The Fukushima Disaster - Epidemic of Ghosts

the first sign you see of a deadly tsunami paradoxically isn't a wave if the trough of the unstoppable incoming energy reaches the shore before the crest there is no wave water instead recedes dramatically and attractively luring beach goers to a seafloor that has never seen the air before but moments later the rest of the energy arrives a colossal curtain of power slows from over 500 miles per hour to just 50. bunching up as it does so and rising with the seafloor building up destructive capability behind a molecular traffic jam on march 11th 2011 a tsunami resulting from a 9.1 magnitude earthquake would end up inflicting the worst single loss of life in japan since a nuclear bomb was dropped on the city of hiroshima in 1945. this unprecedented catastrophe created two types of ghosts ghosts that would haunt the land of the rising sun to this day the spirits of those lost in the tsunami and the invisible specter of atomic radiation from the second worst nuclear disaster in history this is the true story of the hauntings of fukushima two weeks before the start of the summer of 2011 at 2 46 p.m a so-called undersea megathrust earthquake shifted a gargantuan section of earth approximately 72 kilometers east of the oshika peninsula of tohoku japan 32 kilometers below the seafloor 10 000 billion billion joules of energy would explode from the earth in the six minutes that would follow it had been building up there for over a thousand years released was a total energy equivalent to burning the entire earth's fossil fuel reserves all at once this unfathomable energy fathoms below the ocean's surface sent invisible power out at almost 500 miles per hour when these waves made landfall in japan they carried with them walls of water up to 50 feet high before the day was over 217 square miles of japan would flood water would be found six miles inland in just minutes over a hundred thousand buildings would be destroyed and millions would lose access to running water and electricity [Music] official numbers from 2021 report that in one day 19 747 people would lose their lives most of them would drown and most of those people would be elderly over 2 000 people are still missing today the 2011 earthquake would become the largest japan ever recorded and the world's fourth largest earthquake since records began over a hundred years ago to quote naoto khan the then prime minister of japan in the 65 years after the end of world war ii this is the toughest and most difficult crisis for japan end quote and then came the meltdowns a literally earth-shattering earthquake and a flood taller than most buildings is the kind of combined event that is rarely designed for the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant first commissioned in 1971 is a large nuclear facility consisting of six boiling water reactors nestled directly against the pacific ocean fukushima daiichi is one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world and like all nuclear facilities it was engineered with safety in mind structures designs and procedures tailored against even extremely unlikely dangers like large earthquakes floods and terrorist plots what it was not designed for however for the sake of practicality was a simultaneous combination of more than one of these events nothing is engineered for this the 2011 earthquake and tsunami therefore was something like a chance asteroid strike far from ordinary and far from prepared for slim to nothing chances combined with human error are what would create the conditions for the only other event in human history to receive the highest rating on the international nuclear events scale japan was about to have its very own chernobyl when sensors at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant detected the fourth most powerful earthquake in recorded history the active reactors on site automatically inserted enough control rods in the cores to absorb the neutrons feeding the chain reactions and shut them down this also meant however a sudden loss of power and so the emergency diesel generators at the bottom of the plant just five meters above the water line switched on all according to plan approximately 60 minutes later however a wall of water over 50 feet above sea level slammed into the plant fukushima was now drowning in flood waters well over twice what was considered a worst case scenario during design the diesel generators the source of power needed to move water around the plant and continue cooling the reactors all the way down failed almost immediately before the day was out coolant water would be boiled away nuclear fuel would be exposed to the air and the temperature inside reactor 1 would rise to half as hot as the surface of the sun [Music] once fukushima started drowning its fate was sealed in the days to come both reactors 1 and 3 would be rocked by powerful explosions the result of hydrogen gas build up from materials evaporating during their meltdowns reactor 2 would also melt down on march 14th and then explode on march 15th for the third time ever corium the most dangerous substance in the world had been created this radioactive lava oozed to the bottom of the containment vessels of reactors one through three and probably ate its way through 14 centimeters of steel to pool on basement floors i say probably because to this day we don't know where all the corium ended up what was known was that nuclear fuel was no longer contained and radiation was being released into the environment by the explosions by the flood waters and by the reactors themselves but the radiation released at fukushima wasn't the only invisible force that began haunting japan in 2011. it is impossible to convey in words just how much was lost when the tsunami hit japan the raw uncaring power of the water took everything cars homes sidewalks hospitals banks scrapbooks pets holiday plans mothers and their daughters fathers and their sons the entire infrastructure of a society but for everything that was taken something remained according to foreign correspondent and writer richard lloyd perry who had been living in japan for the last 18 years shortly after the disaster survivors of the tsunami started seeing ghosts and a lot of them spirits were allegedly wandering deserted beaches and standing slumped in waterlogged jackets on street corners a woman who undoubtedly died thrashing and alone in turbulent waters would occasionally join her surviving friends for tea when the spirit left they said the pillow she was sitting on was drenched with seawater many survivors had stories like these it almost seemed like an epidemic richard perry reported after 2011 ghost stories in japan's hardest hit cities became commonplace the tsunami in a very real way was haunting them when night falls and the light has vanished there are ghosts wandering around this area unfortunately i am able to see them it doesn't really matter whether or not you think ghosts are real or whether spirits exist they were and are real enough to the survivors when faced with death and destruction beyond your ability to describe it's understandable maybe even inevitable that grief and trauma express themselves in ways that you simply cannot explain logically japan now had a ghost problem there were so many reports in fact that academics started writing journal articles about the phenomena priests and monks were being called upon to exercise spirits and cleanse those apparently possessed by them it is not uncommon says dr charles r figlia of the school of social work at tulane university for fellow survivors to have common reactions be they sounds smells or paranormal sightings ghosts he says are more tolerable than the void created by death writer richard perry also reported on one survivor in the japanese city of kurihara the man now hates the rain because he sees the faces of those that died in the puddles as a quick aside if you want to know more about the survivors cultural impact and ghost sightings of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in japan i recommend reading richard perry's full book on the subject ghosts of the tsunami the worst thing that could happen at a nuclear power plant is the accidental release of radioactive material into the environment as it is the material in the reactor's fuel rods like uranium that emits the energy in particles that can damage and or destroy living tissue at fukushima daiichi this material was escaping in three ways some of it was being vented into the atmosphere as workers tried to prevent the kind of gas explosions that shook reactor units 1 and 3. unit 2 was spared an explosion because of this emergency venting other radioactive materials were flung into the environment by the explosions that could not be prevented the majority of the radiation released by the disaster escaped in these two ways the rest of the accident's radiation was being discharged into the sea as contaminated cooling water the very same water being pumped in to keep the failed cores from failing further hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated water would be evacuated into the pacific from storage tanks in the first few months after the tsunami this approach was understandably incredibly controversial because the coast of fukushima prefecture has some of the strongest ocean currents in the world radioactive water dumped here would inevitably spread everywhere according to the french institute for radiological protection and safety water seeping out of fukushima was the most important individual oceanic emissions of artificial radioactivity ever observed japan was now being haunted by a ghost it had not felt since 1945 and people were scared but did they have to be chernobyl a noun now synonymous with disaster is the only other event in human history to receive the highest rating on the nuclear disaster scale it would be easy then to put fukushima in the same sentence with chernobyl it would be easy but it would also be misleading while there were explosions that released radioactivity at fukushima daiichi the reactor cores themselves didn't explode rather they slowly melted down and oxidized over a number of days which meant that materials were actually stuck in the building and not rocketed into the sky by explosions that lifted a 2 million kilogram lid like it was a paperweight comparing the two disasters directly fukushima released up to 90 percent less radiation than the cores that burned up in pripyat in 1986. less radiation means less harm chernobyl ended up spewing contaminants that affected areas up to 500 kilometers away fukushima's contaminants only spread 60 kilometers the exclusion zone created by chernobyl was 30 kilometers in japan it was 20. chernobyl the worst nuclear disaster in history may have directly and indirectly caused 4 000 deaths and maybe many more than this numbers vary fukushima on the other hand according to every report and estimate caused zero no deaths measurements along japanese coastlines also suggested that marine life would hardly be affected the most at-risk people in the vicinity of the japanese power plant wouldn't even experience radiation rates much higher than background these comparisons are important because it's too easy to see fukushima as an equivalent chernobyl it's not there is consensus among scientists that the impact on health is minuscule japanese nuclear expert michiaki kai told news organization afp still it can't be said the risk is zero which is what causes controversy despite the fact that the fukushima disaster does not compare like you may think with chernobyl its influence still lingered in a similar way like a ghost's face in a puddle unlike ukraine japan is one of the most densely populated places on the planet yes the exclusion zone was smaller than chernobyl's as was the amount of radioactivity released but it still meant that over 150 000 people had to leave their homes many thousands more relocated as a precaution potassium iodide tablets were distributed by the government food shipments to affected areas were halted japan had acted quickly to limit the possible health effects and they were successful in that but other damage had already been done and may end up being irreversible contaminated soil could be shoveled away water could be cleaned but trust is much harder to recover surveys and testimonials agree that distrust of the japanese government was and continues to be high and that less than half of the evacuated residents planned to ever return to their homes those that do are mostly the elderly they had more to lose young people are afraid to raise children in the exclusion zone signs installed with radiation detectors try to assure the public that areas are better or are getting better that it's safe to return but reportedly the government cleanup effort is widely viewed by the japanese public as a kind of whitewashing political theater for the 2021 olympics in 2015 almost 230 000 people were still relocated this is the kind of cultural wound that cuts deeper than any alpha beta or gamma radiation in 2016 writer steve featherstone interviewed a man in nahara a town inside the fukushima prefecture the man had returned to again manage his restaurant the only place with drinks in town his daughter decided not to come with him behind the bar featherstone noticed that the clock on the wall was frozen at 2 47 pm the very same minute the earthquake struck the town half a decade beforehand the man said he had vowed to never reset it at least not until life in his town returned to normal ghosts took all kinds of forms after fukushima by december 2011 the reactors at fukushima daiichi achieved a so-called cold shutdown state thanks to cooling and control efforts it became physically impossible for nuclear fissions to begin again and today the plant is stable the three melted cores are still emitting heat but no more than that of a small car no significant atmospheric releases have occurred water is still injected into the failure but for dust suppression more than anything else the plant itself has been deforested cleaned and covered with resin and concrete to protect groundwater literal mountains of contaminated topsoil have been collected a frozen wall of soil was created around the plant like an ice moat to prevent groundwater leakage as of 2018 there were 5 000 daily workers at the power plant continuing on its decommission an engineering effort of incredible scope and scale an effort that will take decades to complete if ever and today 95 percent of the facility doesn't even require face masks or coveralls for radiation safety there are shops and cafeterias on site a sign at the front entrance for bids playing pokemon go it's a practical and foreseeable end to what was an unforeseeable disaster that is unless someone did see it coming tepco or the tokyo electric power company is the utility company that runs the power plant and is overseeing the cleanup today in step with the japanese government to say that what happened to the reactors couldn't have been prepared for and or engineered for would be a lie if what happened at fukushima was anyone's fault beyond what happened in fault lines a few kilometers outside of japan it was tepco's 1991 the u.s nuclear regulatory commission warns tepco that emergency power could be lost as a result of flooding no action is taken october 1991 one of the two backup generators of reactor 1 fails due to flooding an engineer warns his supervisors that a tsunami could seriously damage their generators tepco installs doors 2004 the cabinet office of the japanese government warns tepco that tsunami's much taller than those planned for were indeed possible tepco does not revise safety protocols 2006 an in-house report recommends that tepco take safety measures against a potential tsunami of the exact same size that would hit five years later the tepco leadership does not make the results of this study public as quote announcing information about uncertain risks would create anxiety end quote 2008 another in-house study identifies an immediate need to protect the facility from flooding due to larger tsunami waves than predicted the prediction is not taken seriously by tepco march 11 2011. a tsunami wave the exact height warned about strikes the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant causing the second worst radiological disaster in human history it goes without saying that tepco has faced intense criticism for its handling of the accident on july 5th of 2012 an independent investigation concluded that tepco failed to meet basic safety requirements the company didn't have proper risk assessment didn't have plans for substantial collateral damage and didn't have a realistic evacuation plan but tepco wasn't undone by the disaster that same month of 2012 the japanese government infused tepco with one trillion yen to keep the company from collapsing its collapse would have seriously interrupted the supply of electricity to tokyo the money would also go towards the decommissioning of the plant tepco itself would soon become part nationalized as a way for the government to step in and oversee damages and the decommissioning process but it wouldn't be until october 12 2012 over a year after the initial disaster that tepco would admit to any wrongdoing the company finally admitted that it hadn't taken the necessary measures for fear of lawsuits and protests but they got those anyway the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant may now in fact be stable but it is anything but solved the plant will never be totally safe until the melted nuclear fuel is removed and immediately after the disaster no one knew exactly where it ended up it wouldn't be until six years later in 2017 that a remote-controlled and radiation-shielded submersible would find the final resting place of some of reactor 3's corium a year later melted uranium oxide was found in reactor 2. many robots attempted these explorations but many of their electronics failed the radiation inside these reactors today would still kill a human in just minutes tepco therefore estimates it might take 40 years before all the fuel is found and removed it would happen sooner if the technologies to efficiently do so existed today they simply don't the ghosts of fukushima's reactors will require brand new technologies before they are finally exercised nearly every culture on earth has a relationship with the unreal some implicit understanding that death is not the end in japan many survivors of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami believe that their epidemic of ghosts was somehow related to how their friends family and neighbors died the rushing waters took them before they were ready and now restless ethereal forms wandered in their place in the summer of 2011 a cab driver was shocked to see a young woman hailing him he was driving through a particularly hard hit area and he had very few customers the woman got into his car and they took off the cab driver noticed that she was wearing a heavy winter coat in the middle of summer and it was soaking wet but it hadn't rained in the girl told him to take her to the minamihama district which he knew was almost completely abandoned [Music] there was a long silence then in a voice that sounded like she was shivering as she did so the girl responded the cab driver now terrified turned around to look at the young woman but no one was there until next time thank you so much to the vera nerdy staff at the facility for the direct and substantial support in the creation of this year video today especially on a recognized research assistant laura sanborn and visiting scholar coparissippi if you want to join the facility if you want to join me on discord every day if you want behind the scenes photos if you want to drape on a silky white lab coat and watch private members only live streams with me not like that go to patreon.com kyle hill to join the facility staff today and hey if you support us just enough you get your name on arya here each and every video and as you can see there's literally hundreds and hundreds of you so i have no idea how i'm gonna pass that i know that there's still a feeling that fukushima what happened in fukushima daiichi is equivalent to chernobyl and yes it is in the same scale and it was the second worst disaster in human history but you must understand that the scope of what was released just in terms of measurement and how many people were affected how many people died as a result which are zero and is tracked to be zero in the future this puts it almost not even in the same sentence like i say it's kind of misleading to use this as another example as another signpost like chernobyl is and was so i guess what i'm getting at is especially for these kind of discussions context matters keep the context thanks for watching

Channel: Kyle Hill

Views: 1,515,258

Rating: 4.9290738 out of 5

Keywords: because science, engineering, kyle hill, learning, math, physics, science, stem, the facility, chernobyl, fukushima nuclear disaster, nuclear disaster, fukushima tsunami, fukushima explosion, tohoku tsunami, tohoku earthquake, tohoku earthquake 2011, fukushima, fukushima daiichi, fukushima daiichi nuclear disaster, fukushima daiichi nuclear disaster footage, fukushima nuclear disaster documentary, fukushima earthquake, nuclear power, nuclear disaster documentary

Id: 4UHZugCNKA4

Length: 25min 17sec (1517 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/CrossFox42]

Can't wait to watch this when I get home. Absolutely love all your content, but especially your Half Life Histories. Simpin' for science always.

[u/ChillFly]

Just watched it. Loved it. 👍

[u/dobbythesockmonster]

I’ve watched some of your videos before, but only came across this series last night. I appreciate how you handle the topic without sensationalizing, or fear mongering. The world needs more content creators like you!

[u/ill_eat_it]

I appreciate the angle the narrator took with the ghost stories.

I could see someone else taking a more callous/distant approach to the subject. And when recounting technical aspects of an event, I imagine it could be easy to lose sight of the tragedy of the whole thing.

So it's always nice to see compassion be at the foreground of a story like this.

[u/chris480]

Question that has been bugging me for a while. Is there an equivalent measurement of harmful radiation released from nuclear accidents vs fossil fuels? I've seen some reports, but they seem to incomplete in terms of measuring impact. Is it even well tracked?

[u/Jay2KWinger]

Always glad to see another one of the Half Life Histories series. Well done, Kyle.

[u/a_likeanonymous]

Watched ! Scary ! And sad !

[u/Scuta44]

He has a young Charlie Sheenesque voice.

[u/unikardo]

Love your voice in these videos, it's haunting yet soothing