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The former chief of the stricken Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has admitted that the immediate aftermath of the nuclear accident at Japan's Fukushima power plant in March 2011 was hellish. "It was like hell," Masao Yoshida said in an interview filmed by a publishing firm from Nagano Prefecture. According to The Japan Times, while speaking about the hydrogen explosions that ripped through some of the reactor buildings soon after the crisis began amid the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11, Yoshida said he felt that 'something catastrophic might be happening.' "Myself and all of the staff at the Seismic-Isolated Building might have died," the report quoted him as saying. Yoshida also said that he was never in the favour of TEPCO's proposed evacuation of all staff from the plant in the midst of the crisis. "We should never leave the plant. I didn't mention withdrawal even once in my talks with officials from head office," he said. According to the report, Yoshida thanked all of the workers for their strenuous efforts to bring the plant under control despite the high levels of radiation released by the melted reactor cores. "The staff went to work although they had reached their physical limits due to lack of sleep and food. The plant has recovered to its current state thanks to them," he said.

Aftermath of disaster at Fukushima nuclear plant was like hell: Plant chief