Japan’s Reactor Risk Foretold 20 Years Ago in U.S. Agency Report

The earthquake disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant north of Tokyo was foretold in a report published two decades ago by a U.S. regulatory agency.

In a 1990 report, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency responsible for ensuring the safety of the country’s power plants, identified earthquake-induced diesel generator failure and power outage leading to failure of cooling systems as one of the “most likely causes” of nuclear accidents from an external event.