Смертельное землетрясение и цунами в Японии

Авария на АЭС "Фукусима".

Серьезную обеспокоенность после основного потрясения и цунами вызвало состояние нескольких атомных электростанций в регионе Тохоку. Реакторы на трех атомных электростанциях, ближайших к эпицентру землетрясения, были автоматически остановлены после землетрясения. Этот процесс также отключил основное питание для этих установок и их систем охлаждения. Последующее затопление волнами цунами повредило резервные генераторы на некоторых из этих электростанций, прежде всего на заводе «Фукусима-дайити» («Номер один»), эксплуатируемом Токийской электроэнергетической компанией (TEPCO). Фукусима-дайити, состоящая из шести реакторов с кипящей водой, построенных между 1971 и 1979 годами, располагалась вдоль побережья Тихого океана в северо-восточной префектуре Фукусима, примерно в 100 км (60 миль) к югу от Сендая. На момент аварии работали только реакторы 1–3,и реактор 4 служил временным хранилищем для отработавших топливных стержней.

В первые несколько дней после аварии системы охлаждения вышли из строя в трех реакторах, а их сердечники впоследствии перегрелись, что привело к частичным расплавлениям топливных стержней. (Однако некоторые работники завода приписывают, по крайней мере, одно частичное плавление взрывам труб с охлаждающей жидкостью, вызванным землетрясениями.) Расплавленный материал упал со стержней и приземлился на дно защитных оболочек в реакторах 1 и 2 и сожгли значительные отверстия. в полу каждого судна. Эти отверстия частично обнажили ядерный материал в ядрах. Взрывы, возникающие в результате скопления газообразного водорода под давлением во внешних зданиях защитной оболочки, в которых находятся реакторы 1, 2 и 3, а также пожар, вызванный повышением температуры в стержнях с отработавшим топливом, помещенными в реактор 4,привело к выбросу значительных уровней радиации с объекта в дни и недели после землетрясения. Рабочие стремились охладить и стабилизировать поврежденные реакторы, закачивая в них морскую воду и борную кислоту.

Because of concerns over possible radiation exposure, Japanese officials established a 30-km (18-mi) no-fly zone around the facility, and an area of 20 km (12.5 mi) around the plant was evacuated. The evacuation zone was later expanded to coincide with the borders of the 30-km no-fly radius. Within this 10-km (6.2-mi) outer ring, residents were asked to either leave or remain indoors. The appearance of increased levels of radiation in some local food and water supplies prompted officials in Japan and overseas to issue warnings about their consumption. At the end of March, seawater near the Daiichi facility was discovered to have been contaminated with high levels of radioactive iodine-131. The contamination stemmed from the exposure of pumped-in seawater to radiation inside the facility; this water later leaked into the ocean through cracks in water-filled trenches and tunnels located between the facility and the ocean. On April 6, plant officials announced that the cracks had been sealed, and later that month workers began to pump the irradiated water to an on-site storage building until it could be properly treated.

In mid-April Japanese nuclear regulators elevated the severity level of the nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi facility from 5 to 7—the highest level on the scale created by the International Atomic Energy Agency—placing the Fukushima accident in the same category as the Chernobyl accident, which occurred in the Soviet Union in 1986. At year’s end, radiation levels remained high in the evacuation zone, and government officials remarked that the area might be uninhabitable for decades. However, they also announced that radiation levels had declined in five towns located just beyond the original 20-km evacuation zone to levels low enough that residents would be allowed to return to their homes. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda declared the facility stable after the cold shutdown of the reactors was completed on December 16.

Relief Efforts.

In the first hours after the earthquake, then Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan moved to set up an emergency command centre in Tokyo, and a large number of rescue workers and some 100,000 members of the Japanese Self-Defense Force were rapidly mobilized to deal with the crisis. In addition, the Japanese government requested that U.S. military personnel stationed in the country be available to help in relief efforts, and a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier was dispatched to the area. Several countries, including Australia, China, India, New Zealand, South Korea, and the United States, sent search-and-rescue teams, and dozens of other countries and major international relief organizations, such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent, pledged financial and material support to Japan. In addition, a large number of private and nongovernmental organizations within Japan and worldwide soon established relief funds to aid victims and assist with rescue and recovery efforts.

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The rescue work itself was hampered initially by the difficulty in getting personnel and supplies to the devastation zone; compounding the difficulty were periods of inclement weather that curtailed air operations. Workers in the disaster zones then faced widespread seas of destruction: vast areas, even whole towns and cities, had been washed away or covered by great piles of mud and debris. Although some people were rescued from the rubble in the first several days following the main shock and tsunami, most of the relief work involved the recovery of bodies, including hundreds that began washing ashore in several areas after having been swept out to sea.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, several hundred thousand people were in shelters, often with limited or negligible supplies of food or water, and tens of thousands more remained stranded and isolated in the worst-hit areas as rescuers worked to reach them. Within days the number of displaced people in the Fukushima area grew as the situation with the nuclear reactors on the coast deteriorated and people left the quarantined area. Gradually many people were able to find other places to stay in the Tohoku area, or they relocated to other parts of the country; some quarter million people were still in hundreds of shelters in the region two weeks after the quake, but by the end of the year, that number had been reduced by more than two-thirds. Tens of thousands of these displaced residents were living in some 50,000 prefabricated temporary housing units that had been set up in Sendai and other tsunami-damaged locations.

In the weeks following the disaster, much of northern Honshu’s transportation and services infrastructure was at least partially restored, and repairs continued until train lines and major highways were again fully operational. The region’s power supply continued to be affected, however, by the ongoing situation at the Fukushima plant, resulting in temporary power outages and rolling blackouts. The loss of businesses and factories from earthquake and tsunami damage, as well as the uncertainties surrounding the power supply, severely reduced the region’s postdisaster manufacturing output. Industries most affected included those producing semiconductors and other high-technology items and automobiles.