International regulators need to rethink their procedures for handling nuclear accidents in the wake of the crisis in Japan, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Monday.
The current framework for responding to emergencies dates back to the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and “reflects the realities of the 1980s, not of the 21st century,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said.
“The speed at which information now travels and the huge volume of information in public circulation are among the most significant changes since then,” Amano said. “Live television and the internet provide constant updates on a crisis situation — not always accurately — to a global audience. The responsibility of the IAEA is to provide authoritative and validated information as quickly as possible, but doing this under the current arrangements inevitably takes time and has limitations.”
Amano said the first priority remains cooling down the damaged reactors at the earthquake- and tsunami-battered Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. But he said authorities should move to revise their playbooks for similar crises “in a reasonable amount of time,” and an April conference on nuclear safety would be a good opportunity to start.
