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The Massive Earthquake and Tsunami at Fukishima Essay

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On March 11, 2011 natural destruction raged the small island nation of Japan. With a massive earthquake and tsunami caused equipment damage that eventually lead to destruction of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. During the earthquake and tsunami three nuclear reactors were destroyed. The 9.0 magnitude earthquake caused damage all over the island and still 2 years later Japan is struggling to get back on its feet. People were forced to leave their homes and possessions behind as the Japanese government tried to correct the damage done by the tsunami and earthquake. With not only the country hurting, its natives hurt for normalcy. The road to recovery is a long one but one must look at the steps taken so far to return Japan back to …show more content…

They have not been told that their homes will never again be habitable. Pictures taken of these zones showed items wrapped in saran wrap signaling crews that these items must be destroyed. Only authorized personal are allowed in to said zones and suits and proper materials are too be worn. Those towns who were not after directly by the radiation still wait to be rebuilt as Japan tries its best to figure out what needs priority. Tokyo only narrowly escaped harmful radiation, and if the accident had spun further out of control, contamination in the metropolitan area would have been serious enough to warrant the urgent departure of its 30 million residents. Taking up residence in the exclusion zone, replacing the human inhabitants is the Cesium-137. With a half-life of 30 years, and since it takes about 10 half-lives for any radionuclide to disappear, it will maintain ownership of the exclusion zone for centuries. Once radioactive cesium enters an ecosystem, it quickly becomes ubiquitous, contaminating water, soil, plants and animals. It has been detected in a large range of Japanese foodstuffs, including spinach, tea leaves, milk, beef, and freshwater fish up to 200 miles from Fukushima. Routine ingestion of foods contaminated with so-called “low levels” of radioactive cesium has been shown to lead to its bio-accumulation in the heart and endocrine tissues, as well as in the kidneys, small intestines, pancreas, spleen and liver. This process occurs much

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