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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