Fukushima plant site originally was a hill safe from tsunami (JAPAN)

[AsahinaKimi]

By REIJI YOSHIDA and TAKAHIRO FUKADA
Staff writers

The March 11 monster tsunami that hit the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant destroyed the critical backup power system and triggered the meltdown of hundreds of fuel rods in reactors 1, 2 and 3.

Video of the appalling damage and reactor building explosions led many people, from the lay to nuclear and quake experts, to ask: Why wasn't the coastal nuclear plant built in a location safe from all tsunami threats?

Katsumi Naganuma, 70, a former worker at Tokyo Electric Power Co., feels particular guilt because he knows that a 35-meter-high, tsunami-safe, bluff overlooking the sea was shaved down to build the Fukushima plant closer to sea level more than 40 years ago.

Tepco, assuming tsunami 3.1 meters or higher would never hit the coast, cut down the bluff by some 25 meters and erected the plant on artificially prepared ground only 10 meters above sea level.

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[nadinbrzezinski]

1. The equivalent in the US to this is San Onofre

[Old and In the Way]

2. Cost benefit analysis....

Saving cost was a benefit to TEPCO. Obviously, getting closer to sea level meant they could use a smaller, less expensive pump system. Turns out a few 10's of millions more spent on siting on higher ground might have benefited Japan.