The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, on Tuesday released its review of Japan's revised nuclear safety assessment process, a year after a devastating earthquake triggered one of the world's worst nuclear accidents at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
The review was compiled by a team of eight IAEA experts who visited the country in January at the request of the Japanese government. During their visit to Japan, the team had held meetings with officials from Japan's nuclear sector and visited the Ohi Nuclear Power Station for assessing the country's compliance with its nuclear safety monitoring system - known as the Comprehensive Safety Assessment (CSA).
In their report released on Tuesday, the IAEA team commented good practices while identifying several improvements that would enhance the overall effectiveness of Japan's nuclear safety monitoring.
The team said in their report that all upgrades aimed at enhancing safety levels against seismic and tsunami hazards should be thoroughly scrutinized by the relevant local authorities and checked against the IAEA Safety Standards, a system of fundamental safety principles and requirements for ensuring safety.
"I hope nuclear regulators around the world use this report as a tool to evaluate their own safety assessment processes," team leader James Lyons, Director of the IAEA's Nuclear Installation Safety Division, said while releasing the report.
He noted that the new nuclear safety measures adopted by Japan were "generally consistent" with the IAEA's safety standards, and said: "We must learn the lessons of the Fukushima Daiichi accident so we can prevent a repeat of those terrible events a year ago."
The Fukushima plant was severely crippled by the March 2011 earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The building housing the plant exploded and three of its nuclear reactors suffered a meltdown. It is now considered to be the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Even now, a 19-kilometer exclusion zone still surrounds the disaster site.
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