TEPCO Belatedly Discloses Past Probe into Key N-Plant Device

Tokyo, Feb. 16 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> last year carried out a probe into key equipment in the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant, TEPCO has said, only after the recent revelation of its problematic practice that led a now-defunct Diet panel to give up checking the equipment. On Nov. 30 last year, the power company investigated the fourth floor of the No. 1 reactor building on which the key equipment, called isolation condensers, sit, TEPCO said on Friday. Isolation condensers are used to cool reactors in emergency. Mitsuhiko Tanaka, who was a member of the panel, had requested TEPCO to approve a probe inside the No. 1 reactor building to see whether the condensers were damaged by the March 2011 earthquake before massive tsunami reached the power station. But in February last year, a senior TEPCO official gave a false explanation about the conditions inside the building of the No. 1 reactor, one of the three units that experienced core meltdowns in Japan's worst nuclear crisis. His misinformation made the panel refrain from the investigation. TEPCO has failed to make an announcement on its own probe into the isolation condensers for such a long time due to a lack of cooperation between company departments, officials said, adding that the investigation helped TEPCO to confirm its view that the equipment was not damaged by the temblor. END