Japan utility: Delay in declaring 'meltdown' was cover-up

The utility that ran the Fukushima nuclear plant acknowledged today its delayed disclosure of the meltdowns at three reactors was tantamount to a cover-up and apologized for it.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Naomi Hirose's apology followed the revelation last week that an investigation had found Hirose's predecessor instructed officials during the 2011 disaster to avoid using the word "meltdown."
"I would say it was a cover-up," Hirose told a news conference. "It's extremely regrettable."
TEPCO instead described the reactors' condition as less serious "core damage" for two months after the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, wrecked the plant, even though utility officials knew and computer simulations suggested meltdowns had occurred.

An investigative report released last Thursday by three company-appointed lawyers said TEPCO's then-President Masataka Shimizu instructed officials to use the milder description under alleged pressure from the Prime Minister's Office, though the investigators found no proof.
Former officials at the Prime Minister's Office have denied the allegation.

TEPCO has been accused of softening its language to cover up the seriousness of the disaster, though the investigation found TEPCO's delayed acknowledgement did not break any law.
Hirose said he will take a 10 percent pay cut, and another executive will take a 30 percent cut, for one month each to take responsibility.

The report found that Shimizu's instruction to avoid using the term "meltdown" delayed full disclosure of the plant's status to the public, even as people who lived near the plant were forced to leave their homes, some of them permanently unable to return, due to the radiation that leaked from the plant.
TEPCO finally in May 2011 used "meltdown" in its public statements after another computer simulation showed fuel in one reactor had almost entirely melted and fallen to the bottom of the primary containment chamber, and that the two other reactor cores had melted significantly.
The issue surfaced earlier this year in a separate investigation in which TEPCO acknowledged that a company manual had been overlooked during the crisis.

The acknowledgement reversed its earlier position that it had no internal criteria to guide how it characterized a meltdown to the public.