On march 11, 2011, a massive 9.0 earth quake hit off the eastern Japanese shore. Moments after the earthquake a series of Tsunamis hit killing more then 20,000 people. The problems for the Japanese did not stop there. As the earthquake hit all nuclear plants followed protocol and shut down the plants by dropping control rods into the fuel rods. The control rods absorb neutrons, which end the chain reaction of fission. All plants were shut down properly.
There was only one plant that had a “melt down” which was the Fukushima plant. This melt down was not due to faulty systems or human error but was due to the loss of 12 of the 13 generators pumping water in and out of the reactors. The tsunami took out the majority of the generators supplying power to the water pumps keeping the reactors fuel rods cool and in a stable state. Without the water-cooling the fuel rods broke spewing hot radioactive products uncontrollably within the steel casing creating a melt down. With the large amount of heat being expelled from these broken radioactive rods was so water began to be broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen. The explosion at one of the reactors was do to hydrogen explosion.
Teams of experts worked around the clock risking their lives to control the radiation and preventing further destruction of the reactors. The melt down forced 80,000 surrounding residents to relocate. It was the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. This disaster left a bad taste about nuclear power in a lot of peoples mouths. The government down played the severity of the incident making people loose trust in the government, nuclear power, and the significant clean up that had to be done.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24949
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/japan/index.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-disaster_n_1240907.html