Fukushima

The was a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant that began on 11 March 2011 and resulted in a nuclear meltdown of three of the plant’s six nuclear reactors. The failure occurred when the plant was hit by a tsunami that had been triggered by the magnitude 9.0 Tōhoku earthquake. The following day, 12 March, substantial amounts of radioactive material began to be released, creating the largest nuclear incident since the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 and the largest (after Chernobyl) to measure Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (initially releasing an estimated 10–30% of the earlier incident’s radiation). In August 2013, it was stated that the significant amount of radioactive water was among the most pressing problems affecting the cleanup process, which is expected to take decades. There have been continued spills of contaminated water at the plant, and some into the sea. Plant workers are trying to lower the leaks using measures such as building chemical underground walls, but they have not yet improved the situation significantly. Nonetheless, to keep the matter in perspective, the entire release of radioactivity into the sea will add less than 0.01% to the background radiation. Although no fatalities due to short-term radiation exposure were reported, some 300,000 people evacuated the area; 15,884 (as of 10 February 2014) people died due to the earthquake and tsunami; and, as of August 2013, approximately 1,600 deaths were related to the evacuation or its consequences (such as living in temporary housing and hospital closures). The exact cause of the majority of these evacuation-related deaths were unspecified because that would hinder the deceased relatives’ application for financial compensation. The World Health Organization indicated that evacuees were exposed to so little radiation that radiation-induced health impacts are likely to be below detectable levels, and that any additional cancer risk from radiation was small—extremely small, for the most part—and chiefly limited to those living closest to the nuclear power plant. A 2013 WHO report predicts that for populations that would have stayed and lived in the most affected areas, and according to the (disputed) LNT hypothesis, there would have been a 70% higher risk of developing thyroid cancer for girls exposed as infants (but experts said the overall risk was small: the radiation exposure means about 1.25 out of every 100 girls in the area could develop thyroid cancer over their lifetime, instead of the natural rate of about 0.75 percent), a 7% higher risk of leukemia in males exposed as infants, a 6% higher risk of breast cancer in females exposed as infants and a 4% higher risk, overall, of developing solid cancers for females. The World Health Organization stated that a 2013 thyroid ultrasound screening program was, due to the screening effect, likely to lead to an increase in recorded thyroid cases due to early detection of non-symptomatic disease cases. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission found the nuclear disaster was “manmade” and that its direct causes were all foreseeable. The report also found that the plant was incapable of withstanding the earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO, regulators Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and NSC and the government body promoting the nuclear power industry (METI), all failed to meet the most basic safety requirements, such as assessing the probability of damage, preparing for containing collateral damage from such a disaster, and developing evacuation plans. A separate study found that Japanese plants operated by the largest utility companies were particularly unprotected against potential tsunamis.