The nuclear meltdown next door
written by Jana Wiegand
Clear plastic taped over the upholstered seats crinkled when we sat down on the tour bus. All our backpacks and all but one camera were locked in a room, guarded by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) officials. We left the town of Tomioka, where evacuation orders had just lifted two months ago, and drove into the no-go zone.
TEPCO employees pass out dosimeters, which are used to track the level of radiation exposure individuals accumulate while on the power plant grounds. Photo by Sydney MacDonald
Black trash bags holding radioactive soil sat piled in fields along the side of the road. Residents had left everything behind on March 12, 2011, when the nuclear meltdown was well underway at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Six years later, plants sprout through cracks in abandoned parking lots, and metal fences bar people from returning to their former homes.
We reached the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, crossed through a security check-point and received our yellow press passes. Our TEPCO tour guide took us upstairs to look out of the only two windows in the building, which required thick, lead-tinted glass to shield workers from the radiation levels outside.
For our own safety, TEPCO made sure everyone wore pants, long sleeves and white gloves. They gave us individual dosimeters to clip to our press passes and had us carry our notepads in plastic bags.
TEPCO security guards screen employees coming in and out of the power station facility. The daily security routine includes a metal detector, bag screening and an ID check before entrance is permitted into the facility. Photo by Sydney MacDonald
'We drove past more black bags, boxes with clothes awaiting incineration and giant water tanks that held radioactive water from the spent fuel pools.'
On board the bus, Sydney MacDonald and Tate Samata passed our sole camera back-and-forth across the aisle, with a TEPCO employee barking when they were forbidden to shoot photos. Our tour guide explained what steps TEPCO was taking to contain the still-leaking radiation. We drove past more black bags, boxes with clothes awaiting incineration and giant water tanks that held radioactive water from the spent fuel pools.
Even though some of the radioactive elements in the water can be treated, it’s too expensive for TEPCO to remove tritium from such a large volume of water, so their current solution is to keep building water tanks to hold the ever-growing quantity of wastewater.
We drove past all six buildings holding the nuclear reactors, where Units 1, 2 and 3 are actively undergoing nuclear meltdown. Outside Unit 1, a robotically controlled crane lifted a machine into the building to vacuum up the rubble left from the hydrogen explosion on March 12, 2011. The force of the explosion blew off the roof of the building and left the steel beams exposed and bent backwards.
(Left) TEPCO security guards screen employees coming in and out of the power station facility. The daily security routine includes a metal detector, bag screening and an ID check before entrance is permitted into the facility. (Top right) Bags filled with radioactive materials line the streets of the sprawling site of the nuclear plant. it is not clear what will be done with tons upon tons of soil, wood concrete and steel contaminated by nuclear radiation. (Bottom right) A TEPCO employee holds up an ALOKA 7 Survey Meter, is a portable radiation measurement device used to calculate the amount of radiation inside the power station. Photos by Sydney MacDonald
Outwardly, the other reactor buildings looked in much better condition, but radiation counters on the side of the road hit hot-spots from the leaking radiation, surpassing 115 micro-Sieverts per hour, compared to the 0.1 micro-Sieverts per hour back in Tomioka.
At the base of the Fukushima Daiichi complex, we drove past buildings that still bore dark stains from the 46-foot tall tsunami wave that topped the plant’s 19-foot seawall. The water struck with enough power to twist huge welded steel tanks and flood the emergency power generators—their failure allowing the reactor cores to overheat and trigger the nuclear explosions.
When TEPCO ushered us off the bus, we each stepped through a scanner that measured our total radiation exposure from the hour and six minute tour. The TEPCO officials gave a pointed statement about how safe our radiation levels remained—not that any of us had been concerned—we were more worried about which photos they might delete from our one and only camera.