'Worst scenario' on Fukushima crisis kept under wraps

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The possible worst case scenario resulting from the nuclear crisis at Fukushima was shared with only a few lawmakers as making the report public would have caused alarm and ‘no one would have remained in Tokyo,’ a Japanese minister said.

Japan's nuclear disaster minister Goshi Hosono has said ‘the worst scenario’ on development of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima complex, which was compiled two weeks after the crisis began, was shared only by a few lawmakers, including then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, due to fears it might cause confusion among the public.

"The scenario was not a possibility in fact. If it had been made public at that time, it was likely that no one would have remained in Tokyo," Hosono was quoted as saying by Kyodo News. "It would have caused trouble regarding the government's handling of the nuclear crisis," he said

The government predicted in the worst scenario, produced on March 25 by Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo, that the No 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant would explode and the No 4 unit's spent fuel pool would dry up, bringing about a more extensive release of radioactive material.

The scenario was examined by only a few key lawmakers in the government and was not shared even with the Nuclear Safety Commission "as we wanted to prevent gossip from spreading," Hosono said. "We could not even announce the fact that we compiled such a simulation."

Hosono, who was serving as a special adviser to Kan, recommended to the premier "to be prepared for the worst possible scenario, just in case" about 10 days after the nuclear crisis began following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, as the Fukushima complex retained a ‘certain stability,’ according to Hosono.

Kan then ordered Kondo to compile the scenario.

While several government officials said the scenario was initially considered "a private document," Hosono countered by saying, "Documents compiled by us in an official capacity cannot be considered private. We were ready to disclose it (the scenario) if we received a freedom-of-information request."

The scenario, meanwhile, prompted the government to brace for unforeseen trouble, Hosono said. For example, the government introduced nine concrete pumping vehicles at the No 4 reactor so it would not dry up while enhancing the reactor pool, he added.

"It was not wrong to prepare for the worst cases, based on the scenario," he said. On March 11, an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami seriously damaged the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, releasing toxic radioactive waste into the atmosphere.