Now that several years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, how much has Japan learned the lessons from Fukushima? Taking the opportunity from the release of the hearings from the late Mr. Masao Yoshida, which provided new information, interested former working group members of the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident that released the report in February 2012 looked back at this four years.

After a two month preparation period, this project was officially launched in December 2014. From several points of view, we extracted topics on the crisis response and management.

• Incident Command System (ICS)
• Operation
• Logistics
• Governance
• Leadership
• Safety and Security
• Ways to learn lessons

On reviewing the crisis management during the nuclear accident as well as the result of the analysis by the Independent Investigation Commission, we tried to listen to the voices of youth that have been rarely expressed in public. Although the Independent Commission covered the point of view of the vulnerable from the disaster in regards to the resident evacuation issue, we could not include those of the young generation.
Our project co-hosted an event, “The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis as seen through the Yoshida Hearings,” with the Global Security Research Institute (G-SEC) at Keio University on February 4, 2015, and the four project members discussed with approximately 20 selected students topics such as “At that time, how did you see the responses by the government and TEPCO?” and “If you were a person in charge of the crisis handling, how would you think and what kind of decision would you have made?”

The report consists of two parts; the first part is an interpretation of the Yoshida testimony by Dr. Yoichi Funabashi, the second part is the four project members’ review of the three years since the announcement of the report. (Japanese version also includes the third part, which is the transcript of the discussion with the students at the event.)

Report

The Symposium

The project co-hosted an event, “The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis as seen through the Yoshida Hearings,” with the Global Security Research Institute (G-SEC) at Keio University on February 4, 2015. The facilitators were Prof. Heizo Takenaka from Keio University and RJIF Chairman Yoichi Funabashi, and the panelists were the working group members of the Independent Investigation Commission at the time: Mr. Kenta Horio, Mr. Akihisa Shioaki, Prof. Kazuto Suzuki, and Dr. Shin-etsu Sugawara.
They exchanged opinions with 20 students having strong interest on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident actively and the discussion grew excited.

Project Members

Independent Investigation Commission Report Inspection Team

Advisor

Editorial/ Administrative Office