DHAKA: The publisher of Japan’s leading newspaper apologised to readers on Thursday for several serious errors in its reporting, retracting an article that claimed workers abandoned their posts during the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Asahi’s publisher Tadakazu Kimura, speaking at a hastily arranged news conference, made the apology after a confidential government document cited in the daily’s report was finally released to the public with no mention of a mutiny by plant workers.

‘I offer profound apologies to our readers and people at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco),’ the 60-year-old publisher said, reports The Straits Times.

He said he would decide whether or not to resign after enacting ‘revival through sweeping reform;.

The article published on May 20 said 90 percent of workers at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant had left the complex, disobeying the plant chief’s order to stay put in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

BDST: 2032 HRS, SEP 11, 2014