'Japanese Govt. hid Fukushima nuke disaster's worst-case scenario report till Dec 2011'

Tokyo, Jan 23(ANI): The Japanese Government had suppressed a report predicting the worst-case scenario for the Fukushima nuclear crisis until the end of 2011, sources in the administration have said.

Sources have confirmed that document was only shown to a small group of senior government officials at the prime minister's office in March 2011 but the government had decided to keep it as a secret till the end of December 2011.

The government treated it as a personal document of Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo till the end of December to conceal its existence, sources added.

"The content was so shocking that we decided to treat it as if it didn't exist," The Japan Times quoted a senior government official, as saying.

Kondo had drawn the document, dated March 25, 2011, at Kan's request.

The document predicted that Fukushima reactors would intermittently release massive quantities of radioactive materials for about a year in the worst -case scenario.

It also said that such a scenario would occur due to a hydrogen explosion that would tear through the No. 1 reactor's containment vessel forcing all workers as well as residents living within a radius of 170 kilometres to evacuate from the area.

But parts of the document were leaked that led new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to treat the report as a Cabinet Office document.

"Because we were told there would be enough time to evacuate residents (even in a worst-case scenario), we refrained from disclosing the document due to fear it would cause unnecessary anxiety (among the public)," Japan's nuclear crisis minister Hosono had said.

The Japanese health ministry has admitted that it does not monitor radiation exposure of workers at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, while they are off-site or off duty, provoking fears that the current system to check exposure may be inadequate. ( ANI)