Katsuhiko Ishibashi

Who is Katsuhiko Ishibashi?

Katsuhiko Ishibashi is a professor in the Research Center for Urban Safety and Security in the Graduate School of Science at Kobe University, Japan and a seismologist who has written extensively in the areas of seismicity and seismotectonics in and around the Japanese Islands. He recently coined the term genpatsu-shinsai, from the Japanese words for "nuclear power" and "quake disaster".

Katsuhiko Ishibashi has said that Japan’s history of nuclear accidents stems from an overconfidence in plant engineering. He was a member of a 2006 Japanese government subcommittee charged with revising the national guidelines on the earthquake-resistance of nuclear power plants, published in 2007. His proposal that the committee should review the standards for surveying active faults was rejected and, at the committee's final meeting he resigned claiming that the review process was "unscientific" and the outcome rigged to suit the interests of the Japan Electric Association, which had 11 of its committee members on the 19-member government subcommittee and that among other problems the guide was "seriously flawed" as a consequence because it underestimated the design basis earthquake ground motion.