Japan govt panel cut tsunami warning before 2011 disaster

PanARMENIAN.Net - Japanese science ministry's earthquake research panel omitted a warning that massive tsunami could hit northeastern Japan "at any moment" from a report prior to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, having earlier planned to include it, a ministry document showed Tuesday, February 28.

The Earthquake Research Committee had presented the report eight days before the March 11 disaster to an unofficial meeting between the ministry, Tokyo Electric Power Co. and two other utilities but ended up not publicizing it, according to the document, obtained by Kyodo News via a freedom-of-information request, and people involved.

Committee members decided to delete the warning as they viewed it "inappropriate to use the same expression" as that used to describe an expected major earthquake in the Tokai region, central Japan, which was regarded "more imminent."

But after some argued that such an expression could be linked with the projected Tokai quake, which was said to be 87 percent likely to occur within 30 years, it was weakened to simply noting that a major quake could occur off the Pacific coastline in eastern Japan.

References to research having found tsunami-caused sediment at a rate of every 450 to 800 years, and that 500 years had passed since the latest major quake were also deleted.

After the March 2011 disaster, the committee under the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry estimated that the quake, if it were predictable beforehand, was 10 to 20 percent likely to occur within 30 years as of March 11 last year, The Mainichi Daily News reported citing Kyodo News.

More than 19,000 died or went missing in the 2011 disaster, which triggered the nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Co, suffered meltdowns at three of its six reactors.