What happened at Fukushima?
On 11 March 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, followed by a tsunami that slammed the country’s eastern coast, destroying communities and taking the lives of tens of thousands of people. The event led to the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. It also exposed serious failures in the Japanese system for ensuring the safety of nuclear reactors.
Nuclear crisis timeline
March 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake strikes off the east coast of Japan. A large tsunami follows. External power is lost at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant; back-up generators also go down. Find out how the Fukushima nuclear disaster unfurled.
Nuclear power: dirty, dangerous and expensive
Nuclear reactors are inherently unsafe. As happened after Chernobyl in 1986, the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 again exposed the fundamental flaws of reactors and highlighted the serious institutional failures in the oversight of nuclear safety.