The Fukushima Daichi Reactor Explosion

The Fukushima Daichi Reactor Explosion 

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Kuma, Japan had the Fukushima Daiichi reactor explosion in 2011 The incident's root cause was the 2011 Tohuku earthquake, which triggered a tsunami estimated to be  13-14 meter high (Ikehara, 2021). The explosion damaged the nuclear plant. The blast released various radioactive isotopes, people living near the plant were exposed in varying doses, radioactivity was released into the atmosphere, and multiple deaths occurred. 

Various radioactive isotopes with varying half-lives were released after the explosion. They included iodine-131, caesium-134, and cesium-137 with a half-life of; 8 days, 30 years, and two years respectively (Hashimoto, 2022). It is considered one of the greatest radiation health threats. The people living around the plant were exposed to radiation at varying doses. People's exposure to radiation is measured in Sieverts, or milliSieverts, depending on the amount of (radio) activity in the material (mSv). The people living around the plant were exposed to a dose of 0.5 mSv the following year after the disaster, compared to the annual average background level of 2.7 mSv (Tanaka, 2012). 

Varying doses of radioactivity impacted the atmosphere. TEPCO estimates that 520 PBq was emitted into the air while 18.1 PBq was released into the ocean (Hashimoto et al., 2022). A total of 511 PBq of iodine-131, 13.5 PBq of calcium-134, and 13.6 PBq of calcium-137 were released into the atmosphere and ocean, respectively (Hashimoto et al., 2022). Chornobyl had a higher release than the Fukushima incident releasing 5300 PBq into the atmosphere and spreading all over Europe (Tanaka, 2012). 

Various deaths occurred as a result of the explosion. Statistics indicate an estimated 2313 people from Fukushima prefecture perished due to the accident (Tanaka, 2012). In addition, other people were killed by the earthquake or tsunami, and disaster-related deaths also occurred.                   

References

Ikehara, K., Irino, T., & Saito, Y. (2021). The 2011 Tohoku-Oki tsunami-induced sediment      remobilization on the Sendai shelf, Japan, from a comparison of pre-and post-tsunami   surface sediments. Scientific reports, 11(1), 1-10. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87152-8 

Hashimoto, S., Komatsu, M., & Miura, S. (2022). Radioactive Materials Released by the       Fukushima Nuclear Accident. In Forest Radioecology in Fukushima (pp. 1-10). Springer,     Singapore. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-9404-2_1 

Tanaka, S. I. (2012). Accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power stations of TEPCO—   outline & lessons learned—. Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Series B, 88(9), 471-  484. https://doi.org/10.2183/pjab.88.471