Japan suffered a tragic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in March 2011, which devastated the landscape of the country, as well as claiming the lives of thousands of people and displacing the homes of many more. While the earthquake and tsunami were obviously avoidable, there remains questions to this day in terms of the nuclear disaster that they ultimately resulted in.
The failure of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on 11 March 2011 occurred when the Tōhoku earthquake struck off the coast of Japan on the same day. As the 9.0 magnitude earthquake occurred undersea, it resulted in a series of massive tsunami waves which struck the plant, causing a meltdown of three of the plant’s six nuclear reactors.
Significant amounts of radioactive materials were releases by the plant as a result of the meltdown, and despite the efforts to clean up the fallout, the process will take many years to complete, costing the Japanese government and the plant owners millions. Contaminated water and leaks into the sea are among the most concerning realities of the situation and continue to be a concern well into 2014.
From our point of view, the disaster poses significant limitations in the current economic and political models in terms of their ability to effectively deal with huge geological events and their appetite to make tough safety decision in advance of disasters to prevent them from happening in the first place.
To break the point down to it’s central core, current models are based upon the generation of wealth and the surety of military defence, so it could be argued that the majority of human activity is directed towards those agendas to such an extent that it excludes sufficient activity to protect against crisis. For example, the choice to build the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which threatened so many lives during the disaster, will undoubtedly have been driven by the greater economic efficiencies of nuclear power over other options. If money were no object, would governments still continue to use volatile and dangerous materials in energy production? Especially in an area described geologically as the ring of fire.
Another good example would be Japan’s defence budget. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Japan was ranked fourth in the world in 2004/2005, spending $42.1 billion on defence (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_budget_of_Japan for more information). When you compare the country’s loss of life to invasion or war to it’s loss of live due to the volatility of plate tectonics in the Pacific Ocean, the numbers just don’t add up.
While there is no taking back the events of the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011, it is now time to turn to dealing with the issue. The hope at the time was that economic considerations wouldn’t diminish government aid to those affected by the disaster, although recent criticism from a Japanese governor would seem to indicate its possibility (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12763273 for more details). The other big question will be how much the Japanese government learns from the disaster its people have suffered and what changes it will make to prevent future incidents.
