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Kondo, a longtime advocate of atomic technology as clean energy, acknowledged the design of Fukushima Dai-ichi had been faulty. It failed in crucial "venting," to release pressure and prevent explosions, spreading radiation into the environment in what Kondo likened to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Kondo had erroneously expected problems at a Japan plant to be like the Three Mile Island accident, where radiation leakage was limited. "That was our biggest mistake," he said. Decades will now be needed before Fukushima Dai-ichi can be fully decommissioned. Authorities evacuated 59,000 residents within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the Fukushima plant. Thousands more left other towns later. Kondo still has sleepless nights. "I can't sleep when I think of all those people who had to evacuate, all those mothers worried for their children," he said.
[Associated
Press;
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