Crisis Prevention and Management
By CHRISTINE CUNANAN-NOMURA
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危機の予防と管理
危機の予防と管理
茨城県東海村の臨界事故では
先進国日本の危機対策の遅れが目立った。
今後大きな事故が起きた場合を考えると心配だ。
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On Sept. 30, employees at a uranium conversion plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, accidentally triggered an
uncontrolled nuclear reaction. And it changed the lives of the 72 people exposed in the accident forever.
For most other people in Japan, however, the excitement of watching the news is over. They have returned to their
ordinary, complacent lifestyles. In other words, life is back to normal. This is also what the Japanese government would
perhaps like us to believe.
However, for me, the accident in Tokai has prompted an interesting observation and also raised some serious concerns about living in Japan.
When I first heard about the accident, I immediately tried to determine the seriousness of the disaster and its possible
effects on Tokyo, which is not that far from the site. I was most worried about radiation reaching Tokyo directly by
air or through water.
At first, I thought I was being overly paranoid. I soon discovered that — at least within the foreign community — I
was not alone in worrying about these things. Several foreign friends had rung up their respective embassies for advice, made plans to travel westward for a few days and stopped eating fresh foods from that area until
the dangers cleared.
Not a few of us also got calls from concerned friends and relatives outside Japan in the days following the
disaster, asking if we had reserved seats on planes out of Japan "just in case."
When I told my Japanese friends about these efforts, many of them thought these foreigners were over-reacting. None of
them had made even remotely similar plans. "If it's dangerous or if we need to do something, the government will tell us
what to do," said one friend. I found the difference very interesting.
The nuclear accident also raised some serious issues for me as a resident of Tokyo. First, I was very concerned that
such a careless and, in the words of International Atomic Energy Agency experts, "primitive" accident could actually
take place within such a dangerous environment. It placed ordinary citizens at risk unnecessarily.
It is absolutely inexcusable that there were lax safety procedures and a regular disregard for procedure here —
especially since Japan is bent on increasing its dependence on nuclear energy. This is supposed to be a highly efficient First World country.
Second, I found the handling of the crisis appalling. The government took several hours to set up a task force and to
evacuate the residents within the area, adequate information was not available right away and proper precautions
were not taken to determine the safety of Tokai and surrounding places.
The government declared the entire area safe only two days after the accident, yet independent agencies and
Greenpeace found dangerous levels of radiation near the plant. Who are we to believe?
Such responses would have been unsurprising if Japan were a developing country. However, it is not. The nature of the crisis and the response of the government is inexcusable precisely because Japan prides itself on its First World
efficiency.
Thinking about the Japanese government's response during the Kobe earthquake, and now during these events in Tokai, I
cannot help fearing for what might happen should a more serious disaster strike Japan in the future.
Shukan ST: Nov. 5, 1999
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