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Fukushima disaster essay
Fukushima disaster
Fukushima Daiichi power plant destruction
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The convergence of three separate disasters in Fukushima Prefecture – earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis – is not only inimitable in terms of its magnitude and complication, but also about the complex interaction of health problems to which it may have given birth. The major Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake of 1995 that ultimately resulted in the deaths of over 6,000 people showed that in Japan disasters can affect separate population groups with varying severity and that the senior population are markedly vulnerable. For many villages, such as Iitate in Fukushima Prefecture, May 2011 was the last chance to attain information on the health of the inhabitants before the enactment of a compulsory governmental evacuation order at the end of
Humans feel a need to transcend boundaries even if the consequences are numerous. A prime example of this is found in Chapter 1 of Visit Sunny Chernobyl. The engineers exceed the safety limits of the reactors to understand what will happen, and the results of disregarding the limits were catastrophic. Another excellent example is in Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh and Enkidu overreach the periphery of the gods, and the result of their actions is the death of Enkidu. Consequences always follow pushing boundaries, but humans never stop exceeding perimeters.
Energy is undoubtedly one of the most important issues facing the world today. While fossil fuels may produce enough energy at a low cost, it also has severe environmental impacts on the world. Wind energy is a clean source, but is also extremely expensive to maintain. Nuclear energy may be the best energy alternative to coals and oil, with the ability to produce much more energy with relatively low cost, while also being more environmentally sound.
Countless engineering disasters have occurred in this world, many civilians lost their lives due to corrupted constructions. The most fatal and deadly engineering disaster that took place in our history was the Chernobyl disaster. The Chernobyl catastrophe was a nuclear setback that happened at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in on April 26, 1986. It is seen as the most recognizable terrible nuclear power plant cataclysm ever. A nuclear crisis in one of the reactors caused a fire that sent a cluster of radioactive consequence that on the long run spread all over Europe.
TOHOKU, Japan, Friday, Mar. 11 -Yesterday, a 9.0 magnitude Earthquake struck the east of Tohoku, Japan. The epicentre of the earthquake was located approximately 72 km east of Tohoku (38.3 degrees North latitude and 142.4 degrees East longitude), or 130 km east of Sendai as shown by the X in figure 3 below. The focus of the earthquake was 24.4 km under the epicentre. The earthquake therefore caused a tsunami due to the displacing of water above the Pacific Plate. The earthquake and tsunami together have caused approximately 20,000 deaths, 6152 injuries and 2500 people missing. Approximately 90% of these deaths were by drowning. Approximately 140,000 people have been displaced and over 500,000 buildings and structures have been destroyed or damaged. The early warning system of Japan stopped many bullet trains, and many residents received texted warnings of the earthquake and tsunami on their mobile phones giving them time to evacuate. Figures 1 and 2 show exactly how destructive the tsunami caused by the Tohoku Earthquake was.
The Chernobyl meltdown was one the biggest meltdowns of the decade, the implications of Chernobyl didn’t just resonate in Russia, but the uranium contamination was found all across Europe. Sheep farmers from North Cumbria were affected by the radiation contamination. After the contamination, scientists came to help the farmers who were affected. Our presentation on the article also discussed the broader implications for the public understanding of science and how the deficit model failed in the article. The deficit model was used to discuss the problems with science and the lay people. The public’s negative attitude towards science is because of their ignorance towards it and the remedy was to dumb down the information to the lay people. This article discusses how both science and the lay people were misunderstanding each other. This was through miscommunication and standard view of the public understanding of science which lead to people to initially trust everything the scientists would say.
Hazards pose risk to everyone. Our acceptance of the risks associated with hazards dictates where and how we live. As humans, we accept a certain amount of risk when choosing to live our daily lives. From time to time, a hazard becomes an emergent situation. Tornadoes in the Midwest, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast or earthquakes in California are all hazards that residents in those regions accept and live with. This paper will examine one hazard that caused a disaster requiring a response from emergency management personnel. Specifically, the hazard more closely examined here is an earthquake. With the recent twenty year anniversary covered by many media outlets, the January 17, 1994, Northridge, California earthquake to date is the most expensive earthquake in American history.
I. (Gain Attention and Interest): March 11, 2011. 2:45 pm. Operations at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant continued as usual. At 2:46 pm a massive 9.0 earthquake strikes the island of Japan. All nuclear reactors on the island shut down automatically as a response to the earthquake. At Fukushima, emergency procedures are automatically enabled to shut down reactors and cool spent nuclear fuel before it melts-down in a catastrophic explosion. The situation seems under control, emergency diesel generators located in the basement of the plant activate and workers breathe a sigh of relief that the reactors are stabilizing. Then 41 minutes later at 3:27 pm the unthinkable occurs. As workers monitored the situation from within the plant, citizens from the adjacent town ran from the coastline as a 49 foot tsunami approached. The tsunami came swiftly and flooded the coastline situated Fukushima plant. Emergency generators were destroyed and cooling systems failed. Within hours, a chain of events led to an explosion of reactor 1 of the plant. One by one in the subsequent days reactors 2, and 3 suffered similar fates as explosions destroyed containment cases and the structures surrounding the reactors (Fukushima Accident). Intense amount...
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion in 1986 is arguably the worst industrial accident in history, but there has been comparatively very little disclosure of its consequences. This was a disaster predominantly kept quiet by the Soviet government; the victims were lied to about the dangers of the radioactivity and the seriousness of the consequences were kept to a minimum. Svetlana Alexievich was one of the few people who managed to expose the truth through her book Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster. There have also been a multitude of documentaries centered on the disaster, however, with different approaches, than Alexievich, in informing viewers. *Alexievich wrote Voices from Chernobyl with the intent to
Humans were a victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident which affected their lifestyle and their health. People of Chernobyl were evacuated to clean and safe areas. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2006), there were 116 000 people who were evacuated from Chernobyl region to other safe areas in the summe...
The dangerousness of earthquakes are rated from one to ten. One being you aren’t able to feel it and ten being VERY powerful. There was a deadly earthquake, almost no one survived. A deadly 7.2 earthquake occurred in the Central Philippines. All signs and clues pointed to the East Bohol Fault. A 6 rated earthquake that happened before, injured 300 people and caused a tsunami. But the 7.2 earthquake didn’t cause any tsunami. All of the dangerous earthquakes damaged ports, schools and airports; even a hospital collapsed killing at least 18 people. Children were injured in stampedes at two sports complexes while others rushed to the exits. Five people were killed in a earthquake - triggered landslide. People respond to a natural disaster by gathering resources, spreading the word, and government help.
There is a range of safety concerns in regards to nuclear power with one of these being the effects of radiation resulting from a nuclear accident. Research shows that there is a link between exposure to radiation and the development of cancer (Zakaib 2011) whist Preston (2012) express’s concerns that people exposed to radiation may not be able to see the effects of radiation exposure for several years as was the case in Chernobyl. Furthermore, people are unable to move back into the vicinity of reactors that have been involved in an incident due to their fear of radiation as is the chase in Fukishima (Cyranoski & Brumfiel 2011) and in the areas surrounding Chernobyl (Berton 2006). Governments are increasingly becoming more stringent in the levels of radiation in which people are exposed to with this evident in Fukishma, where the Japanese government evacuated people living within a 30km radius of the plant (Evacuation Orders and Restricted Areas n.d.). As a result of nuclear accidents and the resulting radiation, support for nuclear power has diminished due to safety concerns.
mental degradation. The mass production of goods, in manufacturing industries, more so has led to a lot of pollutants being released into the atmosphere. These pollutants continue to degrade the environment. There are several forms of pollutions that continue to be heavily experienced as a result of the activities of Multi-National Corporations. The two most adverse types of pollution are water pollution and air pollution. They affect a lot of the systems that are in play.
While the early warning saved thousands of people, the Japan’s Meteorological Agency underestimated this earthquake as the subduction zone of Japan should not produce the magnitude 9.0 quake (Oskin, 2013a). The Tohoku Earthquake and its tsunami approximately killed 16 thousand people, injured 6 thousand people and around 3 thousand people were missing. Most people died from drowning. Around 300 thousand buildings, 4000 roads, 78 bridges, and many more were affected by the earthquake, tsunami, and fires from leaking oils and gas. Electricity, telecommunication, and railways were severely damaged. The debris of 25 million tons was generated and carried out to the sea by water (BBC News, 2012). The country’s authorities estimated more than 309 billion US dollars of damages. Landslides occurred in Miyagi and liquefaction in Chiba, Tokyo, Odaiba, and Urayasu (USGS, 2013). Furthermore, the tsunami destroyed protective tsunami seawalls. Approximately 217 square miles of Japan covered in water (Oskin,
Some people had heard the warning and hurried to the nearest mountain they saw. People in Samoa, America Samoa and Tonga lost their homes, some still have missing family members, villages were entirely damaged, they had contaminated water and there was no food to eat. The combination of Samoa and America Samoa were homeless because there was not a single building that was not unharmed by the quake and Tsunami. There were 862 buildings that were demolished, 14 schools that needed rebuilding and 5274 people lost their homes. Men and women waited for a long time before they could go back to work, children remained as well before they could go back to school and learn.
The death toll climbs to over 10,000 and is still rising (Branigan 2). The disaster in Japan began without warning on Friday March 11, 2011 at 2:46pm with a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in the country (Fackler 3). A massive thirty-three foot high tsunami, generated by the earthquake, swept over lands in northern Japan, taking objects and debris with it. To make matters worse, the tsunami caused the cooling systems at several nuclear power plants to fail. The disaster in Japan was a tragic event, and it had a plethora of causes and effects.