The facts of Fukushima

What happened at Fukushima?

On 11 March 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, followed by a tsunami that slammed the country’s eastern coast, destroying communities and taking the lives of tens of thousands of people. The event led to the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. It also exposed serious failures in the Japanese system for ensuring the safety of nuclear reactors.

Nuclear crisis timeline

March 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake strikes off the east coast of Japan. A large tsunami follows. External power is lost at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant; back-up generators also go down. Find out how the Fukushima nuclear disaster unfurled.

Nuclear power: dirty, dangerous and expensive

Nuclear reactors are inherently unsafe. As happened after Chernobyl in 1986, the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 again exposed the fundamental flaws of reactors and highlighted the serious institutional failures in the oversight of nuclear safety.

What is radiation?

Radiation is a form of energy. There are several types of radiation: heat, light, microwave and nuclear. The common characteristic of nuclear radiation is that it is so energetic that it can destroy molecules. Heat and sunlight are unable to do such damage.

Renewable energy is the future

Renewable energy is a viable option for replacing the world's dirty, dangerous and terribly expensive nuclear reactors. The nuclear disaster at Fukushima in March 2011 again exposed the inherent dangers of nuclear reactors.

Liability for a nuclear disaster

The nuclear industry has managed to build a system in which they the polluters harvest large profits, while the moment things go wrong; they throw the responsibility for dealing with losses and the costs of damages to the citizens affected by a nuclear disaster.

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