Get your fax right: Bungling officials spark Japan nuclear scare

Officials at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant sparked a scare by ticking the wrong box on a fax formBungling Japanese officials sparked a nuclear scare after a violent, late-night earthquake by ticking the wrong box on a fax form—inadvertently alerting authorities to a potential accident. Employees of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata—where the 6.4-magnitude quake struck—faxed a message to local authorities seeking to allay any fears of damage. But TEPCO workers accidentally ticked the wrong box on the form, mistakenly indicating there was an abnormality at the plant rather than there was no problem. The mayor hit out at TEPCO, which also operated the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant—site of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl—when an earthquake and tsunami struck in 2011. The late-night quake prompted a tsunami advisory, but only small ripples of 10 centimetres (three inches) were recorded.

Source Atricle