Katsuhiko Ishibashi (石橋 克彦, Ishibashi Katsuhiko, born August 8, 1944) 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.[1] He also coined the term genpatsu-shinsai (原発震災), from the Japanese words for "nuclear power" and "quake disaster".[2][3]
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.[4] 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"[4] and the outcome rigged[5][6] to suit the interests of the Japan Electric Association, which had 11 of its committee members on the 19-member government subcommittee[6] and that among other problems the guide was "seriously flawed" as a consequence because it underestimated the design basis earthquake ground motion.[2]
In May 2011, he said: "If Japan had faced up to the dangers earlier, we could have prevented Fukushima".[7]
