In 2011, tectonic activity caused a(n) ________ that damaged the fukushima nuclear power plant.

Measuring disasters

• Explain the causes and impacts of any one recent human-induced hazard event or disaster

This case study looks at the disaster of the meltdown at Fukushima Nuclear Power Station March 2011. This disaster was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986; it remains one of only two Category 7 nuclear accidents.

Nuclear power - technically non-renewable because it relies on uranium which is a finite resource, but renewable in the sense that it can be refined and processed and used again several times before it is depleted; also, the reserves of uranium would last thousands of years into the future 
INES - The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale

Source for maps: http://www.voanews.com/content/new-leak-found-at-japans-fukushima-nuclear-plant/1732983.html

Population of country: 127,103,388 (July 2014 est.) GDP per capita: $37,100 (2013 est.) (ranked 36th in the world)Capital city: Tokyo Land area: 377,915 sq km Japan is one of the richest countries in the world. Though it has had a failing economy since the 1990s with very low growth rates, it remains energy poor - it has no sizable reserves of fossil fuels and much of its energy comes from nuclear power. The population pyramid to the right shows the typical elderly population of a high income country.

Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html

The Fukushima disaster occurred due to a strong tsunami that itself was caused by one of the strongest recorded earthquakes. The tsunami inundated (swamped) the nuclear power plant which had been designed to withstand a smaller natural hazard event.

Background to nuclear accidents
Though serious accidents are rare, nuclear accidents do occur frequently around the world. The graphic below shows the severity of nuclear accidents; the full list can be seen here. Note that the graphic was created less than three days after the Fukushima accident, before it had been upscaled to level 7.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/14/nuclear-power-plant-accidents-list-rank

The diagram below shows the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. The levels consider three aspects:

• People and the environment (impact on health and people)
• Radiological barriers and control (the success of prevention methods)
• Defence in depth (the level of intervention needed to respond)

Source: http://www-ns.iaea.org/tech-areas/emergency/ines.asp

 Source: http://blog.thomsonreuters.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/japan-anniversary.jpg

The video below is a long but powerful documentary about the nuclear disaster.

Short term reponses

Specific to the nuclear accident: On March 14th, 200 members of the special units, were mobilized to inject water to the plant’s cooling systems There were no deaths or injuries directly caused by the accident itself (workers later died in on-site accidents during clean up, however) Entry was prohibited for an area 20km around the site According to this website, 154000 were evacuated in total, including 109000 from the immediate area around the reactor There have been around 1000 deaths from the evacuation. This includes the long term effects of stress on elderly people, and accidents caused by rapid movement of large numbers of people.

The evacuation zones: Source: http://www.reconstruction.go.jp/english/topics/2013/03/the-status-in-fukushima.html

Source: http://blog.thomsonreuters.com/index.php/tag/fukushima-daiichi/

Long term responses and impacts

The following impacts are sourced from Al Jazeera and other news websites:

• Japan abandoned its plans to get 60 percent of its energy from nuclear sources by 2100
  
• Japan shut down all 54 of its nuclear reactors (restarting some in November 2014)
  
• Germany decided to shut down all its nuclear plants in the following eight years
  
• 6000 workers involved in the cleanup
• Clean up cost US$15bn and is likely to take a total of 40 years
• Every day, 400 tonnes of groundwater is used to keep the reactors cool; though much is stored in tanks, some escapes into the sea - in the first three years, 500,000 tonnes of contaminated water were produced and stored in more than 1,000 tanks 

• The plan to avoid this is to build an 'ice wall' to prevent further escape through the soil, but this has had major problems in construction, and it has been suggested that the contamination will not be entirely stopped in any case
• After three years, 120,000 evacuees were still without permanent accommodation