Tokyo :  A Japanese parliamentary panel said in a report Thursday that last year s crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant was "a man-made disaster", RIA Novosti reported. The March 2011 accident "could not be regarded as a natural disaster", the Diet s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission said.

"It was a profoundly man-made disaster - that could and should have been foreseen and prevented," the report said.

The panel, established in May 2011, said the government and the plant s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), failed to provide adequate prevention and "lacked a sense of responsibility to protect people s lives". Some of the plant s reactors melted down after a tsunami and magnitude-9 earthquake wrecked its cooling systems.

Thousands of people were evacuated from a no-go zone around the stricken plant. Numerous errors and negligence left the plant in "a vulnerable condition with no guarantee it could withstand earthquakes and tsunamis", the panel s 600-page report said.