Regulatory Oversight / Culture

During the ANS Plenary sessions the head commissioner of the NRC, Allison Macfarlane, gave some remarks about the relationship between the regulator and the utility. One of the more interesting items mentioned was the conclusion (from the Japan Diet's report) that Fukushima was 'manmade'. To quote from the reports executive summary "The TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties. They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly “manmade.” We believe that the root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual." 

The report was very interesting, but I don't know what to think about this. From what I know about the accident and power plants (and, of course, hindsight),  I can agree that accident was not mitigated properly - an argument could be made that the severity of the accident was 'manmade'. I think, however, that ignoring the randomness / magnitude of natural disasters by calling this accident 'manmade' commits the same mistake by implying that more technology could avoid these events.  Every technology has its risk, whether in global warming or rad safety.