Meltdown: Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima
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Videos
“Fukushima 360: Walk Through a Ghost Town in the Nuclear Disaster Zone.” 3:09 minutes. The Guardian, March 11, 2018.
O’Brien, Miles. “Nuclear Meltdown Disaster.” 54 minutes. Nova, season 42, episode 22, July 29, 2015.
Online resources
Department of Energy. “The DOE Ionizing Radiation Dosages Chart.” https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/01/f46/doe-ionizing -radiation-dose-ranges-jan-2018.pdf.
Department of Energy. “How Does Radiation Affect Humans?” https://ehss.energy.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/intro_9_5.html.
International Atomic Energy Agency. “International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES).” iaea.org/resources/databases/international-nuclear-and-radiological-event-scale.
________. “Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log.” iaea.org/newscenter/news/fukushima-nuclear-accident-update-log-49.
Nuclear Energy Institute. “Fact Sheet: Comparing Fukushima and Chernobyl.” nei.org/resources/fact-sheets/comparing-fukushima-and-chernobyl.
Nuclear Energy Institute. “Nuclear Fuel.” nei.org/fundamentals/nuclear-fuel.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, “Inside Fukushima Daiichi.” tepco.co.jp/en/insidefukushimadaiichi/index-e.html.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, “Treated Water Portal Site.” tepco.co.jp/en/decommission/progress/watertreatment/index-e.html.
United States Navy. “Fact File: USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76).” Naval Vessel Register, nvr.navy.mil/SHIPDETAILS/SHIPSDETAIL_CVN_76_5300.HTML.
QUOTATION AND SOURCE NOTES
Preface
Ryoichi Usuzawa’s story and all quotations: Japan Center of Education for Journalist (JCEJ)
Earthquake
Rotational velocity: Williams
Orbital velocity: NASA Science, Solar System Exploration
Asthenosphere plasticity and tectonic movement: Rafferty
Tectonic plate map: USGS
Rate of movement of the Pacific Plate: Chang
Number of quakes per year in Japan: Reuters, “Factbox”
Frequency of earthquakes at different magnitudes: Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
Slipperiness of the fault at the Japan Trench and predicted potential for large quakes: Powell
Slipperiness of the fault at the Japan Trench and size of the Great Tohoku Earthquake: Zielinski and Ujiie
Length and distance of the rupture: Rafferty
“First everything started to sway”: JCEJ
Correlation between earthquake duration and magnitude: Schulz
“I never experienced”: Fackler, “Powerful Quake”
Seismic waves: Rafferty
Distance of epicenter from Tokyo: FEMA Region IV Interagency Steering Committee
“It began not with a jolt”: Birmingham
“What was scariest”: Fackler, “Powerful Quake”
Speed of P waves: Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Seismic Waves”
Earthquake warning time: Fujinawa
Events at Fukushima Daiichi: Atomic Energy Society of Japan (AESJ) Investigation Committee
Liquefaction effects during Great Tohoku quake: Yamaguchi
“Suddenly everything started”: JCEJ
Chiba city liquefaction: Kooi
Cosmo Oil fire: Cosmo Energy Holdings
Fujinuma dam failure: Pradel
Tohoku quake casualty stats: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Geophysical Data Center
Kobe Earthquake statistics: USGS, “Kobe Earthquake”
Tsunami
Change in rotational speed of Earth: Buis
Stretching of the island of Honshu: Chang
Length and distance of coastline sunk by earthquake: Chang
Sinking of coastline: FEMA Region IV Interagency Steering Committee
Length of fault rupture: Rafferty
Open-water speed of tsunami: Burgess
Tsunami dynamics: NOAA Center for Tsunami Research
Weight of water: National Hurricane Center
Effects of floodwater on humans, cars: National Weather Service
The March 11 tsunami arrival times around the world: National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), “Tsunami Data”
Tsunami-enhancing characteristics of the Sanriku Coast and tendenko: Ishigaki
“Never call out”: JCEJ
“If a big earthquake hits”: JCEJ
A glitch in the earthquake warning system: Japan Meteorological Agency
Events in Ishinomaki: Parry
“As I was crossing”: JCEJ
Events in Fudai: Birmingham
Sounds of the tsunami: NOAA Center for Tsunami Research and JCEJ
Toshikazu Abe’s and Katsuko Takahashi’s stories: JCEJ
Events in Kesennuma: Clancy688
Events at Fukushima Daiichi: Lochbaum
Yukari Kurosawa’s story: JCEJ
Weather data: Weather Underground
Inundation area: Mori
Number of houses destroyed: NCEI, “Tsunami Data”
“We’re all disaster”: JCEJ
Station Blackout
Basic layout of Daiichi: AESJ Investigation Committee
Fission basics: Mahaffey, Nuclear Fission Reactors
Status of reactors: AESJ Investigation Committee
A little more than 2,000 megawatts: IAEA
Number of personnel on-site: National Research Council
Backup systems: AESJ Investigation Committee
Configuration of control rooms: AESJ Investigation Committee
Events during scram: Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)
About two hundred people made a dash for the gates: Independent Investigation Commission (IIC)
“Let us out of here!” IIC
Operator trapped in crane: TEPCO
Kai Watanabe’s story: Birmingham
“When I arrived”: IIC
Description of the emergency response center: “The Yoshida Testimony”
Elevation of reactors: IIC
Height of waves at Daiichi: IAEA
Damage caused by wave: TEPCO
“Just as I thought”: TEPCO
Loss of lights in the control room: TEPCO
Nuclear reactor control rooms: Mahaffey, Nuclear Fission Reactors
Years of commission: Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Decay heat basics: Mahaffey, Nuclear Fission Reactors
Emergency cooling systems: AESJ Investigation Committee
Phone lines down: IIC
Aftershocks and waves after the main event: TEPCO
Assessment and problem-solving: O’Brien
Events at 4:42 and 5:19: AESJ Investigation Committee
Search for batteries: O’Brien
Nuclear reactor vessel basics: Mahaffey, Nuclear Fission Reactors
Lack of response to request from unit 1 operators: O’Brien
Times of meltdown and readings: AESJ Investigation Committee
Operator panics: TEPCO
“We were thrown into confusion”: TEPCO
Meltdown
Number of displaced people: World Health Organization (WHO), Regional Office
Ryoichi Usuzawa and Toshikazu Abe’s stories: JCEJ
“Someone asks you”: JCEJ
Formation of hydrogen gas: O’Brien
Advantages of venting through torus: Lochbaum
“To go into a”: O’Brien
“I’ll never forget”: IIC
Cable-laying operation: IIC
Evacuation order: AESJ Investigation Committee
Number of people affected by first evacuation order: Wald
Noriyo Kimura’s story: Gross
“It was complete chaos”: Funahashi
Events at Futaba Hospital: Lochbaum
Time of venting operation: AESJ Investigation Committee
Description of torus room: TEPCO
Events at 2:00 and 2:30: AESJ Investigation Committee
; Lifting of containment lid: O’Brien
Time of explosion: AESJ Investigation Committee
“[The] windows of the fire truck”: TEPCO
“I was in front”: Funahashi
Evacuation
100,000 atoms in the width of a hair: Goldenberg
Radiation basics: Mahaffey, Radiation
Ionization and molecules: Department of Energy, “How Does Radiation”
Number of atoms in the human body: Clegg
Effects of ionizing radiation, signs of radiation sickness, and definition of “sieverts”: Mahaffey, Radiation
Lethal doses: Department of Energy, “Ionizing Dose Ranges Chart”
Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory: Mahaffey, Nuclear Fission Reactors
Legal radiation exposure limits: Wada
Time, distance, and shielding: Mahaffey, Radiation
Evacuation zone doubled: AESJ Investigation Committee
Worker removing wedding ring: TEPCO
Safety of radiation suits: Mahaffey, Nuclear Fission Reactors and Wada
Alarm pocket dosimeters wiped out: Wada
Operators crouching in control room: TEPCO
Decision to use seawater: O’Brien and Lochbaum
Destruction of fire hoses: AESJ Investigation Committee
Yoshida’s plan to continue pumping seawater: O’Brien
Sequence of events at unit 3: AESJ Investigation Committee
Difficulty of using the HPCI sytem: Lochbaum
Rolling blackouts and more than two thousand bodies: Fackler, “Need Overwhelms Japan”
Help began to trickle in: Fackler, “Death Toll Estimate”
Radioactive Cloud
USS Ronald Reagan relocating to avoid radiation and distance from shore: Martin
1,092 feet long: United States Navy
3,200 crew members: Levine
“You could hardly”: Levine
Radiation readings at 100 miles: Lochbaum
Decontamination procedure: Martin
“All of the sudden”: Levine
“Almost immediately”: Levine
Comparative energy in coal versus uranium: Nuclear Energy Institute
Carbon dioxide emissions from coal: Hong
Half-life basics: Gale
Radiation traveling from reactor: Adalja
Radiation precautions in plants: Mahaffey, Radiation
Operators removing face masks to eat: TEPCO
Increase in legal exposure limit: Lochbaum
Cancer development from radiation: Mahaffey, Radiation
Isotopes close to minerals the body needs: Gale
Chernobyl basics: Gale
INES scale: IAEA
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization map: Broad, “Scientists Project Path”
“We alternated between deploying”: O’Brien
Events surrounding the explosion of unit 3: O’Brien, TEPCO, and AESJ Investigation Committee
“Since there were so many”: O’Brien
“What was happening”: O’Brien
“Everybody was in a daze”: “The Yoshida Testimony”
“We had come to a situation”: “The Yoshida Testimony”
Events at 5:00 and 7:20: AESJ Investigation Committee
Fukushima 50
Confusion over unit 4 explosion: Lochbaum, AESJ Investigation Committee, “The Yoshida Testimony”
Accidental venting of unit 2: O’Brien
Toru Anzai’s story: “Fukushima 360”
Radiation in Iitate at 44.7 mSv: Imanaka
Radiation measurements at the plant’s gates: IAEA, “Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log”
Confusion about evacuation: “The Yoshida Testimony”
“It was like deciding”: Ryūshō
Atsufumi Yoshizawa’s story: McCurry, “Fukushima 50”
“We felt like members”: McCurry, “Fukushima 50”
“We knew that”: McCurry, “Fukushima 50”
Difficulty of reaching the emergency response center: Lochbaum
Half-life of uranium 238: Gale
Safety of handling uranium 238: Mahaffey, Nuclear Fission Reactors
Fuel pool specifications, the procedure for emptying fuel from the Daiichi reactors, and the status of the pools after the earthquake: National Research Council
Radiation levels at 400 mSv an hour: Grier
Almost 900 tons: National Research Council
“We are on the brink”: Tabuchi, “Japan Faces Potential Nuclear Disaster”
Naoto Kan’s evacuation fears: O’Brien
Stay-inside order for people within 19 miles of the plant: Watts
Voluntary evacuations to Yamagata: Fackler, “Radiation Fears”
Turning Point
Evacuation recommended for American embassy workers: McDonald
“Anxiety and anger”: BBC.com
Discovery of reflection on the fuel pools and explanation for unit 4 explosion: O’Brien
Explanation for confusion about unit 2 explosion: AESJ Investigation Committee
Tokyo firefighters and “The plan was to get”: O’Brien
“Little by little”: O’Brien
Power restored: AESJ Investigation Committee
Nine months before shutdown: Wada
Radioactive iodine and cesium in spinach: Osawa
Japanese health ministry ban on shipments: CNN Wire Staff
Katsunobu Sakurai’s story: Fackler, “Japanese City’s Cry”
Relocation of Futaba to school and return visit to Futaba: Funahashi
Lessons
Markers called “tsunami stones” and “Do not build”: Fackler, “Tsunami Warnings”
Murohama shrine: Holguín-Veras
Fudai floodgate: Hosaka
Mini-Manbo: Fackler, “Six Years After”
A kind of normalcy: Rich, “Struggling with Japan’s Nuclear Waste”
Volume of stored water in 2020: Tokyo Electric Power Company, “Treated Water Portal Site”
Contamination of stored water: Rich, “Japan Wants to Dump”
300 tons dumped: Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica
Ice wall: Fackler, “Japan’s $320 Million Gamble”
reactor status in 2020: Tokyo Electric Power Company, “Inside Fukushima Daiichi”
Half-lifes of iodine 131 and cesium 137: Gale
Storage bags for radioactive soil: Rich, “Struggling with Japan’s Nuclear Waste”
Lowering of hillside for plant: Yoshida
Typhoon damage: Matsuo
Dry cask storage: Lochbaum
Japanese nuclear plant closures: Batty
Merkel announcement: Breidthardt
$1.8 million per household: “Nuclear Fugitives Return”
Radiation found in California and Oregon: Zaveri
Commitment to coal: Tanaka
By-products of coal: Mahaffey, Nuclear Fission Reactors
Deaths attributable to coal: Myllyvirta
INES rating: Dvorak
Chernobyl versus Fukushima contamination rate: NEI, “Fact Sheet”
Yoshida’s death: Tabuchi, “Masao Yoshida, Nuclear Engineer”
USS Ronald Reagan lawsuit: Levine
Cancer death: Rich, “In a First”
WHO report: WHO, Health Risk Assessment
UNSCEAR report: UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation
PTSD: WHO, Health Risk Assessment
Difficulty in repopulating: “Nuclear Fugitives Return”
Lifting of Naraha evacuation order: Associated Press
About 2,200 returned to Naraha: Sanders
Okuma reopening: McCurry, “Fukushima Disaster”
Futaba reopening: McCurry, “Japan Lifts Evacuation”
2019 Namie population: “Supermarket Opens in Namie”
Seawall statistics: Lim
More than 47,000 displaced: Watanabe
Tsunami casualty stats: National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and Plet
cher
Okawa Elementary School: “Tsunami-Hit Okawa Elementary”
Natori sculpture: “Memorial Monuments”
Rikuzentakata “miracle pine”: McCurry, “Japanese ‘Miracle’ Pine”
Telephone of the wind: JCEJ and Kono
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I didn’t originally have plans to write a book about the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, but Simon Boughton, then publisher of Roaring Brook Press, suggested that I take it on. Once I started looking into the disaster, I was overwhelmed with curiosity. I live about 15 miles from the Indian Point Energy Center, a nuclear facility that, after the Fukushima quake, was revealed to be the one in the United States most vulnerable to damage from a seismic event. (While nuclear plants in California can be found close to much larger faults, they are earthquake reinforced. Indian Point, which is perched atop an older and far less powerful fault, is not. Indian Point also sits on the Hudson River, an estuary vulnerable to tsunami.) I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about nuclear power generation and its potential impact on the land around it. It’s been nearly five years since that first conversation.Indian Point is now scheduled to be decommissioned in 2021. And researching and writing this book has filled a yawning gap in knowledge for me, for which I am truly grateful.
I was not far into that researching and writing before I realized the staggering complexity of the science behind the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown in Fukushima. I am deeply indebted to the generous readers who reviewed the manuscript and gave me the benefit of their expertise.
Lita and Dave Judge were extraordinarily generous in introducing me to Frederick S. Rogers, PhD, Professor of Geology and Environmental Science at Franklin Pierce University, who reviewed the information on the geology behind the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Eileen Shaughnessy Downey, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at University of Richmond, was kind enough to offer her insights on chemistry. She is not only an intelligent and methodical reader but also the best stand partner a violinist could ever ask for. Isaac Langeland, Missile Technician First Class in the U.S. Navy, gave the benefit of his training in radiation protocols and shipboard mechanics. It’s not every day that you get schooled on ionization by your little brother, so thank you for that. Jim Ottaviani, nuclear engineer and graphic novelist extraordinaire, set my mind at ease about my descriptions of the workings of a nuclear reactor. It turns out that he is not only a ridiculously talented graphic novelist with master’s degrees in nuclear engineering AND library science—he’s also a pretty fantastic editor.