UN nuclear agency chief surveys progress at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant

UN nuclear agency chief surveys progress at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant

2011-07-26 06:15:05 GMT+7 (ICT)

UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) -- The head of the United Nations nuclear agency visited the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan on Monday to gather first-hand information on the recovery operations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported.

The agency said IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano visited the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant which is operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to survey the progress at the accident site.

TEPCO officials and personnel who were directly engaged in the response to the nuclear accident gave Director General Amano eyewitness accounts of the accident and detailed the company's efforts to implement its plans to contain and stabilize the situation in the accident's aftermath.

While in Japan, Director General Amano will also meet Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other senior-level officials to discuss the outcomes of last month's Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety, including the initiatives to improve global nuclear safety. In his meetings, Amano will emphasize the IAEA's resolve to continue to support Japan in mitigating the consequences of the Fukushima accident.

Japan has been facing an ongoing nuclear crisis since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was severely damaged on March 11 when an enormous 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami devastated the country, killing at least 15,628 people and leaving 4,823 people missing and feared dead.

The disaster, the country's worst since World War II, disabled the cooling systems of the nuclear plant and radioactive elements leaked into the sea and were later found in water, air and food products in some parts of Japan. It is the most serious nuclear accident in the world since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

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