By Eva Cheng
On March 11, an explosion took place at the Mura nuclear reprocessing plant in Tokai, Japan, 10 hours after a potentially deadly fire broke out at the scene.
It is not the first major nuclear "accident" in Japan. The last known incident happened 15 months ago, at Monju, a state-run Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (Donen) facility — the same company that is operating the Tokai plant. Three tonnes of sodium coolant leaked from the Monju fast-breeder reactor in December 1995, together with highly toxic dust. Donen did not report the incident to the central government until an hour later. At the time, Donen claimed that the Monju leak was "minuscule". It was later revealed that the leak was the most serious of its kind ever to have taken place.
In Tokai, Donen didn't report the explosion for four hours. It has now been revealed that the earlier fire was not properly extinguished. Thirty-five of Mura's 62 clean-up workers were exposed to radiation.
Japan has 51 nuclear reactors in operation. Nuclear sources now meet 34% of its energy needs and there are plans to raise this to 42% by 2010. Japan reprocesses only about one-tenth of its nuclear waste within its territories, exporting the rest.
Kyushu Electric announced on March 12 its decision to drop plans to build a nuclear plant in Kushima, saying there were strong objections from residents. On the same day, in Australia, WA Greens Senator Dee Margetts said that the explosion at Tokai was a warning to the Howard government not to proceed with the construction of a reprocessing facility in Australia.