Nuclear industry safety body takes on lessons of Fukushima

The nuclear accident at the Fukushima power plant in Japan has prompted the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), the industry's self-regulating body, to broaden its remit from accident prevention to regulating and verifying how well plants are prepared to cope with a serious nuclear accident and mitigate its consequences, writes Declan Butler for Nature. "Based on the lessons from Fukushima, we need to add how well prepared an organization is to mitigate, or to handle, an emergency in the unlikely event that one does occur," says George Felgate, managing director of WANO.