The nuclear disaster was a series of unfortunate events that occured at the Fukushima I Nuclear power plant propelled by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in March of 2011. It was the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and the second to measure a level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Such an event should have been predicted and planned for, although officials found gaps in the plants safety procedures. Even though there was a natural disaster that fueled this unfortunate situation, this event was ruled as a man-made disaster since it could have been prevented.

Chairman Kiyoshi Kurokawa stated, “Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.”

The Tepco Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco. They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. The main problems were deficiencies in their regulatory and organizational systems and the lack of developing basic safety requirements. This was not caused by the incompetency of any one individual, but rather, the whole organization, “Had there been a higher level of knowledge, training, and equipment inspection related to severe accidents, and had there been specific instructions given to the on-site workers concerning the state of emergency within the necessary time frame, a more effective accident response would have been possible…Sections in the diagrams of the severe accident instruction manual were missing.”

Safety procedures that could have been taken to prevent a disaster in case of an emergency, like the tsunami:

• Protecting emergency power supplies, including diesel generators and batteries, by moving them to higher ground or by placing them in watertight bunkers
• Establishing watertight connections between emergency power supplies and key safety systems
• Enhancing the protection of seawater pumps and/or constructing a backup means to dissipate heat

The total release from the entire Fukushima disaster, in terms of Cesium-137(which along with strontium-90 are the two primary substances preventing Chernobyl being inhabited), is approximately 1.5 × 10¹⁶ becquerels (Bq) of Cesium-137 released.

Becquerel (Bq)

• One disintegration per second of a radioactive material, also defined as “The activity of a quantity of a radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second.”

The cleanup operation will take decades and may cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18718486

http://carnegieendowment.org/files/fukushima.pdf

The Severity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster: Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima