Japan Lobby Group Wants Nuclear Panel Chief Fired (Update1)

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Source: Bloomberg

Japan Lobby Group Wants Nuclear Panel Chief Fired (Update1)

By Jason Clenfield and Shigeru Sato

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- A citizen's group in Japan has asked the government to fire the chairman of a committee investigating earthquake damage at the world's biggest nuclear power plant, saying he may have prejudged the station's safety.

The Citizen's Nuclear Information Center last week sought the removal of Haruki Madarame after newspapers quoted him as saying that all seven reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant could be restarted in two years. The plant was shut after the July 16 quake caused radioactive leaks.

``We question the academic ethics of someone who would make such a statement even before inspecting the reactors,'' the Center, which opposes atomic energy, said in the July 31 letter to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

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Madarame, a professor of engineering at the University of Tokyo, said today his remarks were misunderstood. At the time there was speculation it would take a few months to restart the reactors, and ``I just meant to suggest that this is going to take a long time,'' he said by telephone.

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Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aQkjxRQoBSWY&refer=japan