Engineering Disasters And Utilitarianism Paper

This caused reactors 1 through 3 to go into a meltdown and it created a situation where Japan was on the brink of a major environmental disaster. To fully understand the different events there will be a focus on: factors that caused the meltdown, why this did not impact the other three reactors, the consequences, who is responsible and how these incidents can be prevented in the future. Together, these elements will highlight the underlying effects of this disaster and its impact on the region. ("Fukushima Accident")

The Fukushima disaster was caused by an earthquake and its following tsunami which caused a failure in the backup systems (World Nuclear Association, 2016). The tsunami knocked out the generators that powered the cooldown processes for three of the Fukushima power plants which caused the radiation leaks and other complications. Consequentially, the disaster was initially classified as a level 5 on the INES scale. Further investigation after the disaster was under control changed it to a level 7 disaster, the highest level on the INES scale. The estimated radioactive releases were about one tenth of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history.

On Friday March 11, 2011 at 2:46pm, an earthquake struck Fukushima, Japan. The earthquake had a magnitude of 9.0 and did considerable damage in the region. This was a rare and complex double quake that lasted only about 3 minutes. Some events that happened that occurred after the earthquake are as followed: loss of power, loss of cooling, core damage, reactor pressure damage, and hydrogen explosion. This earthquake caused a 15-metre tsunami to strike the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Japan’s Tohoku coast. The tsunami caused much more damage than the earthquake. The tsunami resulted in 19,000 human deaths and destroyed millions of buildings.

There have been lots of nuclear accident around the world. One of the accident that had a major impact on the world was the Chernobyl disaster. The disaster took place on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The disaster was caused by a reaction explosion induced by design faults and staff application errors. The accident took place in the course of scheduled tests to check the power supply mode in the event of external sources loss. Even after 10 days, explosions and ejections of radioactive substances continued. The release of radiation and radioactive substance polluted the places within 30 km of Chernobyl, and those areas have been closed for a long period of

On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by an earthquake and a tsunami resulting in 15,894 confirmed deaths, with 2,556 people missing. This was the fourth strongest earthquake to hit in recent years with a magnitude of 9.1 (“Damage Station Police” ). However, this was not the only disaster to have struck Japan, the combination of the earthquake and tsunami led to the meltdown of a power plant in, Tōhoku region, Japan. This event became known as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Nuclear meltdowns has contributed harm to many environments by radioactive leaks, soil contamination, and radiation exposure.

It has been nearly seven years since the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima, Japan. It was on March 11, 2011 when the pacific coast of Honshu, the largest island in Japan, was hit by a forceful earthquake of magnitude of 9.0 and following tsunami. The powerful waves came in all the way up to ten kilometers inland and the result was over twenty thousand people dead or missing and an enormous amount of vital infrastructure damage including the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.1 There were six reactors operating in the region at the time and three of them reached full meltdown due to the failure of the cooling system caused mainly by the tsunami, releasing dozens of radioactive elements into the

Fukushima disaster is a disaster evolved after the big earthquake in Japan in 11 of March/2011 within Fukushima 1 nuclear reactor. Where cooling problems led to a rise in the pressure of the reactor, followed by a problem with the vent control resulted in an increase in radioactivity.

Fukushima Daiichi is the prime example of what happens when mother nature decides to pay a surprise inspection of one of mankind’s manmade modern marvels. It doesn’t take a genius to see the benefits of nuclear power. It does take a genius however to engineer a facility that can hold up safely against anything life can throw at it. Since man has focused his attention on nuclear energy as a power source in the mid twentieth century only a handful of major nuclear accidents, or disasters, have occurred. Fukushima Daiichi was among the handful of major nuclear accidents. On the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), a scale that rates nuclear accidents from 1-7 with seven being the

I. (Gain Attention and Interest): March 11, 2011. 2:45 pm. Operations at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant continued as usual. At 2:46 pm a massive 9.0 earthquake strikes the island of Japan. All nuclear reactors on the island shut

The Chernobyl accident was a disastrous nuclear event that happened on 26th April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The Chernobyl disaster is classified as a level 7 event according to the International Nuclear Event Scale (only two events have been classified this high in the past) and has caused damages that consist of the cost of 500,000 workers and 18 billion rubles, 31 deaths according to the Soviet casualty count (this is still being disputed) and between 4000-27000 affected future deaths due to radiation exposure [G1].

On March 11th, 2011, the northern section of Japan was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, followed by a 15 meter tsunami, causing the death of over 15000 people. (Spacey) Even though the earthquake and the tsunami caused a tremendous amount of deaths in the northern region of Japan, the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant caused a severe damage to northern Japan’s ecosystem that people still cannot go back to their homes; despite it is 4 years after the disaster. After the earthquake, the tsunami destroyed the power supply used by Fukushima’s three nuclear power stations, causing severe levels of meltdown to be occurred inside the reactors in the timespan of 3 days. It was not until 2 weeks after the tragedy, when the reactors were finally stabilized, and took several months to approach what is called a “cold shutdown condition”, in which the fission in the reactors are completely stopped.(Fukushima A)

By far and beyond, widespread catastrophic meltdowns are the cause of the general public’s anxiety when it comes to nuclear power. The most recent major nuclear disaster was at the Fukushima Daiichi Reactor in Fukushima, Japan in 2011 (Simon, 2011). An earthquake-triggered tsunami damaged the reactor and caused a meltdown, as well as a massive hydrogen gas explosion. This explosion vented contaminated steam and radioactive material into the plant’s surroundings, which eventually made its way to nearby ocean currents, prefectures, and countries. With such a largely publicized recent meltdown, the imminent dangers of containment breaches and meltdowns are still fresh in the public’s perception of nuclear power.

Eastern Japan sits right off a major earthquake fault line. Therefore, it was a matter of time before a sizeable earthquake occurred that would severely damage Japan. On Friday, March 11, 2011, a catastrophic nine magnitude earthquake hit eastern Japan, the most devastating the country had ever encountered. Equally devastating was the catastrophic tsunami that followed. This tsunami, being one of the worlds all time worst, was able to generate waves of water reaching as much as eighty feet which engulfed many of the hardest hit areas during this disaster. This catastrophe resulted in severe, yet preventable damages to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. To begin with, the electricity being provided to reactors one, two, and three

The earthquake which took place on March 11, 20111 in the Tohuku District, Japan triggered a massive tsunami which eventually caused a nuclear power plant outbreak. The tsunami, 14-metres in height struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which is located in the towns of Okuma and Futaba in the Fukushima Prefecture. This resulted in loss of power to the reactors of Units 1, 2 and 3.Along with this damage, the cooling system failed to work and there were hydrogen explosions which ended in damaging the nuclear plant. The damages also include extensive release of radioactive substances into our atmosphere and our earth. This accident certainly did loads of damages to Japan and its people. There are lots of theories regarding

The triple disaster: earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear accident. The earthquake and tsunami caused extensive and severe structural damage in north-eastern Japan, including heavy damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and a dam collapse. Naoto Kan said, "In the 65 years after the end of World War II, this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan." Around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.5 million without water. The tsunami caused nuclear accidents, primarily the level 7 meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex, and the