TEPCO: 2008 Calculation on Tsunami Deserved No Publicity

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday it had not reported the result of its 2008 calculation that a tsunami higher than 10 meters could hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant because it saw no point at the time in publicizing something based on a host of assumptions. According to Japan''s News Agency (Kyodo), The problem surfaced Wednesday as the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it was informed of the calculation verbally by a manager at the utility known as TEPCO on March 7, just before a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami as high as 15 meters hit the plant on March 11, leading to meltdowns of its reactors. At a press conference Thursday, Yoshinori Moriyama, a senior official at the agency under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, criticized the utility''s failure to report the calculation for nearly three years, saying it should have reported it at an early date.