Nuclear Safety Commission chief Haruki Madarame apologized Wednesday for mistakes and safety shortcomings that surfaced during the triple-meltdown crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and blamed them on bureaucrats and utilities that failed to heed calls for better disaster preparedness.
Madarame was summoned to the Diet to give unsworn testimony before a special committee investigating the causes of the disaster at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant.
Madarame told the committee that NSC safety guidelines, which are nonbinding for utilities, lacked tsunami countermeasures and assumed that no preparations were needed in the event of a long-term "station blackout," as occurred at Fukushima No. 1.