Читать книгу Meltdown - Yoichi Funabashi - Страница 33

After the discussion in the prime minister’s office was temporarily halted, Tadao Yanase, head of the General Affairs Division at METI, decided he would sort out the “topics that interested the prime minister” and set about doing so in the prime minister’s reception room, separating them into issues associated with TEPCO, NISA, and NSC. The issues were:

 Did they have the pumps to inject the seawater?

 Were there any fractures in the filling pipes?

 What was to be made of the salt damage that would occur with seawater injection?

 Could they still control the nuclear reactor after seawater had been pumped in? (Would recriticality occur or not?)

Yanase drew up a memo sorting out the issues, returned to the waiting room on the fifth floor, and handed it to the NISA and NSC officials, as well as the TEPCO liaison, who were standing by. He did the rounds, warning them, “When the meeting reconvenes, please state your thoughts clearly. We can’t postpone our decision again.”

When he spoke with Madarame, Madarame said, “The prime minister doesn’t trust anything I say, so it would just be counterproductive. Get Kukita-san to speak.”

Since NISA said Kan would go on the attack if they sent Terasaka, they hurriedly requested both Hiraoka and Hisanori Nei, deputy director general, to attend. Hiraoka noted down in the margin of the memo Yanase had handed to him the points NISA needed to make.

It was a setup of “who should say what” when the meeting reconvened. Hiraoka thought to himself, “A rehearsal, huh?”¹¹

Around seven p.m., Takekuro returned to the mezzanine office in the crisis management center and placed a direct call via mobile phone to Yoshida. Yoshida answered the landline phone next to his desk when it rang.

Takekuro jumped right in.

“Hey, what’s happening with the seawater?”

“We’re doing it.”

Takekuro was flabbergasted.

“What? Are you already doing it? Stop it!”

“Why?”

Yoshida had already ordered the seawater injection. He couldn’t very well put the water they’d already pumped out back into the hose. Takekuro was mad when Yoshida insisted that they couldn’t stop it now.

“Shut up and listen. The Kantei’s vacillating!”

“What on earth are you saying?”

Yoshida hung up, thinking it was pointless to listen anymore. He had no illusions. “The chain of command is a total mess. It’s hopeless. I’ll just have to follow my own judgment.”

He felt what Takekuro was saying was inexplicable. Here they were, having worked so hard after the hydrogen explosion to get ready to pump water in, and if they stopped now, the situation inside the reactor would rapidly deteriorate.

Yoshida had been appealing in the videoconferences for the need to inject seawater as soon as possible. He had conveyed that to TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto, who was at the offsite center. Head Office and Muto, however, were both cautious.

“As long as we don’t have the prime minister’s permission, we have no choice but to cease for the moment.”

Head Office kept repeating that. As for Takekuro, he was struck with anxiety after he had called Yoshida.

“There’s nothing to do but to get the president to directly persuade Yoshida.”

Takekuro called Shimizu.

“We still don’t have the prime minister’s formal go-ahead. I think we should stop. Please speak to Site Superintendent Yoshida and make him stop.”

Takekuro was worried that “the onsite team going ahead when an explanation to the prime minister was still in progress would create future obstacles.” Shimizu rang Yoshida and requested he halt the pumping operation. Yoshida countered.

“We’ve already started, you know. Didn’t I send a fax at four o’clock?”

Shimizu replied, “You can’t do it yet. We don’t have government approval. You’ll just have to stop until we get it. Since it’s the wish of the Kantei, please put a stop to the seawater injection. I know there are lots of different opinions, but this is an order from the president.”

Yoshida was being asked directly by his company’s president. He responded obediently, “I understand.” He prepared himself for the worst.

“I guess we’ll have to put on some kind of performance …”

It wouldn’t do to suspend the pumping process mid-flow if they were to maintain stability in the reactor. But the prime minister hadn’t given the go-ahead, and he had to help TEPCO’s CEO save face.

However, they were already pouring water in. How should he explain that? Yoshida placed a call to TEPCO Fellow Akio Takahashi, who started at the company a few years earlier than Yoshida in the technology field, to seek advice. Takahashi suggested, “All you have to do is say it’s a test run.” The idea was it was just a test, and to say it was the full-scale water injection as soon as the Kantei gave the go-ahead.¹²

In the images of the TEPCO videoconference from 7:23 p.m. on March 12, Yoshida could be seen leaving his seat, walking around the ERC, and talking about something with the manager in charge of the pumping operation.

The manager sat with his back to the Head Office side. Still on his feet, Yoshida could be seen whispering something in his ear.

“I’m going to tell everyone to halt pumping operations, but that’s just for show. Don’t stop pumping, whatever you do.… You got that?”

It was after that that Yoshida reported in a deliberate manner to Head Office, “We’ve had stern instructions from the Kantei regarding the seawater injection. We’ll stop it temporarily!”¹³

7:40 P.M., MARCH 12. Another meeting was being held in the prime minister’s office. The only difference from the previous meeting was that Kukita had replaced Madarame, and Nei had also joined. Saying, “I have something to report,” Hosono showed a table of figures. It was the monitoring numbers for the radiation in front of the main gate at Fukushima Daiichi NPS.

The hydrogen explosion at Unit 1 had taken place at 3:36 p.m. While the figures initially dropped, by 3:46 p.m. they had increased to 860 millisieverts. However, at 4:15 p.m. (108 millisieverts) and then at 5:54 p.m. (84 millisieverts), the numbers kept falling. Hosono said, “Based on these readings, I don’t think the containment vessel has exploded.”

Kan was somewhat relieved.

“It’s not a nuclear explosion. It’s a hydrogen one. It doesn’t seem like a worst-case scenario.”

Hosono also stated that it had been confirmed the pumps were working and the pipes had suffered no damage.

“Is that so?”

Kan nodded his apparent conviction. Kukita drove the point home, “I think we need to pump in seawater. Let’s put in some boric acid as well, just to be on the safe side.”

“Yes, it looks like it can be packed in properly. Well, then, let’s get some water in.”

Kan had approved. It was at this point that it was decided to pump in boric acid simultaneously with the seawater.

Boric acid has the effect of preventing criticality. To be precise, under article 64 of the Act on the Regulation of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Material, and Reactors, injecting seawater had already been directed by Kaieda, who had grown increasingly frustrated with TEPCO Head Office’s indecisive attitude. As has already been noted, Kaieda issued that command at 5:55 p.m. While he intended to “report” his seawater injection command in the meeting held immediately afterward in the prime minister’s office, he failed to do so clearly.

Whether thwarted by Kan’s sudden question on recriticality, or overwhelmed by Kan’s momentum, or because of “Kaieda-san’s gentle nature” (Goshi Hosono), he did not report immediately to Kan.

To Hiraoka, it looked like Kaieda “had missed his chance or that the atmosphere prevented him from speaking up.” Takekuro rang TEPCO Head Office to inform them, “They’ve decided on injecting seawater. They want us to start pumping seawater.” His gist was conveyed to the ERC at the plant via videoconference.

Yoshida once again gave the order to recommence pumping from the ERC at 8:20 p.m., reporting the fact to both Head Office and NISA.¹⁴

Yoshida revealed the truth about the seawater pumping at the end of May, just before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation arrived. It was he himself who exposed the fact that he had engaged in a “Kabuki play.”

It also later emerged that Takekuro had overreacted in his reading of the “mood” of the parliamentary secretariat at the Kantei. The Government Investigation Commission was critical of this point, writing, “There were, however, a number of instances when measures, which TEPCO Head Office and Yoshida thought necessary, conflicted with the advice they were receiving, but in those cases, they went along with the advice nevertheless, taking it seriously as instructions from the prime minister’s office. So, in those cases, the advice did influence decisions regarding specific measures for the accident site.”¹⁵

When Charles Casto, leader of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Japanese support team, later asked Yoshida about covertly defying orders from the prime minister’s office, the latter revealed that he would have been replaced by another operator had he openly flouted the order, putting the whole of Japan at risk.¹⁶