Download or read book Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety of U S Nuclear Plants written by National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants and published by National Academy Press. This book was released on 2014-10-29 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami sparked a humanitarian disaster in northeastern Japan. They were responsible for more than 15,900 deaths and 2,600 missing persons as well as physical infrastructure damages exceeding $200 billion. The earthquake and tsunami also initiated a severe nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Three of the six reactors at the plant sustained severe core damage and released hydrogen and radioactive materials. Explosion of the released hydrogen damaged three reactor buildings and impeded onsite emergency response efforts. The accident prompted widespread evacuations of local populations, large economic losses, and the eventual shutdown of all nuclear power plants in Japan. "Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants" is a study of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. This report examines the causes of the crisis, the performance of safety systems at the plant, and the responses of its operators following the earthquake and tsunami. The report then considers the lessons that can be learned and their implications for U.S. safety and storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste, commercial nuclear reactor safety and security regulations, and design improvements. "Lessons Learned" makes recommendations to improve plant systems, resources, and operator training to enable effective ad hoc responses to severe accidents. This report's recommendations to incorporate modern risk concepts into safety regulations and improve the nuclear safety culture will help the industry prepare for events that could challenge the design of plant structures and lead to a loss of critical safety functions. In providing a broad-scope, high-level examination of the accident, "Lessons Learned" is meant to complement earlier evaluations by industry and regulators. This in-depth review will be an essential resource for the nuclear power industry, policy makers, and anyone interested in the state of U.S. preparedness and response in the face of crisis situations.

Download or read book Japan after 3 11 written by Pradyumna P. Karan and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On March 11, 2011, an underwater earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, Japan, triggered one of the most devastating tsunamis of a generation. The aftermath was overwhelming: communities were reduced to rubble, thousands of people were missing or dead, and relief organizations struggled to reach affected areas to provide aid for survivors and victims of radiation from compromised nuclear reactors. In Japan after 3/11, editors Pradyumna P. Karan and Unryu Suganuma assemble geographers, economists, humanists, and scientists to consider the complex economic, physical, and social impacts of this heartbreaking disaster. Historical geographers place the events of March 2011 in context, while other contributors assess the damage and recommend strategies for the long process of reclamation and rebuilding. The book also includes interviews with victims that explore the social implications of radioactive contamination and invite comparisons to the discrimination faced by survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Balancing the natural and social sciences, this timely volume offers not only a model of interdisciplinary research for scholars but also an invaluable guide to the planning and implementation of reconstruction.

Download or read book The Earth Writes written by Koichi Haga and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-16 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book extensively analyzes the literary works of fiction that draw on the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami that occurred on March 11, 2011. This disaster inspired literally hundreds of fictional works in Japan from the time of the events through 2017. This response represents a unique and perhaps unprecedented cultural phenomenon in the world. Since a variety of writers in different genres, and even amateurs, have written and published books inspired by their experiences of the disaster, it is extremely difficult to cover the entire body of Japanese “post-3.11 literature”. Because of the breadth of this literary response, there is a scarcity of research on the subject available. This book offers the first comprehensive review of Japan’s recent post-disaster literary production to the English audience.

Download or read book The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster written by School of Societal Safety Sciences and published by Butterworth-Heinemann. This book was released on 2017-10-26 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster: A Review of the Five-Year Reconstruction Efforts covers the outcome of the response, five years later, to the disasters associated with the Great East Japan earthquake on March 11, 2011. The 3.11 disaster, as it is referred to in Japan, was a complex accident, the likes of which humans had never faced before. This book evaluates the actions taken during and after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident, for which the Japanese government and people were not prepared. The book also provides recommendations for preparing and responding to disasters for those working and living in disaster-prone areas, making it a vital resource for disaster managers and government agencies. Includes guidelines for governments, communities and businesses in areas where similar complex disasters are likely to occur Provides information, propositions, suggestions and advice from the people that were involved in making suggestions to the Japanese government Features case studies (both pre- and post-disaster) of three simultaneous disasters: the Great East Japan earthquake, the resulting tsunami, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster

Download or read book Learning from Megadisasters written by Federica Ranghieri and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2014-06-26 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While not all natural disasters can be avoided, their impact on a population can be mitigated through effective planning and preparedness. These are the lessons to be learned from Japan's own megadisaster: the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, the fi rst disaster ever recorded that included an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear power plant accident, a power supply failure, and a large-scale disruption of supply chains. It is a sad fact that poor communities are often hardest hit and take the longest to recover from disaster. Disaster risk management (DRM) should therefore be taken into account as a major development challenge, and countries must shift from a tradition of response to a culture of prevention and resilience. Learning from Megadisasters: Lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake consolidates a set of 36 Knowledge Notes, research results of a joint study undertaken by the Government of Japan and the World Bank. These notes highlight key lessons learned in seven DRM thematic clusters—structural measures; nonstructural measures; emergency response; reconstruction planning; hazard and risk information and decision making; the economics of disaster risk, risk management, and risk fi nancing; and recovery and relocation. Aimed at sharing Japanese cutting-edge knowledge with practitioners and decision makers, this book provides valuable guidance to other disaster-prone countries for mainstreaming DRM in their development policies and weathering their own natural disasters.

Download or read book The Extraordinary Voyage of Kamome written by Lori Dengler and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweet story, intended for lower elementary grades, is intended to provide a window for discussing earthquakes, tsunamis, marine debris, preparedness and cultural awareness in the classroom and within families. On April 7, 2013, a little over two years after the magnitude 9 Tohoku-oki Japan earthquake triggered a massive tsunami off the coast of northeastern Japan, a lone boat washed up on the shores of Crescent City, California. The confirmation of the boat as belonging to a high school in Rikuzentakata was first step in an amazing story that has linked two tsunami-vulnerable communities on opposite sides of the Pacific and initiated friendships between high school students in Rikuzentakata.

Download or read book Black Wave written by Daniel P. Aldrich and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-07-10 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the devastation caused by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 60-foot tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, some 96% of those living and working in the most disaster-stricken region of Tōhoku made it through. Smaller earthquakes and tsunamis have killed far more people in nearby China and India. What accounts for the exceptionally high survival rate? And why is it that some towns and cities in the Tōhoku region have built back more quickly than others? Black Wave illuminates two critical factors that had a direct influence on why survival rates varied so much across the Tōhoku region following the 3/11 disasters and why the rebuilding process has also not moved in lockstep across the region. Individuals and communities with stronger networks and better governance, Daniel P. Aldrich shows, had higher survival rates and accelerated recoveries. Less-connected communities with fewer such ties faced harder recovery processes and lower survival rates. Beyond the individual and neighborhood levels of survival and recovery, the rebuilding process has varied greatly, as some towns and cities have sought to work independently on rebuilding plans, ignoring recommendations from the national government and moving quickly to institute their own visions, while others have followed the guidelines offered by Tokyo-based bureaucrats for economic development and rebuilding.

Download or read book The Era of Great Disasters written by Makoto Iokibe and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-09-25 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Era of Great Disasters examines modern disaster response in Japan, from the changing earthquake preparations and regulations, to immediate emergency procedures from the national, prefectural, and city levels, and finally the evolving efforts of rebuilding and preparing for the next great disaster in the hopes of minimizing their tragic effects. This book focuses on three major earthquakes from Japan’s modern history. The first is the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, which struck the capital region. The second is the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, affecting the area between Kobe and Osaka. The third is the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the magnitude 9.0 quake that struck off the Pacific coast of the Tōhoku region, causing a devastating tsunami and nuclear accident. While the events of (and around) each of these earthquakes are unique, Professor Iokibe brings his deep expertise and personal experience to each disaster, unveiling not only the disasters themselves but the humanity underneath. In each case, he gives attention and gratitude to those who labored to save lives and restore the communities affected, from the individuals on the scene to government officials and military personnel and emergency responders, in the hope that we might learn from the past and move forward with greater wisdom, knowledge, and common purpose.

Download or read book 3 11 written by Richard J. Samuels and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On March 11, 2011, Japan was struck by the shockwaves of a 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake originating less than 50 miles off its eastern coastline. The most powerful earthquake to have hit Japan in recorded history, it produced a devastating tsunami with waves reaching heights of over 130 feet that in turn caused an unprecedented multireactor meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This triple catastrophe claimed almost 20,000 lives, destroyed whole towns, and will ultimately cost hundreds of billions of dollars for reconstruction.In 3.11, Richard Samuels offers the first broad scholarly assessment of the disaster's impact on Japan's government and society. The events of March 2011 occurred after two decades of social and economic malaise—as well as considerable political and administrative dysfunction at both the national and local levels—and resulted in national soul-searching. Political reformers saw in the tragedy cause for hope: an opportunity for Japan to remake itself. Samuels explores Japan's post-earthquake actions in three key sectors: national security, energy policy, and local governance. For some reformers, 3.11 was a warning for Japan to overhaul its priorities and political processes. For others, it was a once-in-a-millennium event; they cautioned that while national policy could be improved, dramatic changes would be counterproductive. Still others declared that the catastrophe demonstrated the need to return to an idealized past and rebuild what has been lost to modernity and globalization.Samuels chronicles the battles among these perspectives and analyzes various attempts to mobilize popular support by political entrepreneurs who repeatedly invoked three powerfully affective themes: leadership, community, and vulnerability. Assessing reformers’ successes and failures as they used the catastrophe to push their particular agendas—and by examining the earthquake and its aftermath alongside prior disasters in Japan, China, and the United States—Samuels outlines Japan’s rhetoric of crisis and shows how it has come to define post-3.11 politics and public policy.

Download or read book East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Evacuation Communication Education and Volunteerism written by and published by Research Publishing Service. This book was released on 2012 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Tohoku Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 written by Gary Chock and published by ASCE Publications. This book was released on 2013 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sponsored by the Structural Engineering Institute of ASCE. On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. local time, the Great East Japan Earthquake with moment magnitude 9.0 generated a tsunami of unprecedented height and spatial extent along the northeast coast of the main island of Honshu. The Japanese government estimated that more than 250,000 buildings either collapsed or partially collapsed predominantly from the tsunami. The tsunami spread destruction inland for several kilometers, inundating an area of 525 square kilometers, or 207 square miles. About a month after the tsunami, ASCE?s Structural Engineering Institute sent a Tsunami Reconnaissance Team to Tohoku, Japan, to investigate and document the performance of buildings and other structures affected by the tsunami. For more than two weeks, the team examined nearly every town and city that suffered significant tsunami damage, focusing on buildings, bridges, and coastal protective structures within the inundation zone along the northeast coast region of Honshu. This report presents the sequence of tsunami warning and evacuation, tsunami flow velocities, and debris loading. The authors describe the performance, types of failure, and scour effects for a variety of structures: buildings, including low-rise and residential structuresrailway and roadway bridgesseawalls and tsunami barriers breakwaterspiers, quays, and wharvesstorage tanks, towers, and cranes. Additional chapters analyze failure modes utilizing detailed field data collection and describe economic impacts and initial recovery efforts. Each chapter is plentifully illustrated with photographs and contains a summary of findings. For structural engineers, the observations and analysis in this report provide critical information for designing buildings, bridges, and other structures that can withstand the effects of tsunami inundation.

Download or read book Ghosts of the Tsunami written by Richard Lloyd Parry and published by MCD. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of the best books of 2017 by The Guardian, NPR, GQ, The Economist, Bookforum, Amazon, and Lit Hub The definitive account of what happened, why, and above all how it felt, when catastrophe hit Japan—by the Japan correspondent of The Times (London) and author of People Who Eat Darkness On March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than eighteen thousand people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned. It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways. Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo and spent six years reporting from the disaster zone. There he encountered stories of ghosts and hauntings, and met a priest who exorcised the spirits of the dead. And he found himself drawn back again and again to a village that had suffered the greatest loss of all, a community tormented by unbearable mysteries of its own. What really happened to the local children as they waited in the schoolyard in the moments before the tsunami? Why did their teachers not evacuate them to safety? And why was the unbearable truth being so stubbornly covered up? Ghosts of the Tsunami is a soon-to-be classic intimate account of an epic tragedy, told through the accounts of those who lived through it. It tells the story of how a nation faced a catastrophe, and the struggle to find consolation in the ruins.

Download or read book Tohoku Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 written by Lesley Ewing and published by Amer Society of Civil Engineers. This book was released on 2013 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sponsored by the Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute of ASCE; Port and Airport Research Institute of Japan. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake rumbled off the east coast of Japan, followed by a tsunami that generated waves more than 18 meters high. The earthquake and tsunami caused devastation throughout the Tohoku and Sendai regions of Japan, killing nearly 16,000 people and causing damage estimated at more than US$126 billion. For seven days in May 2011, an ASCE/COPRI Coastal Structures Team investigated the earthquake and tsunami effects specific to engineered coastal structures, coastal landforms, and coastal processes in northeast Japan. Joined by colleagues from Japan?s Port and Airport Research Institute, the survey team observed five categories of coastal protection structures: coastal dikes, tsunami seawalls, floodwater gates, breakwaters, and vegetated greenbelts. This report provides background to the field investigation, including an event summary, the tectonic and geologic setting, and the generation, propagation, and runup of the tsunami. It then describes 11 mechanisms causing damage or failure and includes photographs illustrating the effects each mechanism. Finally, the report presents lessons learned regarding what worked and what didn?t and how this knowledge can be used to engineer against future natural disasters. For coastal engineers, structural engineers, geotechnical engineers, and disaster risk managers, the observations and analysis in this report provide critical information for engineering infrastructure that withstands major earthquake and tsunami events.

Download or read book Extreme Natural Hazards Disaster Risks and Societal Implications written by Alik Ismail-Zadeh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-17 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique interdisciplinary approach to disaster risk research, including global hazards and case-studies, for researchers, graduate students and professionals.

Download or read book The Phone Booth in Mr Hirota s Garden written by Heather Smith and published by Orca Book Publishers. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ★ “Smith spins a quietly moving narrative...Wada’s large-scale woodblock style illustrations are a perfect complement to the story’s restrained text...The graceful way in which this book handles a sensitive and serious subject makes it a first purchase."—School Library Journal When the tsunami destroyed Makio's village, Makio lost his father . . . and his voice. The entire village is silenced by grief, and the young child's anger at the ocean grows. Then one day his neighbor, Mr. Hirota, begins a mysterious project—building a phone booth in his garden. At first Makio is puzzled; the phone isn't connected to anything. It just sits there, unable to ring. But as more and more villagers are drawn to the phone booth, its purpose becomes clear to Makio: the disconnected phone is connecting people to their lost loved ones. Makio calls to the sea to return what it has taken from him and ultimately finds his voice and solace in a phone that carries words on the wind. The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota's Garden is inspired by the true story of the wind phone in Otsuchi, Japan, which was created by artist Itaru Sasaki. He built the phone booth so he could speak to his cousin who had passed, saying, "My thoughts couldn't be relayed over a regular phone line, I wanted them to be carried on the wind." The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the town of Otsuchi, claiming 10 percent of the population. Residents of Otsuchi and pilgrims from other affected communities have been traveling to the wind phone since the tsunami.

Download or read book Japanzu Suri Irevun Dizasuta Azu Shin Furomu Hiroshima a Maruchidisapurinari Apurochi written by and published by 創英社/三省堂書店. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 世界は東日本大震災に震撼した。「ヒロシマ・ナガサキの国」日本で起きた甚大な原発事故という「想定外」の悲劇は、国内外にパラダイム・シフトを迫る。本書は、放射能による破壊と復興の地・ヒロシマに在住の14名の研究者たちが、東日本大震災が露わにしたものを、それぞれの知見に基づき英語で提示した、学際的な論考集である。3/11以後の2年を、いま、ヒロシマから世界へ問う―。

Download or read book Learning from Megadisasters written by Federica Ranghieri and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2014-06-26 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) was the first disaster ever recorded that included an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear power plant accident, a power supply failure, and a large-scale disruption of supply chains. This volume is part of a larger knowledge-sharing project sponsored by the World Bank and the government of Japan that collects and analyses information, data, and evaluations performed by academic and research institutions, nongovernmental organisations, government agencies, and the private sector - all with the objective of sharing Japan's knowledge on disaster risk management (DRM) and postdisaster reconstruction with countries vulnerable to disasters so they can mainstream DRM in their development policies and planning. Other countries can protect themselves from major disasters by adopting - and adapting as necessary - some of the measures taken by Japan, and by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Japan's response to the GEJE.