Japanese regulators were so unprepared for a serious accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that the emergency response center they set up nearby didn't even have an air filter to screen out radioactive particles, according to an interim report by an independent panel charged with investigating Japan's worst nuclear disaster.

Meanwhile, key personnel at plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO) didn't understand the workings of the emergency cooling system for Unit 1--the first reactor to go out of control--a situation the report blasted as "extremely improper." Engineers on the ground shut down another system that supplied vital cooling water to Unit 3, without ensuring that an alternative water source was available, leaving the overheating reactor without a water supply for nearly seven hours, the report said. If the cooling had gone properly, "damage to the reactor may have been lessened," the report said.

Such problems are among key mistakes singled out by the report, the first official attempt to determine what caused the nuclear accident that occurred after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out power at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The 500-page document, based on 900 hours of interviews with 456 people involved in the accident, comes nine months after radioactive releases from meltdowns at the plant made much of the surrounding area uninhabitable. It describes a nuclear regulator and plant operator so unprepared for a serious nuclear disaster that they didn't have the proper systems in place to deal with it, and didn't always know how to use the mechanisms they had. And it stands in stark contrast to Tepco's assertion that it made no major operational errors in its post-accident response.

Yet the 10-person panel, comprised of experts ranging from a former prosecutor to a specialist in nuclear medicine and a Fukushima mayor, doesn't have the power to compel hearings, and didn't assign blame to individuals or suggest any action be taken against them.

In contrast, similar investigations in the U.S. are often conducted by bodies with subpoena power, and accompany or are quickly followed by inquiries into criminal or civil liabilities of the companies and people involved. The U.S. government, for instance, had started criminal and civil investigations into the April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico by June of that year.

The report notes that the panel's investigation is still incomplete because there hasn't been time to interview many of the government officials involved--including former prime minister Naoto Kan. The panel hopes to wrap up its final report by the summer of 2012.

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