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,