And given Japan's complicated past with nuclear issues, it is especially surprising that Japan now has such a highly developed civilian nuclear power program, the third largest in the world after those of the United States and France. Yet, we are haunted by the specter of our nuclear past. Events at Chernobyl were exacerbated by the lack of a steel containment dome, which all of the reactors at Fukushima have, and a reactor design that allowed the nuclear chain reaction to continue in spite of the loss of coolant. ![]() The controlled reaction that powered the Fukushima reactors has already stopped, making such concerns moot.Īlthough the disaster at Fukushima I is the only disaster to share the worst rating on the International Nuclear Events scale, best estimates place the radiation release at 10% of that at Chernobyl. Happily, neither Hiroshima nor Chernobyl would be replicated at Fukushima Daiichi-prevented by both the reactor designs and the laws of physics.Īn atomic bomb requires a rapid, uncontrolled chain reaction of fission, but the design of Japan's nuclear reactors precludes such a cataclysmic scenario. Whereas terms like meltdown are abstract, mention of Chernobyl (1986) and Hiroshima (1945) bring to mind human suffering from real events. As subsequent hydrogen explosions ripped through the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, many watching uttered two words: Chernobyl and Hiroshima.įew words in the collective vocabulary elicit more fear. Although the town was mostly abandoned, the nation and the world saw the blast on television. But it was a human-made disaster at the nearby nuclear power plants that made Fukushima residents flee.Īmong the few who remained to hear the explosion were those too stubborn to leave their homes and the pet akitas and huskies reluctantly left behind by their fleeing owners. ![]() ![]() The day before, the earth and then the sea turned against the towns in twin disasters that leveled homes and businesses, strewed debris across lawns and fields, and tore chasms through the asphalt streets. On March 12, 2011, an explosion rocked the towns of Futaba and Okuma in Fukushima, Japan, but few were there to hear it.
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