“You could feel it under your feet. This entire enormous building [was] moving at once… A lot of things were falling… Danny over to the left [was] screaming, ‘It’s going to blow! It’s going to blow!’ The entire floor went black” (Pillitteri). The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was caught in the midst of two natural disasters that resulted in the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. The events of March 11, 2011 started when a Richter Scale 9.0 earthquake rocked the coast of Tohoku, Japan. The earthquake itself was not very devastating; a few people were killed by falling objects, but outside of that the events would have been considered a success in earthquake management (Curtis, 16). However, the sea floor split apart, triggering
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This poisoning was due to the emission of cesium-137 which was deposited throughout the eastern and northeastern regions of Japan. The western part, however, was sheltered by mountain ranges (Yasunari et al.). Authorities tried to prevent a complete nuclear meltdown, so they poured water on the nuclear reactors to cool them down (Pacchioli, 1). Since cesium-137 was released because of the nuclear reactor’s meltdown, they subsequently spread when the tsunami water swept through and took the particles with them. They are particularly dangerous because of their negative effects on agriculture and stock farming; they will cause shortages in food (if the farms close down) or consumption of unsafe material (if the food is eaten). Unfortunately, there are a lot of cesium-137 in zones that are not possible to clean up, meaning that land use limitations were an urgent issue (Yasunari et al.). However, the land will be unusable for many years to come, putting a damper on their agricultural economy and posing a risk towards human …show more content…
As previously mentioned, the cost of the damage was $650 billion. This was spread across many industries and tanked Japan’s economy. There was a severe gas shortage across the affected areas, so operations were stalled and production was slashed. Some of the most important sources of money such as car manufacturing, technology, and electricity all were hit hard (Cukier, 228). One of the reasons was that buyers of Japanese goods became very wary of the goods and many turned away the products for concern of radiation and contamination. Reconstruction is proving to be a big hamper on Japanese economics, because Japan struggles since it spends twenty percent of its incoming money on financing its debt (Cukier, 229). This means that it is tougher to devote its resources to cleaning up after the disaster, so the effects are prolonged. Lastly, tourism fell through the floor because of fears over exposure. Needless to say, the monetary fallout that resulted will be a drag on Japan for a long
This poisoning was due to the emission of cesium-137 which was deposited throughout the eastern and northeastern regions of Japan. The western part, however, was sheltered by mountain ranges (Yasunari et al.). Authorities tried to prevent a complete nuclear meltdown, so they poured water on the nuclear reactors to cool them down (Pacchioli, 1). Since cesium-137 was released because of the nuclear reactor’s meltdown, they subsequently spread when the tsunami water swept through and took the particles with them. They are particularly dangerous because of their negative effects on agriculture and stock farming; they will cause shortages in food (if the farms close down) or consumption of unsafe material (if the food is eaten). Unfortunately, there are a lot of cesium-137 in zones that are not possible to clean up, meaning that land use limitations were an urgent issue (Yasunari et al.). However, the land will be unusable for many years to come, putting a damper on their agricultural economy and posing a risk towards human …show more content…
As previously mentioned, the cost of the damage was $650 billion. This was spread across many industries and tanked Japan’s economy. There was a severe gas shortage across the affected areas, so operations were stalled and production was slashed. Some of the most important sources of money such as car manufacturing, technology, and electricity all were hit hard (Cukier, 228). One of the reasons was that buyers of Japanese goods became very wary of the goods and many turned away the products for concern of radiation and contamination. Reconstruction is proving to be a big hamper on Japanese economics, because Japan struggles since it spends twenty percent of its incoming money on financing its debt (Cukier, 229). This means that it is tougher to devote its resources to cleaning up after the disaster, so the effects are prolonged. Lastly, tourism fell through the floor because of fears over exposure. Needless to say, the monetary fallout that resulted will be a drag on Japan for a long