It’s an immense canvas that you’ve written and sketched out of what happened. The first attempts to put in place the emergency measures, reading manuals by battery light, just the human drama. The blackout, as you mentioned, where there was no electricity. Literally an hour by hour accounting from the moment the plant was hit by the tsunami, of the initial hours, the struggle of the workers to understand what had happened. There’s a focus on individuals inside the plant and out. On this episode of the Brookings Cafeteria, Brookings Press Director Bill Finan interviews Yoichi Funabashi, author of “ Meltdown: Inside the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis.” Funabashi, an award-winning Japanese journalist, columnist, and author, and now chairman of Asia Pacific Initiative, interviewed more than 300 government officials, power plant operators, and military personnel to provide a meticulous recounting and analysis of the struggle at all levels to contain the disaster.Ĭo-founder and Chairman - Asia Pacific InitiativeįINAN: … I want to tell listeners that your book is a tour de force of what happened at Fukushima. As the author of a new book from the Brookings Institution Press writes, failures at all levels of Japan’s government and private sector worsened the human and economic impact of the disaster and ensured that its consequences would endure for years to come. 10.March 2021 marks ten years since an earthquake off Japan’s Pacific Coast and the tsunami it caused led to reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to melt down, releasing radiation and forcing the government to evacuate over 100,000 residents in surrounding areas.9.5 Reconstruction and Revitalization from the Accident.9.4 Activities in Areas under Evacuation Orders.Chapter 9 Efforts toward Recovery from the Accident.8.1 Measures for Radioactive Materials in Foods.Chapter 8 Radioactive Materials in Foods.7.9 Deposition of Other Radioactive Materials.7.7 Radiation Monitoring of Public Water Areas.7.6 Radiation Monitoring of Clean Water.7.2 Deposition of Radioactive Cesium and Radioactive Iodine.7.1 Spatiotemporal Distribution of Ambient Dose Rates.Chapter 7 Environmental Radiation Monitoring.6.3 Efforts and Progress for Decommissioning.6.1 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) Accident.Chapter 6 Situation concerning the Accident.5.1 WHO Reports and UNSCEAR 2013 Report.Chapter 5 Assessments by International Organizations.4.1 Principles of Radiological Protection.Chapter 4 Concept of Radiological Protection.3.3 Deterministic Effects (Tissue Reactions).3.2 Mechanism of Causing Effects on Human Body.Included in this reference material on March 31, 2013.1, "Half-lives and Radioactive Decay," and p.30 of Vol. Plutonium-239 and the like derived from the accident at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi NPS have also been detected, but detected amounts are almost equal to the results of the measurement conducted all over Japan before the accident ( p.49 of Vol. In a nuclear plant accident, Strontium-90 is also produced as a result of nuclear fission, though smaller in quantity than Cesium-134 and Cesium-137. Since it does not emit γ-rays, it is not as easy as in the case of Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 to detect where and how much it exists in the body. Strontium-90 has a long physical half-life, and once it enters the body, it accumulates in bones because of its chemical properties similar to calcium. The biological half-lives of cesium and iodine vary depending on the age of the person, and are known to become shorter, the younger the person is. Since radioactive cesium has similar chemical properties to potassium, it will be distributed throughout the body, like potassium. Cesium-137 has a long physical half-life of 30 years and continues to contaminate the environment for a long time. Two types of radioactive cesium, Cesium-134 and Cesium-137, are the major causes of contamination due to nuclear plant accidents. ![]() If this happens, the thyroid will continue to be locally exposed to β-particles and γ-rays for a while. Iodine-131 has a short physical half-life of about 8 days, but once it enters the body, 10-30% will accumulate in the thyroid ( p.127 of Vol. 1, "Comparison of Estimated Amounts of Released Radionuclides between the Chernobyl NPS Accident and the TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi NPS Accidents"). ![]() While various other materials were also released, they are known to have shorter half-lives than these four types or have been released in negligible amounts ( p.32 of Vol. Four types of radioactive materials, Iodine-131, Cesium-134, Cesium-137, and Strontium-90, are the major concerns in relation to health and environmental effects of radioactive materials released into the environment due to the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)'s Fukushima Daiichi NPS.
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