TOKYO, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Chubu Electric Power Co. has engaged in serious misconduct, including falsifying earthquake data during the screening process for restarting reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, an investigative report released Monday confirmed.
The report, released by a third-party committee composed of external lawyers, found that at least 208 of the 225 seismic ground motion assessments suspected of containing problems involved improper practices, including false explanations and concealment.
The report said that in order to pass the regulatory screening by Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) for the restart of reactors at the Hamaoka plant, Chubu Electric, the plant's operator, manipulated data while determining the maximum seismic ground motion that could potentially occur.
According to the committee, the company told regulators that it had generated 20 sets of seismic waves using different calculation conditions and selected the one closest to the average as the "representative wave."
In reality, however, its employees cherry-picked one specific seismic wave as the "representative wave" and then selected the remaining 19 waves to make the "representative wave" appear closest to the average, the report said.
The Hamaoka plant is the only nuclear power station operated by Chubu Electric. Because the plant is located in an area where a Nankai Trough megaquake in the Pacific is expected to occur, all of its reactors were shut down at the Japanese government's request following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, which was triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami.
Chubu Electric applied to the NRA between 2014 and 2015 for screening to determine whether the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant complied with new, stricter safety rules, aiming to restart the two reactors.
In January this year, however, the company acknowledged that its maximum seismic ground motion evaluation may have involved deliberately selecting data favorable to the company and underestimating earthquake risks.
In light of the scandal, Chubu Electric announced Monday that its president and chairman will step down at the end of this month to take responsibility for the misconduct, and the company will withdraw its application to restart the reactors.
Local media said the scandal could reignite public doubts about the safety of nuclear power plants and cast a long shadow over the Japanese government's plans to revive nuclear power as the resource-poor nation seeks to reduce its heavy dependence on fossil fuels. ■
