Bytes

-----------ooOoo-----------

March 11, 2011:

Tsunami, Fukushima nuclear plant accident, Japan.

On 11 March 2011 the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan happened off the country's eastern coast. The 9.0-magnitude quake was so forceful it shifted the Earth off its axis. It triggered a tsunami which swept over Japan's main island of Honshu, killing more than 18,000 people and wiping entire towns off the map.

A boat sits atop a building in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami which devastated a vast area of northeastern Pacific coast of Japan

At the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the gigantic wave surged over coastal defences and flooded the reactors, sparking a major disaster. Authorities set up an exclusion zone which grew larger and larger as radiation leaked from the plant, forcing more than 150,000 people to evacuate from the area.

More than a decade later, that zone remains in place and many residents have not returned. Authorities believe it will take up to 40 years to finish the work of decontamination, which has already cost Japan trillions of yen.

The accident was rated seven (the maximum severity) on the International Nuclear Event Scale by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. It is regarded as the worst nuclear incident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which was also rated a seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

Despite this, there were no deaths caused by acute radiation syndrome. Given the uncertain health effects of low-dose radiation, cancer deaths cannot be ruled out.  However, studies by the World Health Organisation and Tokyo University have shown that no discernible increase in the rate of cancer deaths is expected. Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged in the academic literature from none to hundreds.

-----------ooOoo-----------