Everything That Went Wrong in the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

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Watching this after the Chernobyl video… wow, this was handled a million times better.

I have a buddy that was stationed in Okinawa during the Tsunami. He didn’t get involved with the power plant, however he did help with the cleanup after the Tsunami hit. This is a man who served two deployments in the Middle East, and he said that pulling the bodies out of the water was the worst thing he’s ever seen.

The generators weren't damaged by the earthquake. They were flooded because they were installed below the level of the tsunami wave, despite regulations stating they needed have been installed higher, but the company ignoring the regulations.

A couple of corrections: 1) Geologists and seismologists don’t use the Richter Scale anymore. They use the moment magnitude scale. 2) A 7.0 earthquake is more than “slightly” less than a 9.0 because the scale is logarithmic.

My wife was a teacher in Tochigi, Japan when the incident happened. She had 2 friends that worked at the schools in Fukushima. This has scarred her emotionally. She now lives with me in Michigan far away from any earthquakes, nuclear plants, and the ocean. Some nights she still gets cold sweats dreaming about that day.

I was there when it happened, I was in the Navy on the Ronald Reagan when we went to Sasabo for dispatch aid for Fukushima.

I remember being in Japan during my military tour. Rescue efforts were aggressive. This ordeal is burned into memory. Unexplainable tragedy.

Note when making a nuclear reactor: Dont cut corners.

Tokyo Power had been warned multiple times in the years leading up to this that the backup generators were too low. They simply didn't care to hear it. The second time they were told this the government questioned them about it. They added reinforced doors to the generator room. The plant was designed for many of what they called "1 in 10k year events" The plant was pretty safe and maintained. What they couldn't ever imagine is two, once in ten thousand year, disasters happening at the same time. A powerful earthquake and almost immediate tsunami.

The diesel generators were placed in the basement, and were flooded and disabled by the tsunami wave. Whoever designed the power plant, never considered a 9.0 grade earthquake together with a huge tsunami. If the diesel generators were placed on the top of a building, or downstairs in a sealed environment, the Fukushima disaster would have never happened...

That's one of the big problems with nuclear power: you can't trust private companies not to try to cut corners.

@ 2:18 A reactor going "critial" is a good thing, that means it's perfectly in balance between the fission and the poisons (water among them) that absorb and inhibit excessive fission. If a reactor goes super-critical you have too much fission and sub-critical means it's powering down.

I remember when I was a kid I came home for school I was about 11 and I remember seeing this all over the news it was crazy insane that the earthquake and tsunami but seeing it unfold live was crazy rip to all the people lost

Even though nuclear power is the safest form of power overall, it might be a good idea to keep it away from such geologically active areas, cause that's where meltdowns are more likely to happen, so in those areas it's probably more dangerous.

The diesel generator thing is a red herring. It was the destruction of the seawater intake pumps that started the accident, once those pumps were destroyed it was all over.

I still believe in nuclear power. It’s the cleanest, cheapest way for us to move forward to the future

I remember being in elementary school, coming home and playing my DS, and feeling the earth just shake with such vigor. It was the scariest experience of my entire life

Yesss, I have been loving these break down videos and have been waiting for the next!

learned a few things i hadn't know before from this video - thanks a lot!