Electricity company criticised over communication

The Tokyo Electric Power Company has been criticised for not telling the public very much
about emergency repairs at the Fukushima nuclear power station. Engineers are still trying to
cool down the nuclear rods and prevent a major radiation leak. Mark Gregory reports.
Usually, governments take the lead in national emergencies, but not in this one. Staving off
catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima power complex has been primarily the responsibility of a
commercial concern: The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, which runs the site.
There’s mounting concern in Japan at Tepco’s handling of the crisis. In particular, the firm
has been accused of failing to communicate. There’ve been reports of the firm’s public
spokesmen appearing ill-informed and evasive in dealing with journalists at press
conferences. The Japanese prime minister was reported to have been furious on Tuesday,
when the company failed to inform him of a new fire at one of the affected reactors for an
hour after it knew of this serious escalation in the crisis.
Nuclear experts outside Japan have complained the company has kept them in the dark, by
releasing information slowly and with little detail. The company, of course, has a lot to
contend with. Public relations probably ranks low on the list of priorities, as Tepco grapples
with a complex nuclear emergency in a region devastated by a major earthquake.
Tepco is the world’s fourth largest power utility company. It supplies about a third of Japan’s
electricity. The firm’s reputation has yet to fully recover from accusations levelled in 2002. A
Japanese government report found evidence of false reporting in routine inspections, and a
pattern of concealment of safety lapses over many years.
Mark Gregory, BBC News

Vocabulary and definitions

staving off	preventing or avoiding
a commercial concern	a business or company
mounting concern	increasing or growing anxiety
ill-informed	not to know all the facts of what happened
escalation	increase in size or intensity
kept them in the dark	made certain they were not fully up to date about what happened
to contend with	to cope or deal with
levelled	made against them
a pattern of concealment	a period of time when efforts were made to hide facts or the truth
lapses	small mistakes or failures

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