The UN nuclear agency endorsed an action plan on Thursday to help strengthen global nuclear safety in the wake of Japan's Fukushima accident six months ago, despite criticism from some countries that it does not go far enough. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 151 member states, at their annual general conference in Vienna, approved by consensus the plan prepared by the office of IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano.
It is "both a rallying point and a blueprint for strengthening nuclear safety world-wide," Amano said. After a huge earthquake and a massive tsunami struck on March 11, reactor fuel rods at the Japanese plant began melting down as power and cooling functions failed, causing radiation leakage and forcing the evacuation of 80,000 people.
The disaster spurred a rethink about nuclear energy world-wide and calls for more concerted measures, including beefed-up international safety checks of reactors, to make sure such an accident does not recur. The IAEA plan, outlining a series of voluntary measures intended to help prevent a repeat of such an accident anywhere in the world, had been cleared by the IAEA's 35-nation governing board last week, also by consensus. It calls on countries to promptly carry out assessments of their nuclear power plants on how they would be able to withstand extreme natural hazards as well as steps to strengthen emergency preparedness and information.
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