It has been a decade since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, which offers us a fresh opportunity to mourn for the lives lost and look back on where we are with the reconstruction of the affected region. But it is also the time to revisit the lessons learned from the nuclear meltdowns — a national crisis — at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
As Japan and the world fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, we may wonder: Has Japan’s crisis management improved since then?
I headed a reinvestigation committee launched by the Asia Pacific Initiative to compile the lessons Japan has learned from the nuclear disaster over the last decade. I was also a member of an API committee which put together a report released in October on the government’s coronavirus response, and of a committee under the API’s predecessor Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation which released a report on the Fukushima No. 1 power plant disaster in 2012.