Atsufumi Yoshizawa Fukushima Dai-Ichi March 11 2011 2 46 p m Atsufumi Yoshizawa walked quickly down a long gleaming corridor It was almost the end of his shift Nearly every corner of the sprawling Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant was clean and orderly just as he liked it Yoshizawa mentally reviewed everything he still needed to finish He had spent the day supervising a routine shutdown of nuclear reactors 5 and 6 and he wanted to be sure everything was in order before he drove home Yoshizawa was an important figure at Fukushima Dai Ichi He was quiet and shy but his 30 years at the plant had given him the confidence and expertise to supervise large crews of workers He knew the inner workings of Fukushima Dai-Ichi by heart He had spent the majority of his adult life monitoring the way the plant utilized a process called nuclear fission to heat giant pools of water When the water got hot enough steam was created and used to turn turbines The plant used these turbines to create electricity The process he knew seemed extraordinarily complex But
to him it was familiar and safe and simple Yoshizawa had often watched the scientists who controlled the plant’s nuclear fission He knew where they stored rods of enriched uranium the plant’s very powerful and dangerous radioactive fuel He loved observing them as they bundled rods of enriched uranium together and then lowered them into water in a pressurized container These bundles would instantly begin to heat the water and create steam In order to keep the bundles from overheating the scientists would use materials called control rods to slow the nuclear fission process If they needed to reduce the temperature of the water they simply lowered the control rods farther into the uranium bundles to slow the rate of the nuclear reactions and therefore reduce the temperature of the bundles When they wanted to increase the temperature of the water they simply removed the control rods from the bundles Everyone at the plant worked hard to make safety a high priority Each of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi employees understood that nuclear fission releases large amounts of radiation that must be contained All employees were well
educated on the subject of radiation energy and how it can travel through other materials In small amounts they learned it is harmless to living things People are exposed to small amounts of radiation on a daily basis through X rays and microwaves But high doses of radiation can be very harmful or even lethal And of course the workers at Fukushima Dai-Ichi knew that the plant produced enormous quantities of radiation It had six separate nuclear reactors to house the nuclear fission process Each of these was built to keep the radioactive materials safely contained The reactors were encased within layers of steel and concrete These barriers were designed to keep radioactive solids liquids and gasses contained Without warning violent shaking knocked Yoshizawa to his hands and knees The walls and floor began to buck wildly as the sounds of shattering glass and falling objects rang around him It was an earthquake A big one Frantically Yoshizawa looked around for something to hide under There was nothing in the hallway so he crawled desperately into a nearby room and found shelter beneath a desk Factory workers were scrambling to find protection
Someone screamed A huge ceiling tile exploded on the ground just in front of Yoshizawa He looked out a window and saw something bizarre The cars parked outside were actually bouncing up and down off the ground Yoshizawa couldn’t believe his eyes He had lived though hundreds of earthquakes but none had been like this It seemed like the earthquake went on forever Yoshizawa thought about his wife and daughter Thankfully they were at home in Yokohama just south of Tokyo He hoped they were far enough away to be safe Just then he was plunged into darkness The plant had lost power In the dark Yoshizawa could hear his colleagues checking on one another A few seemed to be crying Despite the strength of the quake Yoshizawa wasn’t concerned about the plant it was designed to withstand earthquakes He knew that Toyko Electic Power Company TEPCO the owners of the plant had spent tens of billions of yen implementing additional safety measures for Fukushima Dai-Ichi There was a huge earthquake-proof control room that could be used to operate the essential functions of the plant There was a seawall protecting the
