ABSTRACT
The Fukushima Daiichi (FDI) accident was first labeled by Japanese and foreign nuclear authorities as unforeseeable, due to a “natural catastrophe.” The main purpose of this chapter is to show that the accident was basically a very predictable “normal accident,” in Charles Perrow's sense of the term, and not an isolated event. A review of the history of the Japanese nuclear program shows that it was the result of a long-term social, economic and political process, dating back to Eisenhower's “Atoms for Peace” speech to the United Nations, related to Cold War politics and the building of a modern version of the tight relationship between economic, political and academic figures that characterised prewar Japan—a version that took the form known today as the “nuclear village.” Some consequences of this evolution (beyond the FDI accident itself) are discussed.
