Gasping for breath, Mr. Suzuki reached the gates of the power station.
He ordered the security guard to get him some transportation and evacuate to
higher ground. A few minutes later, he got off a motorbike in front of the control room.
Kenichi stood scanning the ocean with a pair of binoculars when he received the
call that Suzuki had arrived back.
Suzuki was in the control room going through an emergency checklist when
Kenichi entered.
Suzuki looked up, his face ashen, his eyes deep wells of fear. “Have you sent
anyone to secure the emergency generator doors?” he asked.
“Two men are down there now,” replied Kenichi. “Do you know what is coming
at us?”
Their eyes locked; there was no need for words. The unspoken truth hung in the
air. So many reports and surveys had been ignored; warnings disregarded, and now they
were going to pay the price.
“How long?” asked Suzuki.
Kenichi looked at his watch. “Five minutes.”
“Get everyone up to the higher levels,” he said.
**
Fukushima Daiich nuclear power plant is located about 220 kilometers north of Tokyo, in
the towns Okuma and Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture on the northeast coast of Honshu.
It is built on a three-and-a-half square kilometer site. The site is divided into two reactor
groups, the southern part containing Reactors One, Two Three, and Four. The northern
area contains Reactors Five and Six. The reactors have a combined power of 4.7
gigawatts (GWe), making the power plant one of the world’s fifteen largest power
stations. Two seawalls protrude into the ocean from the north and south in a triangular
shape, forming the outer harbor—the first line of defense against a tsunami. An inner
seawall is built in front of Reactors One, Two, Three, and Four to protect the intake
pumps for all six of the reactor turbines and emergency cooling pumps. The plant was
designed to withstand a maximum tsunami height of 5.7 meters. The Japan Trench, a
major fault line, is located around 130 kilometers directly off the coast, making it one of
the most dangerously positioned nuclear power plants in the world.
One would think that after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan would
have been the most anti-nuclear country on the planet. However, with fifty-four nuclear
power stations, producing nearly 30 percent of the country’s electricity, Japan is the third
biggest user of nuclear power behind America and France. Yasuhiro Nakasone, who was
prime minister from 1982 to 1987, was probably the biggest backer of nuclear power. In
1954, Nakasone submitted a bill to parliament to finance nuclear research. Lawmakers
gave a budget of 235 million yen, and subsequently, the US-Japan Atomic Energy
Agreement was established, allowing Japan to purchase nuclear fuel and technology from
the US the following year. This was to America’s advantage, politically and economically,
making its ally dependent on its corporate giants.
Still, the public needed convincing, and the CIA took on some Japanese allies in
their propaganda effort. One notable name, according to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
is Matsutaro Shoriki, owner of the Yomiuri newspaper, Japan’s biggest newspaper, and
Nippon Television, Japan’s first commercial TV station. From 1954 the Yomiuri
newspaper published a string of pro-nuclear articles that were seen as very successful in
garnering support for the nuclear industry. Walt Disney Company also came on board. In
1957 they produced a cartoon, “Our Friend, The Atom , ” which depicted the positive
benefits of atomic energy. This was also screened on Shoriki’s TV station.
In 1956, Shoriki, who was then head of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission,
announced a long-term plan for nuclear energy. The Tokai Mura power station in Ibaraki
Prefecture was the country’s first and began generating electricity in 1966.
In 1961, Kazutaka Kikawada stepped into the government-backed nuclear
environment. The company, TEPCO, had already begun research into atomic energy and
was searching for potential sites. Soon after, Kikawada, ironically born and bred in
Fukushima, became the president of TEPCO, and the towns of Okuma and Futaba, in
Fukushima, agreed to the construction of the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
During the 1970s, Japan saw rapid depopulation of rural areas, as much of the
population moved to the bigger cities for better paying jobs. The nuclear industry offered
many small towns and villages a chance of survival, bringing new jobs, wealth, and a
higher standard of living—a very attractive carrot for many rural towns that balanced
precariously on the edge of extinction.
TEPCO’s reputation for safety, honesty, and transparency has been severely
blemished over the past years. In 2007, TEPCO admitted to covering up at least six
emergency stoppages at the Fukushima Daiichi plant as well as a critical reaction at the
plant’s Number Three unit.
Other electric companies, such as Kansai Electric, Chubu Electric Power
Company, Tohoku Electric Power Company, and Hokuriku Electric Power Company,
have also admitted to cover-ups and fake reports.
One could compare the Japanese energy companies to the prewar Japanese
Imperial Army, which listened to no one and answered to no one—and did what it
wanted.
**
A wall of whitewater hurtled toward the Daiichi plant. It hit the harbor seawall and went
straight over the top and then smashed through the second inner seawall. Water exploded
thirty meters into the air and then gushed over the dock, destroying all the reactor intake
valves and pumps. Water flooded the plant, and the level quickly rose ten meters up the
side of the turbine buildings, leaving only the roofs visible in the churning ocean. Sea
water poured into the emergency generator buildings, submerging the generators instantly.
**
The control room shuddered, and everyone stood silent, waiting, praying the generators
would keep going. All knew the consequences of a complete power loss.
“Generators in unit one down,” shouted a man.
Suzuki looked at Kenichi; dread etched into his face.
“Unit Three generator lost,” called another man.
Kenichi studied the array of flashing lights. He knew the situation was bad, but if
the other units’ generators stayed operational, they had a chance.
“Two and four gone,” shouted another man.
Kenichi’s hopes faded, and he started to mentally go over the emergency
procedures for complete loss of power.
“Generators in unit five and six have stopped,” called another.
Suddenly, the room went dark and Kenichi’s throat went dry. “Switch to
emergency batteries,” he ordered.
Moments later the lights came back on, and Kenichi could see Suzuki standing
paralyzed, staring at the monitors.
“Status on cooling systems,” Kenichi demanded.
“All are operational,” replied a man.
“I’m going out to check the damage,” he said to Suzuki, but Suzuki just kept
staring at the monitors.
Kenichi stood on the observation deck. The water had receded enough to allow
him to assess the damage. The whole plant was a wasteland; twisted pipes and broken
concrete were strewn along the harbor, and water gushed from the turbine buildings,
under which were the emergency generators. Further back he could make out the smashed
remains of the generator’s fuel tanks. Office and administration buildings lay in ruins,
their windows and doors gone, the insides gutted. He looked at the watermarks on the
wall and estimated the tsunami must have been around fifteen meters.
Eight hours, he thought, and then the batteries will fail. He knew, even if the
generators had survived, their cooling pumps and intake valves must have been destroyed,
and there wouldn’t be any way to cool the emergency generators. He needed to get power
from the grid restored as quickly as possible.
Suzuki could hear Risa’s voice in his head. She had begged him not to leave her,
but he had left her stranded outside the love hotel.
**
Mr. Saito stood on the roof of his house, staring down at the broken pine trees that littered
his fields. As soon as he had heard the tsunami warning, he had climbed on his roof. He
thought he would stand a better chance up there than trying to escape along the flat road
that ran parallel to the coast. And he had been right; he had heard the roar of the wave and
seen it explode through the pine trees, snapping them like matchsticks. It had thundered
toward him, threatening to sweep away his house, but had luckily run out of power and
stopped fifty meters short. He looked down at the barn that lay in a splintered heap, a
victim of the earthquake . How much of the town had been wiped out? he thought. He
knew this could be disastrous for his town that was already struggling with a dropping
population. Will people rebuild if their houses have been destroyed? His gaze turned
north to the six concrete structures that towered above the horizon. He wondered if the
plant had been damaged and if there was a risk of a radiation leak. TEPCO didn’t have a
reputation for transparency since several cover-ups had recently been made public. He
thought he’d better go and have a look himself.
Thirty minutes later, he climbed onto the knoll of a hill just south of the plant.
What he saw made his heart stop; chunks of concrete, broken pipes, smashed cars,
splintered wood, and trees were scattered throughout the plant. It looked like a war zone.
His eyes moved to the harbor, and he saw the intake pumps had been totally destroyed.
Ever since the construction of the power plant, which he had fiercely opposed, he had
studied in detail how the plant operated and what would cause a serious accident. He was
now staring at the worst-case scenario. He turned and headed back down the hill. He
thought about going to check the Daini plant but guessed it had suffered the same fate. He
had to get back to the town and warn the people.