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Fukushima Earthquake Research Paper

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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.
Because the tsunami was so significant it caused the power supply to disable and thus causing a nuclear accident. When the quake hit, eleven reactors at 4 of the nuclear power plants were shut down immediately. The cores of operating units 1, 2, and 3 overheated and melted in the first 3 days after the tsunami hit. Power from the backup generators were unavailable to run the cooling pumps but eventually was able to achieve a ‘cold shutdown’. (World Nuclear Association). The high temperatures caused explosions …show more content…

This report could have brought about changes before this significant earthquake hit. At 7:03 pm on that Friday, a nuclear emergency was declared. At 8:50 pm the Fukushima Prefecture issued an evacuation for people within 2 km of the plant. By Saturday March 12th, the prime minister extended the evacuation zone to 20 km. This major accident was rated at a level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale due to the high radioactive releases into the air. The main radionuclide that was released into the air was volatile iodine-131. Another main radionuclide was caesium-137. Cesium can be taken into the body but does not concentrate in any particular

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