake.”⁵³

The only information the government had was the images broadcast by NTV. The images had been taken by their station affiliate, Fukushima Central TV (FCT).

After the JCO Tokaimura criticality nuclear accident in 1999, FCT had set up an SD camera in the mountains of Tomioka, seventeen kilometers from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. It had continually been filming Fukushima Daiichi and Daini plants since then, without a day’s—or a single second’s—break. This was the camera that had captured the moment. During this time, the images had been uploaded to Internet sites, including the BBC, and the moment of the explosion had spread widely in the blink of an eye.

But what did the image mean?

After broadcasting the first images, NTV brought Masanori Aritomi, director of the Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors (RLNR) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (and Nuclear Safety Commission advisory board member), into the studio and had him comment.

Announcer: You’ve just seen the footage of the explosion-like … smoke-like …

Aritomi: They’ve used a blast valve … There was vapor escaping in that footage, wasn’t there?

Announcer: You’re saying they have intentionally used a blast valve, right?

Aritomi: Yes, I think it’s intentional.⁵⁴

Had the reactor exploded? Or was it something else? That was the point.

The only information they had was the image of the explosion on the TV. Going by that video footage, the news reported that “there was no top on the reactor building.”

Apart from this, TEPCO failed to send a single item of definitive information to either NISA or the Kantei. They sent nothing on what had happened. They did, however, try fervently to convey what hadn’t happened.

“At 17:34, we have a request from TEPCO to explain to the state and the people that there has not been a nuclear explosion.”

That was what was written in an internal NISA memo (March 12, 2011, 5:34 p.m.).⁵⁵