Fukushima Fear and Fallout

Fukushima Fear and Fallout

Pundits warn that radiation from a damaged Japanese nuclear power plant could require mass exodus from the Northern Hemisphere. Should you start packing? ...
Rebecca Terrell

Scientists predict unprecedented disaster should an earthquake hit Japan and further damage the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. The facility was crippled in March 2011 when the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake triggered violent tsunami waves, claiming almost 16,000 lives and injuring or displacing thousands of others in a catastrophe the Japanese prime minister called the “toughest and most difficult crisis” for his country since World War II.

TEPCO is still cleaning up the damage at the six Fukushima reactors, a project some say will be far more devastating than the natural disaster should anything go awry. The object of concern is spent fuel rods stored in damaged cooling stations at the plant. The rods must remain submerged in water; otherwise, they could ignite and discharge radioactive materials into the environment. Fears run rampant that another high-magnitude earthquake will drain the cooling pools completely, expose the fuel, demolish Japan, and spew lethal nuclear radiation across the globe.

“I have seen a paper which says that if, in fact, the fourth plant goes under an earthquake, and those rods are exposed, it’s ‘Bye, bye Japan,’ and everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate,” environmentalist David Suzuki told his audience at an October 2013 University of Alberta symposium. “Now, if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is.”

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