Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-07-Speech-4-087"
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"en.19991007.6.4-087"2
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"Two accidents have focused our attention over the last ten days. The first was in Tokaimura in which some 45 people were injured and 3 are in a critical condition in hospital. The second, was the rail crash in London which involved a train taking hundreds of people from the capital to the region of England I represent, in which 70 died and 200 were injured. While I wish to think of the individuals and families of those who died or were injured in the railway accident, I am afraid that the two accidents are very different. Accidents in transport systems can endanger the lives of hundreds of people. Unfortunately, a nuclear accident can affect potentially hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. Mrs McNally made the point that near Tokyo, in Tokaimura, 300,000 people were confined to their homes. It appears that the accident was not as severe as we first thought. As a former Japanese civil servant, and as a member of the Japanese delegation for the last 15 years, I wish to put on our record, however, our concern for the victims of this accident in Japan.
I want to make three political points: firstly, it is very clear that human error or human stupidity is continually with us in all areas of endeavour. We cannot trust individuals. In Tokaimura, it would appear either that the workers – with the active collusion of management or owing to the failure of management to enforce regulations – were breaching regulations that were there in the interest of nuclear safety. There are stories that there was actually an illegal handbook produced by the management telling workers to operate in this way. The swift action of the Japanese police going into the company may enable us to establish whether that is the case.
If it was the case, it demonstrates the truth of Nietzche’s dictum that madness is rare in individuals but common in parties, groups and organisations, which is why we need individual, independent monitoring of what goes on in nuclear plants. We need someone to guard those people from their own stupidity and errors. Secondly, it is clear that there is a lack of emergency planning. Thirdly, we have to say that we should be offering assistance to the Japanese if they request it.
Finally, two factual corrections; firstly, our Amendment No 6 makes it clear, when we are calling for the plant not to be reopened until an investigation has taken place, that we are talking about the conversion plant and not the reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, which is a separate plant on a separate site operated by a separate company..."@en1
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