Meltdown!: The Nuclear Disaster in Japan and Our Energy Future
MELTDOWN The NUCLEAR DISASTER IN JAPAN and OUR ENERGY FUTURE Fred Bortz TWENTY FIRST CENTURY BOOKS MINNEAPOLIS
PROLOGUE Japan's Greatest Quake JAPAN MARCH 11th 2011 2:46 PM AN EARTHQUAKE STRIKES Arun Vemuri is not frightened when he feels his Tokyo office on the thirtieth floor of the Yebisu Garden Place Tower begin to sway He knows that the building is one of the safest in the city Like other Japanese buildings it is de signed to bend in an earthquake instead of breaking So for the first minute he is smiling at his coworkers and having a swinging good time Then the swaying turns into wild shak ing Office equipment topples and the CII jolting motion sweeps desks clear Arun ducks under his desk After six long minutes the shaking stops Arun and his colleagues leave the office and head down thirty flights of stairs No one seems anxious or fearful No rushing of feet or stomping of ground No racing through or overtaking Just a good old smiling saunter as if going down for a quick cup of coffee NO ORDINARY EARTHQUAKE Similar scenes are taking place all over Tokyo above left Though almost everyone seems calm they know that this is no ordinary earthquake Because the shaking lasts so long and skyscrapers are still swaying this has to
be a big one The most worrisome question is this is the quake's epicenter the place on Earth's surface directly above the underground spot where a quake begins on land or in the ocean An undersea quake could unleash a tsunami a Japanese word for harbor wave a powerful destructive wall of water rushing in from the sea Everyone scrambles for information Most cell phone service is out but the Internet is working Twitter is buzzing with news of earthquake damage and a powerful tsunami rolling into the Tohoku region at the northern end of Honshu Japan's main island Within hours horrifying pictures and video are spreading around the world Almost thirty thousand people in Japan are dead injured or missing mostly from the tsunami The Great Tohoku Earthquake is the most powerful ever to strike Japan and the tsunami makes it one of the worst disasters in that island nation's history Yet in some ways it is a familiar event for Japan where earthquakes are common The Japanese people know what it takes to recover from earthquakes and tsunamis N UCLEAR EMERGENCY What people do not yet know is that a much greater and more terrifying challenge lies ahead That evening news begins to spread about an emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant about 260 kilometers 160 miles northeast of Tokyo The government of Fukushima Prefecture state or province warns people who live within 3 km 2 mi to leave Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano tries to reassure the public We have declared a nuclear emergency state to take every possible precaution he declares at a news conference There is no radiation leak nor will there be a leak He could not be more wrong One reactor is already undergoing a meltdown and two others will soon follow It is the beginning of a disaster that will change life in Japan and alter the world's energy future JAPAN's GREATEST QUAKE
