The immediate case of the disaster at Fukushima may have been a natural once, but the official report to Japan’s parliament says the ultimate culprit was a weak regulation – a lesson South Africa cannot afford to ignore.
If the regulator can’t control the release of low-level radioactive waste, how can we trust it to deal with the more than 1000 tonnes-and-counting of really hot stuff piling up at Koeberg and Pelindaba, or the far more voluminous pile of low and intermediate waste stores at Vallputs in the Northern Cape?