JAPAN’S GOVERNMENT has sacked the nuclear industry’s top regulators in another bid to stem the political fallout from the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, 25 years ago.
The move follows revelations that the supposedly neutral Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency had secretly worked with utilities to rig public discussion on restarting reactors.
Trade and industry minister Banri Kaieda said he wanted to refresh and revitalise his ministry, which has come under intense fire for colluding with the nation’s nuclear power companies.
Mr Kaieda has himself promised to quit to take responsibility for his mishandling of the crisis.
The sackings include the nuclear and safety agency head, Nobuaki Terasaka, who admitted last month that his agency was “seriously in trouble” after claims emerged that it had manipulated a public meeting in rural Japan to overcome local opposition to a controversial mixed fuel (plutonium oxide and uranium) reactor.
Vice-minister for economy, trade and industry Kazuo Matsunaga and head of the agency for natural resources and energy Tetsuhiro Hosono will also step down.
Prime minister Naoto Kan is struggling to restore public confidence in his administration, which has been battered by the nuclear crisis in Fukushima and its response to the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.
About two-thirds of the country’s nuclear reactors are offline and the rest are due to shut down for regular inspections between now and next summer.
Each one needs local public support before they can be restarted and opposition has hardened in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.
Mr Kan stunned the industry last month when he called for a nuclear-free Japan, saying it should cancel plans to expand its network of reactors and replace them with renewable energy sources.
But in a sign of the confusion at the heart of the government, his cabinet refused to back his call and he was forced the next day to admit that he was only expressing his “personal view”.
The economy and industry ministry warned after Mr Kan’s speech that shutting down Japan’s 54 reactors, which supply about a third of its electricity needs, would add more than $35 billion (€25 billion) to the nation’s fuel bill.
In April, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency singled out the ministry, which simultaneously promotes nuclear power and regulates it, for Japan’s lack of independent scrutiny over the industry.
About 80,000 people have been moved from the irradiated zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and thousands more are on standby for evacuation.
Radiation is still leaking from the plant; operator Tokyo Electric Power said on Monday it had detected record high radiation levels at a “hot spot” on the site.
The government said this week it is considering lifting evacuee advisories for areas near the zone because the situation at the plant had “improved”.
The plan has been condemned as premature by parents and citizens groups in Fukushima, who say that radiation is still much too high to allow residents to return.