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This general view shows the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ni nuclear power station in the towns of Naraha and Tomioka of Futaba district in Fukushima Prefecture on July 4, 2012. (Koichi Kamoshida/AFP/Getty Images)
Japanese utility TEPCO has released 150 hours of video footage showing exchanges between officials at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and the company’s head office during a five-day period starting March 11 after a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged the facility.
The company released the video on condition that reporters could not record the footage, and they must watch it on their personal computers in TEPCO’s head office, reported Japanese broadcaster NHK.
The footage showed tension and chaos experienced by government and TEPCO officials.
“Somebody needs to come up with a criterion for a pullout. At some point we need to make a decision on whether we can stay at the plant or [its] control rooms. Please start considering the criterion,” TEPCO Managing Director Akio Komori said in the video, according to the Japan Times.
TEPCO claimed it was talking about a partial withdrawal of workers and said it never considered entirely pulling out workers from the Fukushima plant.
TEPCO initially resisted showing some of the footage to reporters, and the public will likely call on the utility to release more footage recorded after the five-day period.
“This is the kind of very important historical document” we need, Tatsuya Yoshioka, the head of a Japanese NGO calling for the abolition of nuclear power, told NHK.
“I hope TEPCO themselves will decide to open up more and more and more” and enable “as much as possible, transparency,” he said. The Japanese government should also push TEPCO to release all information regarding the Fukushima incident.
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