» The Earthquake and the Nuclear Accident

The massive earthquake of magnitude 9.0 on March 11th 2011 struck the Tohoku region, where the epicenter was 130km away from Oshika Peninsula and the depth was 24 km. In the coastal area of Iwate prefecture, Miyagi prefecture and Fukushima prefecture, the height of the tsunami caused by the earthquake reached 8-9m (higher than 10m in some areas), which gave the extensive damage to those areas.

In Fukushima, when the victims had been working on cleaning up their surroundings after the earthquake and tsunami, a large explosion occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The information on hydrogen explosion was spread by the mobile phone of the nuclear power plant worker to their families living in the neighboring cities. Many residents whose family members are working at the nuclear power plant knew the fear of radioactivity and began to evacuate immediately, but there were many other residents who didn’t know what happened as they couldn’t watch TV news because of black out.

Even though the government reported about the nuclear accident, the calling of “there is no immediate impact on the health” was broadcasted through the television over and over again. The people in Fukushima had to decide their own fate in confusion.

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Tags:earthquake, march 11, nuclear accident

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