Fukushima was not a second Chernobyl

During the last three weeks I have been researching the topic of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster a lot and I found out many things. When I picked this topic for my blog, I expected the effects of the nuclear meltdown to be much more dramatic than they actually were. To be honest, I didn't know very much about the topic as I had never researched it before and just new what I heard in the news and at school. However, I learned a bit about the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl and back then, the effects were dramatic. The city is still polluted and deserted, some people died and a lot have suffered major injuries and illnesses.
When the nuclear disaster happened there was a lot of discussion in the media and everyone wondered if we have "another Chernobyl" coming towards us. Some rumours even said that we have to be prepared for the radioactive air to come to Europe. However, even though Fukushima is described as the "biggest nuclear disaster after Chernobyl" there seems to be a pretty big gap between the two accidents. The following picture describes the caesium-137 levels around Chernobyl and Fukushima. We can see that the levels are partly the same, however much less strongly present and over a much smaller area.

http://blogs.nature.com/news/files/2012/02/Fukushima-Chernobyl-large.jpg

While I was reading articles and watching videos about the earthquake and the following nuclear meltdown I found out that the situation was not that dramatic after all. During the earthquakes and the tsunami, a lot of buildings were destroyed and some people died but not because of the nuclear meltdown. Also looking at the figures of radioactive pollution in the sea, land and air of Japan, I found out that the damage was not that big and the percentage of radioactive werde almost normal.
The probably most important reason of why the damage could have been kept so minor compared to Chernobyl was the fact that people were much more educated this time than they were 30 years ago. When the eathquakes and the tsunami hit, the possibility of a nuclear meltdown was clear to the scientists and the evacution process started quickly. This way, the biggest damage could be avoided.

Number of nuclear power plants in European countries
http://www.finfacts.ie/artman/uploads/3/Nuclear-power-Europe_dec112009.jpg

In many European countries such as Germany, nuclear power plants are still in use and people started protesting against them after what happened in Fukushima. There have been huge demostrations against nuclear power and some of them have actually been shut down. Some countries that thought about re-opening their closed power plants changed their plans after what happened in Fukushima and the public got scared. Disasters like nuclear meltdowns often create an awareness amongst the public about problems that are often forgotten about. The topic of nuclear power, it's benefits and the dangers it brings is still a broadly discussed topic and it sure will be for the following years.

Fukushima 2012

19 months have passed since Japan was victim of one of the biggest natural and nuclear distasters in the last years. After the distaster happened, a lot of work had to be done regarding the reconstruction of the whole infrastructure. Next to the visible destruction, the japanese society had to cope with the unknown effects of the nuclear meltdown and fear of what the future might bring. During the last week I did research on how the situation in Japan is today, after the people have returned to their everyday life.

The probably most obvious effect the catastrophy had was destruction of buildings ans street. After the danger was over and the people could safely return to their villages, the first thing to find out was if they still had a home to return to. Many houses were destroyed and people who have been evacuated had been living in crowded public buildings and shelters for weeks. When they finally were allowed to go back to their homes, most of them were only able to grab some personal belongings from the destroyed buildings.
This short video shows the situation in Ishinomaki as the inhabitants return to the village:

People were scared of the future and most of them still didn't know if or when they could return home. One year after the evacuation process started, over 80,000 citizens still lived in shelters, waiting for their houses to be rebuilt but most of them will never see that happen.

Another problem that came with the reconstruction work was that many families were seperated due to work and living conditions. Many women and children moved to bigger cities where they had better chances of finding a new home and food. Most of the men, however, returned to their villages to help rebuild their former houses or build new ones to provide a new home for their families to return to. The government provided temporary shelter but space was rare and people had to live together very closely for months.

The disaster also added to problems that already existed before, such as the steadily falling birth rate in Japan. Most young couples do not think about starting a family if they do not even have home and food for themselves. In addition, concerns about radiation levels and the knowledge about what happened to the babies that were born after the chernobyl meltdown caused worries amongst the society.

The triple disaster, how it is called, also hat a huge impact on the tourism in the Fukishima Prefection. Most of the beach resorts along the coast were partly or entirely destroyed by the tsunami and the earth quakes. In addition, many tourists cancelled their flights because they were afraid of radiation in the area. According to the Dhaka Courier, arrivals in April 2011 were 62% lower than in the year before. Luckily, however, Japan recovered quite fast from this throwback. By January, the decrease of arrivals only amounted to 4,5% and the numbers are increasing.

Sources: The Ecologist, io9.com, Dhaka Courier

Many Unanswered Questions

As it often happens with events like the Fukushima Nuclear Desaster, there is a lot of uncertainty. Nuclear power is not a topic that everyone is familiar with and while it seemed clear that something was happening, nobody could really say how serious the situation is. I remember listening to the news and waiting for new information. The information we got was vague and not very convincing. It seemed to change all the time and where we heard at one point that the wind might cause the radio-active air to even reach Europe, some hours later the news were totally different and it was said that there might not even be severe damage for the japanese population.
Besides not knowing the effects of the nuclear meltdown, it is importnat to know what happened in the Daiichi power plants in the first place.
After several earthquakes and a tsunami-wave the cooling system of the nuclear power plant fell out. This short video explains in detail what happened inside the reactor.

 

The second, even more unknown part of the Fukushima desaster is the effects the meltdown actually had on the environment. While many speculations were made and many scientists did research on the topic, a lot of different theories were made. The problem here is that they differ a lot from each other so it is still not clear how big the damage on the environment really is. 

Here are some of the environmental changes associated with nuclear radiation I found:

• In seawater around Japan, the levels of the two caesium isotopes Cs-134 and Cs-137 were measured  up to 1000 times higher than before the 11 March tsunami disaster. They have been found in an area of the Pacific Ocean covering 150,000 square kilometres. 
• Many people worried that the radionuclides could affect the marine biotica. It has to be known that there are natural radionuclides present in the environment. Measurements around the coast of Japan after the the nuclear meltdown have shown, that the marine organisms showed more natural than artificial radionuclides. 
• Studies also have shown that swimming in the "radioactive" ocean is completely harmless. The dose of radiocative substances is about the daily dose of an average Japanese person. 
• Other sources state that there were severe damages found with butterflies in the second and third generation after the release of radioactive material in the environment.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of different studies about the effects and the exact consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown. Depending on who to believe, the meltdown had different effects on the environment. However, having searched a few different sources I now see that the effects of the environment seem to be in general less severe than I had them expected to be. It seems as tough illnesses and other health issues like they happened after the Chernobyl desaster could have been prevented this time.

Sources:
Mark Lynas,  Nature.com,

The biggest nuclear disaster since 1986

In march 2011 several earthquakes as well as a 15-metre tsunami wave originated what is often described as the biggest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Within a few days three cores of nuclear plant melted, causing high radioactive releases. According to the World Nuclear Association, the accident was rated  7 on the INES scale, which is the maximum rate, due to the high releases.

I chose to write about this topic because I personally remembered hearing about it on the news and it really moved me. I have always been interested in the nuclear catastrophy that happened in Chernobyl because it faszinates me how something so small can cause such big damage. When the accident happened, it was a big topic in my country and I followed the news to see what was happening. Even tough there was nobody killed or otherwise affected by the radiation, the nature sure did suffer. Both the land and sea was destroyed and venomed by radiation and several animals and fish suffered.

While writing this blog I want to dig deeper into the topic and find out how the situation in Fukushima is now after one and a half years and which effects the nuclear catastrophy had on the people's life, the environment and tourism as well. 

The topic was in the news for quite a time but came out of focus soon. What is bothering me is that a lot of people forgot about the problems of this area as soon as they were not publicly discussed any more. Right after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophy a lot of clean up work had to be done. Houses had to be rebuilt, entire cities were destroyed, families had to be brought together. However, there was also long-term damaged done and this is often forgotten. The effects radiation had on the earth and sea caused many farmers and fishermen to loose their jobs and be forced to find a new one. In the following weeks I will find out more about those effects of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima.

Burning nuclear reactors in Fukushima. Picture taken from: http://www.micarox.com/fukushima1.jpg