Tepco concludes own crisis manual useless via The Japan Times

Emergency measures based on belief cooling systems couldn’t fail

Kyodo

An in-house report from Tokyo Electric Power Co. has concluded its emergency manual was useless for handling the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power plant and that the widely held belief that a hydrogen explosion might have damaged the No. 2 reactor is false.

The report on Sunday indicates the manual was drafted on the assumption that the emergency generators — including the diesel backups — would keep the reactors’ cooling systems running no matter what.

At the Fukushima No. 1 plant, however, none of the backup generators for stricken reactors 1 through 4 survived the March 11 tsunami.

According to the report, compiled by an intracompany investigative panel, Tepco first became aware large explosions had been heard at reactors 2 and 4 after 6 a.m. on March 15.

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