A report released last week by the Diet's Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission backs what many members of the public have long believed: The fiasco at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was "a profoundly man-made disaster — that could have and should have been foreseen and prevented."

The findings of the 19-member commission were based on a six-month investigation that included 900 hours of hearings and interviews with 1,167 people as well as nine visits to the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and three other nuclear power plants. In an unprecedented and most welcome move, the panel sought maximum information disclosure by opening up all 19 of its commission meetings to the public and broadcast all but the first one on the Internet in Japanese and English. The commission also dispatched teams overseas to confer with experts in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and France.

The Fukushima nuclear accident, concluded the panel, "was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco, and the lack of governance by said parties. They effectively betrayed the nation's right to be safe from nuclear accidents." The commission identified the root causes of the accident as "organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationale for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual."