TOKYO, Japan (AP) — A panel investigating Japan’s nuclear disaster said yesterday that the ex-prime minister and his aides caused confusion at the height of last year’s crisis by heavily interfering in the damaged and leaking plant’s operation.

Shuya Nomura, a member of the parliamentary panel, said that Naoto Kan’s aides made numerous calls to the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, often asking basic questions and distracting workers, thus causing more confusion.

They did not follow the official line of communication — through the regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency — under the country’s nuclear disaster management law, he said.

“They asked questions that were often inappropriate and very basic, unnecessarily causing more work in addition to the operation at the site,” he said.

During the crisis, Kan and his ministers said that the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, hardly provided any information as workers desperately tried to prevent the reactors exploding, forcing them to go out of their way and ask.

The panel, which has power to issue subpoenas, also revealed yesterday that TEPCO considered evacuating all but 10 workers, but Kan ordered them to keep working.