Download or read book Japan s 2011 Natural Disaster and Nuclear Meltdown written by Myra Immell and published by Greenhaven Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This enthralling volume helps readers explore the events surrounding Japan's 2011 natural disasters and nuclear meltdown. Controversies, such as whether or not Japan was prepared for these events, are reviewed. Personal narratives of people who were impacted by these events are also shared. Readers will be intrigued by the description of a Tokyo businesswoman stranded by the earthquake. Essayist Izumi Nakano describes what it was like to return to a devastated Japan. This book is a must-have for understanding what the Japanese people experienced.
Download or read book Meltdown written by Fred Bortz and published by Twenty-First Century Books ™. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan. March 11, 2011. 2:46 P.M. The biggest earthquake in Japan's history—and one of the world's five most powerful since 1900—devastated the Tohoku region, 320 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Tokyo. It triggered a huge tsunami that left crippling damage in its wake. More than 13,000 people drowned, and thousands of buildings and homes were reduced to rubble. As people assessed the damage, they made the most frightening discovery of all: the Fukushima #1 nuclear power plant was seriously damaged and three of its six reactors were heading for meltdowns. Workers tried desperately—but unsuccessfully—to save them. Explosions and fires released radioactivity into the air. Within days the Japanese government declared a 20-kilometer (12-mile) evacuation zone. The future of the plant, the long-term health of those exposed to radiation, and the effects on the environment remained uncertain. Learn more about this massive catastrophe as Dr. Fred Bortz examines both the human tragedy and the scientific implications of the nuclear meltdown. Compare this disaster to similar nuclear events in the United States and in Ukraine, and move ahead with Dr. Bortz as he explores the global debate about the future of nuclear power and alternative sources of energy.
Download or read book Meltdown Earthquake Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima written by Deirdre Langeland and published by Roaring Brook Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deirdre Langeland's Meltdown explores for middle grade readers the harrowing story of the deadly earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that caused the 2011 Fukushima power plant disaster On March 11, 2011, the largest earthquake ever measured in Japan occurred off the northeast coast. It triggered a tsunami with a wall of water 128 feet high. The tsunami damaged the nuclear power plant in Fukushima triggering the nightmare scenario--a nuclear meltdown. For six days, employees at the plant worked to contain the meltdown and disaster workers scoured the surrounding flooded area for survivors. This book examines the science behind such a massive disaster and looks back at the people who experienced an unprecedented trifecta of destruction.
Download or read book Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan written by Jeff Kingston and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan plunged the country into a state of crisis. As the nation struggled to recover from a record breaking magnitude 9 earthquake and a tsunami that was as high as thirty-eight meters in some places, news trickled out that Fukushima had experienced meltdowns in three reactors. These tragic catastrophes claimed some 20,000 lives, initially displacing some 500,000 people and overwhelming Japan's formidable disaster preparedness. This book brings together the analysis and insights of a group of distinguished experts on Japan to examine what happened, how various institutions and actors responded and what lessons can be drawn from Japan’s disaster. The contributors, many of whom experienced the disaster first hand, assess the wide-ranging repercussions of this catastrophe and how it is already reshaping Japanese culture, politics, energy policy, and urban planning.
Download or read book Law and Disaster written by Shigenori Matsui and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the 11th of March 2011, an earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale (the most powerful to ever strike Japan) hit the Tohoku region in northern Japan. The earthquake produced a devastating tsunami that wiped out coastal cities and towns, leaving 18,561 people dead or registered as missing. Due to the disaster, the capability of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), was compromised, causing nuclear meltdown. The hydrogen blast destroyed the facilities, resulting in a spread of radioactive materials, and, subsequently, serious nuclear contamination. This combined event – earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown – became known as the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster. This book examines the response of the Japanese government to the disaster, and its attempts to answer the legal questions posed by the combination of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. Japanese law, policy, and infrastructure were insufficiently prepared for these disasters, and the country’s weaknesses were brutally exposed. This book analyses these failings, and discusses what Japan, and other countries, can learn from these events.
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 Fukushima written by David Lochbaum and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A gripping, suspenseful page-turner” (Kirkus Reviews) with a “fast-paced, detailed narrative that moves like a thriller” (International Business Times), Fukushima teams two leading experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists, David Lochbaum and Edwin Lyman, with award-winning journalist Susan Q. Stranahan to give us the first definitive account of the 2011 disaster that led to the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. Four years have passed since the day the world watched in horror as an earthquake large enough to shift the Earth's axis by several inches sent a massive tsunami toward the Japanese coast and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing the reactors' safety systems to fail and explosions to reduce concrete and steel buildings to rubble. Even as the consequences of the 2011 disaster continue to exact their terrible price on the people of Japan and on the world, Fukushima addresses the grim questions at the heart of the nuclear debate: could a similar catastrophe happen again, and—most important of all—how can such a crisis be averted?
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 Meltdown written by Yoichi Funabashi and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The human drama, and long-term lessons, of the Fukushima nuclear disaster The Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 presented an enormous challenge even to Japan, one of the world's most advanced and organized countries. Failures at all levels—of both the government and the private sector—worsened the human and economic impact of the disaster and ensured that the consequences would continue for many years to come. Based on interviews with more than 300 government officials, power plant operators, and military personnel during the years since the disaster, Meltdown is a meticulous recounting and analysis of the human stories behind the response to the Fukushima disaster. While the people battling to deal with the crisis at the site of the power plant were risking their lives, the government at the highest levels in Tokyo was in disarray and the utility company that operated the plants seemed focused more on power struggles with the government than on dealing with the crisis. The author, one of Japan's most eminent journalists, provides an unrivaled chronological account of the immediate two weeks of human struggle to contain man-made technology that was overwhelmed by nature. Yoichi Funabashi gives insights into why Japan's decisionmaking process failed almost as dramatically as had the Fukushima nuclear reactors, which went into meltdown following a major tsunami. Funabashi uses the Fukushima experience to draw lessons on leadership, governance, disaster resilience, and crisis management—lessons that have universal application and pertinence for an increasingly technology-driven and interconnected global society.
Download or read book Fukushima written by Mark Willacy and published by Macmillan Publishers Aus.. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 11 March 2011, Japan was rocked by the most violent earthquake in her history and one of the largest ever recorded. The quake itself was just the start of a chain of disastrous events, creating a massive tsunami that slammed the shores of north eastern Japan. Close to 20,000 people were killed or disappeared under waves that reached more than 40 metres high as they smashed their way several kilometres inland. Yet the greatest damage was caused when the tsunami surged over the seawall of Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station, resulting in a multiple core meltdown that released vast quantities of radioactivity into the atmosphere and ocean. At one stage it even threatened the evacuation and irradiation of Tokyo itself, which would have spelt the end of Japan as we know it. Fukushima is the incredible story behind the twin catastrophes of the tsunami and nuclear meltdown, seen through the eyes of witnesses and victims - from former prime minister Naoto Kan, the plant director and senior engineers of Fukushima Dai-Ichi, the elite firefighters who risked their lives to avert the ultimate nuclear nightmare, to the mother excavating the wreckage as she looked for her daughter's remains.
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 March Was Made of Yarn written by Elmer Luke and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In time for the one year anniversary of the 2011 earthquake in Japan, a collection of essays and stories by Japanese writers on the devastating disaster, its aftermath, and the resolve of a people to rebuild. On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake occurred off the northeastern coast of Japan, triggering a 50-foot tsunami that crushed everything in its path—highways, airports, villages, trains, and buses—leaving death and destruction behind, and causing a major radiation leak from five nuclear plants. Here eighteen writers give us their trenchant observations and emotional responses to such a tragedy, in what is a fascinating, enigmatic and poignant collection.
Download or read book Human Security and Japan s Triple Disaster written by Paul Bacon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-27 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan has been one of the most important international sponsors of human security, yet the concept has hitherto not been considered relevant to the Japanese domestic context. This book applies the human security approach to the specific case of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that struck Japan on 11 March 2011, which has come to be known as Japan's ‘triple disaster’. This left more than 15,000 people dead and was the most expensive natural disaster in recorded history. The book identifies the many different forms of human insecurity that were produced or exacerbated within Japan by the triple disaster. Each chapter adds to the contemporary literature by identifying the vulnerability of Japanese social groups and communities, and examining how they collectively seek to prevent, respond to and recover from disaster. Emphasis is given to analysis of the more encouraging signs of human empowerment that have occurred. Contributors draw on a wide range of perspectives, from disciplines such as: disaster studies, environmental studies, gender studies, international relations, Japanese studies, philosophy and sociology. In considering this Japanese case study in detail, the book demonstrates to researchers, postgraduate students, policy makers and practitioners how the concept of human security can be practically applied at a policy level to the domestic affairs of developed countries, countering the tendency to regard human security as exclusively for developing states.
Download or read book Re imagining Japan after Fukushima written by Tamaki Mihic and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster (collectively referred to as ‘3.11’, the date of the earthquake), had a lasting impact on Japan’s identity and global image. In its immediate aftermath, mainstream media presented the country as a disciplined, resilient and composed nation, united in the face of a natural disaster. However, 3.11 also drew worldwide attention to the negative aspects of Japanese government and society, thought to have caused the unresolved situation at Fukushima. Spurred by heightened emotions following the triple disaster, the Japanese became increasingly polarised between these two views of how to represent themselves. How did literature and popular culture respond to this dilemma? Re-imagining Japan after Fukushima attempts to answer that question by analysing how Japan was portrayed in post-3.11 fiction. Texts are selected from the Japanese, English and French languages, and the portrayals are also compared with those from non-fiction discourse. This book argues that cultural responses to 3.11 had a significant role to play in re-imagining Japan after Fukushima.
Download or read book Legacies of Fukushima written by Kyle Cleveland and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was an unlikely convergence of events. A 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the largest in Japanese memory and the fourth largest recorded in world history; a tsunami that peaked at forty meters, devastating the seaboard of northeastern Japan; three reactors in meltdown at the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima; experts in disarray and suffering victims young and old. It was, as well, an unlikely convergence of legacies. Submerged traumas resurfaced and communities long accustomed to living quietly with hazards suddenly were heard. New legacies of disaster were handed down, unfolding slowly for generations to come. The defining disaster of contemporary Japanese history still goes by many different names: The Great East Japan Earthquake; the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami; the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster; the 3.11 Triple Disaster. Each name represents a struggle to place the disaster on a map and fix a date to a timeline. But within each of these names hides a combination of disasters and legacies that converged on March 11, 2011, before veering away in all directions: to the past, to the future, across a nation, and around the world. Which pathways from the past will continue, which pathways ended with 3.11, and how are these legacies entangled? Legacies of Fukushima places these questions front and center. The authors collected here contextualize 3.11 as a disaster with a long period of premonition and an uncertain future. The volume employs a critical disaster studies approach, and the authors are drawn from the realms of journalism and academia, science policy and citizen science, activism and governance—and they come from East Asia, America, and Europe. 3.11 is a Japanese legacy with global impact, and the authors and their methods reflect this diversity of experience. Contributors: Sean Bonner, Azby Brown, Kyle Cleveland, Martin Fackler, Robert Jacobs, Paul Jobin, Kohta Juraku, Tatsuhiro Kamisato, Jeff Kingston, William J. Kinsella, Scott Gabriel Knowles, Robert Jay Lifton, Luis Felipe R. Murillo, Başak Saraç-Lesavre, Sonja D. Schmid, Ryuma Shineha, James Simms, Tatsujiro Suzuki, Ekou Yagi.
Download or read book Meltdown written by Fred Bortz and published by Millbrook Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! Japan. March 11, 2011. 2:46 P.M. The biggest earthquake in Japan's history—and one of the world's five most powerful since 1900—devastated the Tohoku region, 320 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Tokyo. It triggered a huge tsunami that left crippling damage in its wake. More than 13,000 people drowned, and thousands of buildings and homes were reduced to rubble. As people assessed the damage, they made the most frightening discovery of all: the Fukushima #1 nuclear power plant was seriously damaged and three of its six reactors were heading for meltdowns. Workers tried desperately—but unsuccessfully—to save them. Explosions and fires released radioactivity into the air. Within days the Japanese government declared a 20-kilometer (12-mile) evacuation zone. The future of the plant, the long-term health of those exposed to radiation, and the effects on the environment remained uncertain. Learn more about this massive catastrophe as Dr. Fred Bortz examines both the human tragedy and the scientific implications of the nuclear meltdown. Compare this disaster to similar nuclear events in the United States and in Ukraine, and move ahead with Dr. Bortz as he explores the global debate about the future of nuclear power and alternative sources of energy.