Tohoku-Fukushima 3-1111
Philip C. Brown
Department of History
The Ohio State University
Precipitating Event
3-11-2011
14:46: M9 Quake
15:27: 1st Tsunami hits
Fukushima Dai-ichi
3:35 PM 14 m. wave topped
seawalls, destroyed heatremoval seawater pumps, burst
turbine building doors,
submerging all power control
panels
Tsunami defense design
How to
remove
water?
Maximum design basis: 5.7m. The plant “out of harms way at 10m (30
ft) on a hill nonetheless water flooded the reactor building’s 1st
floor.
Event Sequence
Evacuation
Zones
Partial
Radiation
⑤
④
①
②
③
⑥
Displaced 150,000(government’s
count)
About 100,000 are still scattered
nationally, some in temporary
housing units and others in
government-allocated apartment
buildings hundreds of kilometers
away (May 2016)
Sept. 2015: W/in 20 km zone “OK”
Japan Never
implements
Radiation Reduction
Disposal of Radioactive
Materials
Remove and store contaminated
soil/solids
No cement enclosures
On-site storage of water’
Ice Wall
Leak
Radiation
Concerns
High level radiation
Released radiation generally much shorter half-life than Chernobyl
Largely plant workers: onsite at time of accident, cleanup (contract;
older)
Most Highly Debated in Public
Thyroid tumors in children thyroid (by 2015, 16 children; 2016: +14); four
years to manifest?
Most Uncertain
long-term impacts of low level radiation
Much still under, or in need of more investigation: water impacts,
fish, animal & plant impacts
Environmental
Consequences
Investigated
Macacs
Insect varieties
Fish (limited)
Less well investigated
Ocean life impact
Some concern about coral reefs
Radioactivity levels in Pacific
Human evacuation
Safe to return?
Many people still do not trust the government
Pre-existing aversion/sensitivity to risk
Slow and often inaccurate information over first weeks of
the incident.
Gov’t-contesting information sources:
Internet activity leads
Home-made dosimeters, communication information
French warnings to its citizens to leave long pre-dated
Japanese evacuation
US readings suggested need for much wider evacuation
zones than Japan implemented
Information Problems
Self-imposed “Limits” to government openness
Limited independent expertise
Naoto Kan (P.M.) Press interview
TEPCO President
Limited non-commercial expertise?
Do-it-yourself dosimeters and the Internet
International Coverage
Largely based on Japanese Government Data (corporate
sources)
Effective mining by reporters, international experts, but
limited access to Japanese sources (most of English
literature that I have seen)
Critical experts
Popular input from Japan: doubts, criticism
Some Rough Comparisons
Fukushima
Chernobyl
Environmental context
Coastal/Mt.; prevailing wind patterns
Landlocked, relatively limited
variation in altitude; prevailing wind
patterns
Environmental Sources of Disaster
Tsunami & Pesky vermin: homo (non)sapiens
Pesky vermin: homo (non-)sapiens
Implications of non-human
environmental conditions
Ocean contamination; Risk to the
East greater than Chernobyl
Land contamination; risk to the West
greater than Fukushima
Radiation threat levels (relative)
Very high
Highest known
Relatively limited exposure to high
levels
Higher exposure to high levels
Key concern: low dose impacts
Combination low/high dose
Radiation leaks continue (ground
water)
Presently controlled
Major Radiation Vectors
Air, Water
Air, particulates
Food safety
Gov’t asserts safety in parts of
Fukushima (main focus, agriculture)
Restrictions remain substantial
Cover-up & lies
Yes
Yes
NPP Remediation
Store water; control ground water
“Entomb”
Role of Information Access at time of
Meltdown
Internet; dosimeter construction &
citizen measurements
More government dependent?
Literature: General
Much of science lit.: based on gov’t data by people
without Japanese language capacity
Much of English writing on the accident
One of better: Lochbaum, Lyman, Stranahan (Pulitzer
Prize winning coverage of Three Mile Island),
Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster, 2014
Some on interviews with small numbers of local
people
Sample of Japan
Specialist Literature
Fast anthropology:
Gill, Steger and Slater, Japan Copes with Calamity:
Ethnographies of the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear
Disasters of March 2011, 2013
Political Science:
Daniel Aldrich, Building Resilience: Social Capital in PostDisaster Recovery, 2012
Richard Samuels, 3.11 Disaster and Change in Japan,
2013
Mixed Japan
specialist/non-specialist
Teach311. http://teach311.org
Multilingual resources for “disaster studies” (Arabic,
Bahasa, Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean)
The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus: http://apjjf.org/
Thanks for your
Attention