Information Failure Again

There happened another leakage of radioactive materials in Japan. The facility that emitted them was not for power generation, but for scientific experiments. The amount of the emission was not so large as in the accident in the First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant two years ago. This time, however, it took thirty hours for the facility to provide residents with the information of the accident. As its result, people in Japan became further skeptical about the nuclear community in Japan, even if nuclear technology is used for scientific purposes.

The accident happened in a laboratory for atomic nucleus and elementary particles in J-PARK, a facility for proton acceleration of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, located in Tokai Village, Ibaraki prefecture, in the morning of Thursday. The experiment at the time was to hit proton beam on gold for producing elementary particles. Although alarm noticed the researchers of something unusual, they kept on the experiment. One and a half hours later, when the volume of radiation jumped up ten times higher than usual, the researchers stopped the experiment.

Then, they vented air in the room to reduce radiation level, emitting radioactive materials out of the facility. They inappropriately resumed the experiment and stopped it again with acknowledgement of high radiation thirty minutes later. After all, four researchers inhaled radioactive sodium, which was amounted to 1mSv, paralleled with annual exposition for ordinary people.

Although the total amount of emission was far less than Fukushima accident, the delay of informing process shocked the residents. The agency reported the accident to the Nuclear Regulation Authority one and a half day later. “We thought that estimated amount of exposition was lower than the regulatory line and that the contamination was limited inside the facility,” explained an official of the agency to the authority. But the leakage of radioactive materials exceeded the regulatory line. The government of Ibaraki prefecture decided to have detailed inspection in the facility.

The significance of this accident is the impact of “nuclearphobia” on scientific activities. As long as particle physics deals with nuclear materials, it is possible to invite a situation with more radioactive materials than usual level. But, people outside the nuclear community are highly sensitive about radioactive contamination. With dense population in small land, Japan does not have enough space to have experiments in isolated environment. Consequently, it is necessary for researchers to share detailed information about their daily activities.