Pool photo by Toshifumi Kitamura
A worker walking near water tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.
TOKYO — First, a rat gnawed through exposed wiring, setting off a scramble to end yet another blackout of vital cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Then, hastily built pits for a flood of contaminated water sprang leaks themselves. Now, a new rush of radioactive water has breached a barrier built to stop it, allowing heavily contaminated water to spill daily into the Pacific.
As the scope of the latest crisis became clearer on Wednesday, Japan's popular prime minister, Shinzo Abe, ordered his government to intervene in the cleanup of the plant — taking a more direct role than any government since the triple meltdowns in 2011 qualified Fukushima as the world's second worst nuclear disaster.
Mr. Abe, a staunch defender of the country's nuclear program, appears to have calculated that he needed to intervene to rebuild public trust and salvage a pillar of his economic revival plan: the restarting of many idled nuclear plants. That trust has been eroded not only by the original catastrophe, but also by two and a half years of sometimes embarrassing missteps by the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, and what many Japanese see as the company's continuing attempts to mislead the public and cover up continuing troubles at the plant.
"This is not an issue we can let Tepco take complete responsibility of," Mr. Abe told a group of cabinet ministers gathered to discuss the water problem that has swiftly emerged as the biggest challenge at the plant and that appears to be slowly spiraling out of control. "We must deal with this at the national level."
But taking a bigger role in a vast and unprecedented cleanup may also be a political gamble for Mr. Abe, especially if the government proves as unable as Tepco to contain the unending leaks of radioactive materials from the devastated plant.
Many analysts said Mr. Abe's move was an admission that previous governments had erred by entrusting the 40-year, $11 billion cleanup to the same company that many blame for allowing the catastrophe to happen in the first place. Tepco's leadership has been particularly worrisome, critics say, since it remains enmeshed in the collusive ties between the government and the industry that many say made the plant vulnerable.
Tepco had clung to the chance to lead the cleanup as an opportunity to redeem itself and regain its position as a leading member of Japan's corporate community. But critics say it has continued to lose credibility by repeatedly underplaying dangers at the plant, following a pattern set in the early days of the disaster when it hid information about the extent of the damage and frequently bungled its response. The company balked at adding seawater to the reactors even as their cores became dangerously hot, for fear of ruining them for good, and officials did not acknowledge for two months that three reactors had suffered meltdowns.
In the latest instance involving groundwater troubles, Tepco's own advisory group of foreign experts criticized the company's late admission, with one saying it "brings into question whether Tepco has a plan and is doing all it can to protect the environment and the people." Although the advisers said Tepco was doing a good job cleaning up, other experts and some regulators have questioned the company's ability to handle the highly complex decommissioning of reactors.
"This is an admission by the government that Tepco has mismanaged the cleanup and misinformed the public," said Eiji Yamaguchi, a professor of science and technology policy at Doshisha University in Kyoto. "The government has no choice but to end two years of Tepco obfuscating the actual condition of the plant."
The groundwater problems at the plant started soon after the disaster, when Tepco realized that tons of water flowing from the mountains and toward the sea were pouring into the contaminated reactor buildings, filling their basements with water that had to be pumped out. But the company was slow to come up with longer-term solutions, like digging wells to draw out the water before it reached the buildings. Then, in May, Tepco realized it had a new problem, with contaminants apparently leaking from a maze of conduits near the wrecked reactors causing a spike in radiation levels in groundwater elsewhere in the plant.
Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting.
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