6 JCO workers indicted over fatal negligence in Tokaimura

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

6 JCO workers indicted over fatal negligence in Tokaimura
MITO, Japan, Nov. 1 (Kyodo) - 

Prosecutors said Wednesday they indicted six employees of JCO Co. on 
charges of negligence resulting in the death of two colleagues in 
connection with Japan's worst nuclear accident in September last year 
at the company's Tokaimura plant. 

The six, including Kenzo Koshijima, 54, who headed the uranium-
processing plant, are suspected of allowing employees to illegally 
use buckets to make uranium solution in the Sept. 30, 1999 accident 
at the plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, 120 kilometers northeast of 
Tokyo, the Mito District Public Prosecutors Office said. 

Koshijima and other officials approved the procedures at an in-house 
safety committee in 1995, leading to compilation of an unauthorized 
manual in 1996 that recommended the use of buckets to make the 
solution. 

The five others were former chief of the production department 
Hiromasa Kato, 61, former planning group leader Hiroyuki Ogawa, 43, 
and three senior workers -- Kenji Takemura, 32, Hiroshi Watanabe, 49, 
and Yutaka Yokokawa, 55. 

The accident and the following nuclear fission chain reaction 
occurred when workers poured an excessive amount of uranium solution 
into a processing tank using buckets, bypassing several required 
steps, prosecutors said. 

Two of the workers -- Hisashi Ouchi and Masato Shinohara -- died in 
December last year and this April, respectively, from radiation 
sickness. 

The nuclear-fuel processing firm, JCO, is a subsidiary of Sumitomo 
Metal Mining Co. 

The prosecutors also indicted Koshijima, Kato, Ogawa and JCO itself 
on charges of compiling the manual without reporting to the 
government. 

Operators of nuclear facilities are required by law to obtain 
approval by the prime minister before changing production methods. 

They also indicted Koshijima and JCO on charges they failed to 
instruct plant employees in safety, the prosecutors said. 

JCO began using illegal methods to process uranium at the plant in 
1993, the prosecutors said. 

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Personal Website:  http://sandyfl.nukeworker.net
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