Earthquake in Japan

On Friday, March 11, 2011, an earthquake of a 9.0-magnitude struck the nation of Japan. The earthquake triggered a large tsunami equipped with 30-foot waves to crash into the country's Pacific coast. This tsunami caused great destruction to the nearby Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant. The Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant's reactors were impaired by the seismic sea wave. It is important to know that the main purpose of the reactors was to cool the nuclear cores, and with these being damaged and unable to be restarted or be mended, radioactivity was free to be released into the Earth's atmosphere. Two years later, "the Japanese nuclear power plant is facing the dire issue of containing radioactive waste water, as operators rush to repair yet another possible disaster." (nydailynews.com)

I decided on this article and topic after having recently heard about this issue on the morning news. The news segment mentioned the steps and precautions that Japan was planning on enforcing in the later months to come. Obviously, the number one priority and concern of the Japanese government is to prevent any of this radiation-contaminated water to come into contact with the population's groundwater. The news mentioned constructing some type of frozen wall to assist the reactors with the vital core-cooling process, thus helping slow down the release of radiation into the atmosphere.

Through deeper research, I learned that Japanese officials have discovered a crack in the wall holding back the contaminated groundwater. The groundwater contains "radioactive strontium, which is a byproduct of nuclear fission." This water is leaking from its structure at a shocking estimated rate of 75 gallons every minute. This problem of reoccurring leaks was left in the hands of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, also known as TEPCO. Some time later, the prime minister of Japan revoked from TEPCO the responsibility of monitoring and handling the leaks. The government's response to this issue was deciding on the building of a secure barrier of "frozen Earth" to surround the damaged reactors to avert the leakage or any type of radioactivity coming into contact with the groundwater.

I was also able to learn about the affects of this problem on the surrounding population. The area around the nuclear plant was ordered to evacuate and abandon their homes and belongings. Still today, almost 100,000 citizens remain vacated all throughout the country. Tens of thousands had to live extensive periods without water or electricity. This disaster also took its toll on the nation's economy. The recent contamination had the most pronounced damaging effect on Japanese farmers and fishermen.

This topic seemed interesting to me because this radioactivity is not only confined to the nation of Japan. This issue affects the environment of the whole world. Extreme exposure to large amounts of radiation could