Chain reaction

Even more unnerving than news of the accident at Tokaimura uranium processing plant is the air of complacency with which executives from Japan's nuclear industry have responded to the incident.

This is the latest of six mishaps in two years including an explosion at a reprocessing plant, and the discovery that a waste storage facility had leaked low-level radiation over a period of 30 years. For a country heavily dependent on nuclear power and planning to build a further 20 reactors in the next decade, it is hardly an encouraging record.

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