Essay Sample about Fukushima: Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster of 2011

Have you ever seen a 131.234 - foot wave coming at you, and you didn’t have time to run? This is how the people of Fukushima, Japan felt on March 11, 2011, when a huge tsunami devastated the area. This massive event is the only triple disaster known to man today. We have learned from this event, and people and businesses helped out. It was dangerous and caused so much loss. Fukushima was an impactful and memorable disaster.

The Fukushima tsunami and nuclear disaster happened by a chain reaction of events. The event that started this chain reaction was Great Sendai, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. This earthquake was off the coast of Honshu (northeastern Japan). Great Sendai caused Tohuku, a massive tsunami to start. This tsunami soon reached the shore of Fukushima, Japan. Tohuku caused the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant to melt, explode and send out dangerous amounts of radiation. The waves reached the three core reactors at this plant causing them to explode. This created lots of radiation. Science.org writes about this explaining that “Three reactor cores exploded, releasing the highest amount of radioactivity in the environment since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.” This chain reaction is what caused the 2011 Fukushima Triple disaster. 

This was an extremely dangerous natural disaster. The tsunami waves reached up to 40 meters or 131.234 feet. The waves reached as far as 6 miles inland in Sendai. The waves towered over buildings, homes, and people. The nuclear power plant radiation reached up to 65 km northwest of the plant. The radiation spread like wildfire. Science.org states “After a two-and-a-half year ocean journey, radioactive contamination from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan has drifted to within 160 kilometers of the California coast, according to a new study.” This explains that the radiation blast was so enormous that it crossed an ocean. The 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster put hundreds of thousands of people in danger and destroyed many buildings. 

Japan knew they needed to respond quickly. The Japanese government held a meeting with the officials of the country to discuss what to do. They declared an emergency and dispatched the Japanese self-defense forces for rescue operations. They evacuated more than 150,000 people from the area because of the radiation and destruction from the earthquake and tsunami. They put over 150,000 people in shelters. However, the people in the shelters only had little to no food or water. They designated six hospitals to be primary radiation emergency medical facilities. Another hospital was designated for the injuries caused by the radiation. Japan quickly responded the best way it could. 

This unfortunate event caused many losses and cost Japan a fortune. This event caused 15,899 deaths. Sixteen workers from the power plant were injured. Luckily, however, only three were taken to the hospital because of high-level exposure. It is commented by National Centers for Environmental Information, “The damage makes the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami the most expensive natural disaster in history.”  It cost Japan 220 billion dollars (USD). In total 123,000 houses were destroyed and a million more were damaged. Not to mention that the nuclear power plant was ruined because three out of four reactors were cooled then exploded which also melted them. The losses and costs of the disaster were atrocious. 

Asking others for help was much needed after Fukushima. Japan asked several countries to help them out. A few that helped them included the following: Australia, China, India, New Zealand, South Korea, and the United States. Japan also received financial and material support from the American Red Cross and the Red Crescent. Many private and nongovernmental organizations from Japan and other countries supported and helped.  Japanese organizations that helped included the Association for Aid and Relief Japan (AAR), Japan Emergency NGO (JEN), and Peace Winds Japan. They helped by sending search and rescue teams to find those missing and injured. As well as donating money and sending supplies to help. Without the help of other countries and agencies, they would still be trying to recover today. 

How they recovered was very important. The Noda administration presented the idea to the legislature of 3 disaster-related supplemental budgets. The third one, the largest, provided around 155 billion dollars. They used that money for the reconstruction of the devastated areas. The government, during February of 2012 established a cabinet-level Reconstruction Agency, to organize the rebuilding in Tohuku. By 2015 most of the debris seems to be cleared. By that time they also had three-fourths of the seawall finished and were continuing to build buildings and houses on higher land. There was a lot to be done during recovery. 

There is one other event that might come to mind when thinking of the Fukushima disaster. This event would be the Banqiao Dam Failures of 1975. There are a few things in common between these two events. Both of them take place in Asia. Banqiao happened in China, meanwhile, Fukushima happened in Japan. Both of these events were hit with large unexpected amounts of water. Banqiao was a huge rainstorm, and Fukushima was a huge tsunami. These events had systems that produce energy break from the water. Banqiao’s was a natural disaster where a very large storm caused 60 dams to break. However, Fukushima’s was the nuclear power plant that exploded and melted. Both of the events damaged over one million houses in these countries. The Banqiao disaster damaged 5 million homes. Fukushima damaged over one million homes. These terrible unexpected tragedies are ones we don’t want to happen again in the future. 

Several lessons can be learned from this horrendous event. We started thinking of more safety regulations for nuclear power plants. The Nuclear and Radiation Board suggests that “The overarching lesson is that nuclear plant licensees and their regulators must continually seek out and act on new information about hazards that have the potential to affect the safety of nuclear plants.” There are now more regular and thorough checks at nuclear power plants as well. We also realized that we need to build higher walls. We also need to build buildings higher in places where tsunamis are common. To help with possible earthquakes in the future they have a counterweight system installed in houses where earthquakes are common. As well as small houses are now being built on a flexible foundation that absorbs the movement and shock waves of earthquakes. Bigger buildings are built to sway with the movement to help stabilize them.  All of these lessons help the world to have smaller costs and losses in the future.

The Fukushima disaster was terrible but there were many valuable lessons learned from it. We learned life is unpredictable, so we need to rely on God more. In the Bible it states,  “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare[a] and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11. God has a plan and purpose for everything. God’s plan will always bring us more good than harm.. The government learned they need to be more prepared for disasters like these in the future. They learned to prepare better in places where tsunamis are more likely to occur. They also have emergency funds set up for disasters. Even though this triple disaster cost Japan unimaginable amounts of money in repairs and damage to people and places, it taught us important lessons.