![]() ![]() This in itself has caused mental strain and evacuation-related deaths, according to reports. Around 150,000 people living nearby the damaged reactors were evacuated because of the threat of radioactivity. The nuclear disaster at Fukushima has also caused a great deal of human suffering, much of which will continue to unfold in the years to come. Damage also cost the national economy hundreds of billions of dollars. More than 19,000 people were killed, and 465,000 were evacuated. ![]() The earthquake and the tsunami that followed caused a humanitarian disaster in Japan. © KIMIMASA MAYAMA/POOL/epa/Corbis The human impact ![]() , Japan - A Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s staff measures radiation dose as workers construct an ice wall to freeze highly toxic water at tsunami-crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma, Japan, 09 July 2014. Radioactive water also leaked into the Pacific ocean. Radiation was subsequently released into the environment over the coming days, both on purpose and by accident, as radioactive steam was released into the air, either through leaks or in an attempt to reduce the rising pressure.įurther radiation was released by explosions caused by the release of hydrogen in the four days following the tsunami. One by one, the three reactors lost their ability to cool, which caused the nuclear fuel to melt. The batteries that were supposed to provide power in the case of a blackout were also rendered inoperable by flooding. When the tsunami hit, these were inundated with water, and could no longer operate. These were located in the basement of the turbine buildings, while the sea pumps required to cool them were located just four metres above sea level. With its reactors shut down, and the grid connection damaged, the Fukushima plant had to rely on backup diesel generators. To cool many types of nuclear reactor, you need power. Experts are still uncertain where the melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima has gone. Failure to do this means that the nuclear fuel can melt and, in a worst-case scenario, burn through the containment vessel and subsequent barriers, releasing radiation to the outside world. The central challenge was keeping the reactors cool. The sequence of events that took place over the following days would leave a scar on Japan’s people, environment and climate policies that is still present today. The fact that Fukushima was obviously ill-equipped to withstand a force of this nature has led some experts to conclude that the nuclear meltdown that followed was preventable. ![]() Ma– Fukushima, Japan – This handout photo released by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) shows the tsunami coming onto the slope at the eastern side of Radioactive Solid Waste Storage Facility (the east side of Unit5 taken from the southern side of the unit) at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011. The Sandai-jitsuroku is an historical Japanese text that contains the following passage: It has a long history of dealing with earthquakes. Japan is located in one of the most seismic areas in the world. The result was the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl accident in 1986 in what is now Ukraine. This was what happened at the eight reactors sited at the Daini, Onagawa and Tokai plants, which were able to access the back-up power needed to run the cooling process.Īt Fukushima Daiichi, however, the process failed. But to avoid nuclear meltdown, it is imperative that the reactor is kept cool in the first day or so after the reaction has stopped taking place. Even after a plant has shut down it continues to produce “decay heat”, which amounts to 6-7% of the heat power produced by a fully operating plant. Daiichi’s three other units were not in operation at the time, with the fourth reactor down for refuelling.Īll the units shut down automatically when the quake hit - but this is not enough to stop a plant from generating heat. These were the four reactors at Fukushima Daini, three reactors at Onagawa, one reactor at Tokai, and three reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. When the earthquake hit, there were 11 reactors operating at four nuclear power plants in the affected Miyagi region. The impact of Fukushima on the nuclear industry was severe, in Japan and beyond. The disaster took place just as some nations were considering the idea of a “nuclear renaissance”. The movement was so severe that the country moved a few metres east, the local coastline dropped, and it triggered a tsunami which killed thousands of people.īut what many people outside Japan remember is the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant (hereafter just ‘Fukushima’), which released a plume of radiation into the surrounding area and ocean. Five years ago, on 11 March 2011, a large region of Japan was shaken for three minutes by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. ![]()
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