OSAKA -- In early 1999, a group of German nuclear scientists and engineers had just returned to Osaka after visiting nuclear power facilities in Fukui Prefecture. Sitting in a bar in the Hotel New Otani, they were deeply disturbed.
"The equipment and the state of the plants was very bad, well below the standards that are legally acceptable in Germany. We couldn't believe that such an advanced technological country like Japan would allow nuclear power plants to be run in such a slipshod and dangerous manner," one of the engineers told The Japan Times.
Since then, this nation's nuclear power industry has suffered a string of accidents, scandals and coverups.