The Fukushima Daiichi plant, on Japan’s north-eastern coast, was hit by a massive tsunami caused by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, the strongest in Japan’s recorded history.
More than 18,000 people died in the tsunami, but no one was recorded as having been directly killed by the nuclear meltdowns,
Even George Monbiot is on board with this. Absolutely, entirely, the worst happened and no one was killed at all.
Makes Mutti look more than a little silly using it as an excuse to turn off the German reactors really……
Interesting to see that the deaths of the 44 people mentioned by the Guardian were caused by the evacuation, not the nuclear power plant. That’s what panic does.
One imagines that in 2123, it will be found that the 7 billion deaths resulting from the Climate Catastrophe were caused by insufficient and unreliable energy supplies, lack of food due to shortage of fertilizer and pesticides, and industrial and transport collapse as a result of the lack of fossil fuels.
I was in an airport waiting lounge when Fukushima blew up. Some people were cheering, anticipating the demise of nuclear power. That no one died from the fallout must be highly disappointing.
People actually died in Germany that year as a result of organic farming (E. Coli contamination of vegetables), but that didn’t get banned. Makes one furiously to think.
Largest death toll from a ‘power station accident’ was in China when a dam failed and 270,000 died. As hydro is ‘green’ though, it is to be ignored.
I also recall reading that 38,000 die each year in Chinese mines…..
Always fun to tell people that any nukes we build must take the Fukushima design as its base.
Given that that’s the only design that’s proven it can sort-of-reliably withstand the absolute worst Mother Gaia can throw at us.
The headless screaming is fun… 😉
Thank you Grikath.
I laugh at the increasing speed at which Merkel’s reputation is unravelling. Was she just an Obama-style moron or was she deliberately wicked like Blair and Brown?
She’s not silly,she’s evil.
Fukushima Daiichi was a brilliant bit of engineering. It was specified to withstand a magnitude 7 earthquake and a 2 metre tsunami. It got hit by a magnitude 9 quake and a 15 m tsunami, and if the emergency generators had been lifted higher as they were supposed to have been nobody would have heard of it.