The most recent nuclear catastrophe occurred as the result of a 9.0 magnitude earthquake which caused a 50-ft tsunami. The wave struck and overflowed the 33-ft high seawall of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan on March 11th, 2011. Radioactive material began to be released the following day[1]. A chemical reaction between the floodwater and the zircaloy reactor components produced highly volatile hydrogen gas. An explosion in Reactor 1 occurred on March 12th due to the ignition of the hydrogen gas and similar explosions took place in Reactors 3 and 2 on the 14th and 15th of March, respectively. The video below explains the timeline of the catastrophe in greater detail.
None of the nearly 16,000 casualties caused by the earthquake and tsunami can be credited to short term radiation exposure[2]. Because of the quick response of the government to evacuate the area, residents were exposed to very low and often undetectable levels of radiation[3].
(Composed by Dan Kervick, Edited by Ivan Basurto)
References
- Eric Talmadge (1 July 2011). “AP: First 24 hours shaped Japan nuke crisis”. Google.com. Retrieved 13 July 2011.
- Japan Earthquake – Tsunami Fast Facts, CNN, 2014-02-20, retrieved 2014-04-06 Archived October 31, 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- “Global report on Fukushima nuclear accident details health risks”. Archived from the original on 2014-04-12. Retrieved 28 April 2014.