Leaks of contaminated water at the crippled nuclear plant have worsened because Japan has acted too slowly, a former US nuclear regulatory chief claims.
US and Japanese officials knew that leaks would occur when massive amounts of water were used to cool molten reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant after a major tsunami hit in March 2011, said Gregory Jaczko, adding that he was surprised how long it took Japan to start tackling the problem.
"It's been known for a long time that this would be an issue," he told a news conference in Tokyo.
"My biggest surprise is to some extent how it's been allowed to deteriorate, a little bit, and how it's almost become a surprise again that there are contamination problems, that there is leakage out into the sea."
Japanese PM Shinzo Abe (in red hat) last week at the plant Mr Jaczko said that when the plant was in critical condition, with three reactor cores melted and in dire need of cooling water, Japanese and US officials had disputed how much water should be put in because of the imminent leaks of radiation contaminated water and measures needed to contain that problem.
The Japanese government, he said, was concerned that flooding those reactor vessels and reactor buildings with cooling water "would lead to greater leakage of ground water," whereas the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission emphasised the need to keep reactors cool and under control to minimise the airborne contamination.
But the "focus was lost" on the need to keep addressing the radioactive water problem, apparently delaying action on mitigating the problem, he said.
Japanese officials confirmed for first time in July that contaminated ground water had begun leaking into the Pacific soon after the accident.
Gregory Jaczko left his post last year Leaders of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which was in power during the crisis, acknowledged last week that a plan to build a seawall to block contaminated water leaks into the sea has been put off for nearly two years after plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. allegedly refused to agree to the plan because of costs.
The public is increasingly worried about the recent string of underground water leaks into the ocean and from storage tanks holding contaminated water used to cool the reactors.
The government is now funding the development of more advanced water treatment equipment and paying for a costly ice wall to surround the reactor and turbine buildings and prevent them from contaminating outside ground water.
Mr Jaczko, who was chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time of the Fukushima accident, was in Tokyo at the invitation of a Japanese anti-nuclear citizens' group.
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