Environmental Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident and Their Remediation

Environmental Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident and Their Remediation
Author: International Atomic Energy Agency
Publisher: IAEA
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2006
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9789201147059

The explosion on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the consequent reactor fire resulted in an unprecedented release of radioactive material from a nuclear reactor and adverse consequences for the public and the environment. Although the accident occurred nearly two decades ago, controversy still surrounds the real impact of the disaster. Therefore the IAEA, in cooperation with other UN bodies, the World Bank, as well as the competent authorities of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, established the Chernobyl Forum in 2003. The mission of the Forum was to generate 'authoritative consensual statements' on the environmental consequences and health effects attributable to radiation exposure arising from the accident as well as to provide advice on environmental remediation and special health care programmes, and to suggest areas in which further research is required. This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Chernobyl Forum concerning the environmental effects of the Chernobyl accident.

The Demography of Disasters

The Demography of Disasters
Author: Dávid Karácsonyi
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2020-09-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030499200

This open access book provides worldwide examples demonstrating the importance of the interplay between demography and disasters in regions and spatially. It marks an advance in practical and theoretical insights for understanding the role of demography in planning for and mitigating impacts from disasters in developed nations. Both slow onset (like the of loss polar ice from climate change) and sudden disasters (such as cyclones and man-made disasters) have the capacity to fundamentally change the profiles of populations at local and regional levels. Impacts vary according to the type, rapidity and magnitude of the disaster, but also according to the pre-existing population profile and its relationships to the economy and society. In all cases, the key to understanding impacts and avoiding them in the future is to understand the relationships between disasters and population change. In most chapters in this book we compare and contrast studies from at least two cases and summarize their practical and theoretical lessons.

Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety of U.S. Nuclear Plants

Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety of U.S. Nuclear Plants
Author: National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants
Publisher: National Academy Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2014-10-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780309272537

The March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami sparked a humanitarian disaster in northeastern Japan. They were responsible for more than 15,900 deaths and 2,600 missing persons as well as physical infrastructure damages exceeding $200 billion. The earthquake and tsunami also initiated a severe nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Three of the six reactors at the plant sustained severe core damage and released hydrogen and radioactive materials. Explosion of the released hydrogen damaged three reactor buildings and impeded onsite emergency response efforts. The accident prompted widespread evacuations of local populations, large economic losses, and the eventual shutdown of all nuclear power plants in Japan. "Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants" is a study of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. This report examines the causes of the crisis, the performance of safety systems at the plant, and the responses of its operators following the earthquake and tsunami. The report then considers the lessons that can be learned and their implications for U.S. safety and storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste, commercial nuclear reactor safety and security regulations, and design improvements. "Lessons Learned" makes recommendations to improve plant systems, resources, and operator training to enable effective ad hoc responses to severe accidents. This report's recommendations to incorporate modern risk concepts into safety regulations and improve the nuclear safety culture will help the industry prepare for events that could challenge the design of plant structures and lead to a loss of critical safety functions. In providing a broad-scope, high-level examination of the accident, "Lessons Learned" is meant to complement earlier evaluations by industry and regulators. This in-depth review will be an essential resource for the nuclear power industry, policy makers, and anyone interested in the state of U.S. preparedness and response in the face of crisis situations.

Fukushima Fiction

Fukushima Fiction
Author: Rachel DiNitto
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2019-05-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0824877977

Fukushima Fiction introduces readers to the powerful literary works that have emerged out of Japan’s triple disaster, now known as 3/11. The book provides a broad and nuanced picture of the varied literary responses to this ongoing tragedy, focusing on “serious fiction” (junbungaku), the one area of Japanese cultural production that has consistently addressed the disaster and its aftermath. Examining short stories and novels by both new and established writers, author Rachel DiNitto effectively captures this literary tide and names it after the nuclear accident that turned a natural disaster into an environmental and political catastrophe. The book takes a spatial approach to a new literary landscape, tracing Fukushima fiction thematically from depictions of the local experience of victims on the ground, through the regional and national conceptualizations of the disaster, to considerations of the disaster as history, and last to the global concerns common to nuclear incidents worldwide. Throughout, DiNitto shows how fiction writers played an important role in turning the disaster into a narrative of trauma that speaks to a broad readership within and outside Japan. Although the book examines fiction about all three of the disasters—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns—DiNitto contends that Fukushima fiction reaches its critical potential as a literature of nuclear resistance. She articulates the stakes involved, arguing that serious fiction provides the critical voice necessary to combat the government and nuclear industry’s attempts to move the disaster off the headlines as the 2020 Olympics approach and Japan restarts its idle nuclear power plants. Rigorous and sophisticated yet highly readable and relevant for a broad audience, Fukushima Fiction is a critical intervention of humanities scholarship into the growing field of Fukushima studies. The work pushes readers to understand the disaster as a global crisis and to see the importance of literature as a critical medium in a media-saturated world. By engaging with other disasters—from 9/11 to Chernobyl to Hurricane Katrina—DiNitto brings Japan’s local and national tragedy to the attention of a global audience, evocatively conveying fiction’s power to imagine the unimaginable and the unforeseen.

Traumatic Stress and Long-Term Recovery

Traumatic Stress and Long-Term Recovery
Author: Katie E. Cherry
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2015-08-21
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 3319188666

This evidence-rich collection takes on the broad diversity of traumatic stress, in both its causes and outcomes, as well as the wide variety of resources available for recovery. Its accessible coverage shows varied presentations of post-traumatic stress affected by individual, family, and group contexts, including age, previous trauma exposure, and presence or lack of social resources, as well as long-term psychological, physical, and social consequences. Contributors focus on a range of traumatic experiences, from environmental disasters (wildfires, Hurricane Katrina) to the Holocaust, from ambiguous loss to war captivity. And the book's final section, "Healing after Trauma," spotlights resilience, forgiveness, religion, and spirituality, using concepts from positive psychology. Included among the topics: The Great East Japan earthquake: tsunami and nuclear disaster. Posttraumatic stress in the aftermath of mass shootings. Psychosocial consequences: appraisal, adaptation, and bereavement after trauma. Loss, chaos, survival and despair: the storm after the storms. Aging with trauma across the lifetime and experiencing trauma in old age. On bereavement and grief: a therapeutic approach to healing. Psychologists, social workers, researchers studying trauma and resilience, and mental health professionals across disciplines will welcome Traumatic Stress and Long-Term Recovery as a profound source of insight into stress and loss, coping and healing.

Catastrophe and Catharsis

Catastrophe and Catharsis
Author: Katharina Gerstenberger
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2015
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 157113901X

Destroying human habitat and taking human lives, disasters, be they natural, man-made, or a combination, threaten large populations, even entire nations and societies. They also disrupt the existing order and cause discontinuity in our sense of self and our perceptions of the world. To restore order, not only must human beings be rescued and affected areas rebuilt, but the reality of the catastrophe must also be transformed into narrative. The essays in this collection examine representations of disaster in literature, film, and mass media in German and international contexts, exploring the nexus between disruption and recovery through narrative from the eighteenth century to the present. Topics include the Lisbon earthquake, the Paris Commune, the Hamburg and Dresden fire-bombings in the Second World War, nuclear disasters in Alexander Kluge's films, the filmic aesthetics of catastrophe, Yoko Tawada's lectures on the Fukushima disaster and Christa Wolf's novel St rfall in light of that same disaster, Joseph Haslinger and the tsunami of 2004, traditions regarding avalanche disaster in the Tyrol, and the problems and implications of defining disaster. Contributors: Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Yasemin Dayioglu-Y cel, Janine Hartman, Jan Hinrichsen, Claudia Jerzak, Lars Koch, Franz Mauelshagen, Tanja Nusser, Torsten Pflugmacher, Christoph Weber. Katharina Gerstenberger is Professor and Chair of the Department of Languages and Literature at the University of Utah. Tanja Nusser is DAAD Visiting Associate Professor of German at the University of Cincinnati.

Nuclear Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi

Nuclear Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi
Author: Richard Hindmarsh
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2013-08-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1135910898

Nuclear Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi is a timely and groundbreaking account of the disturbing landscape of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown amidst an earthquake and tsunami on Japan’s northeast coastline on March 11, 2011. It provides riveting insights into the social and political landscape of nuclear power development in Japan, which significantly contributed to the disaster; the flawed disaster management options taken; and the political, technical, and social reactions as the accident unfolded. In doing so, it critically reflects on the implications for managing future nuclear disasters, for effective and responsible regulation and good governance of controversial science and technology, or technoscience, and for the future of nuclear power itself, both in Japan and internationally. Informed by a leading cast of international scholars in science, technology and society studies, the book is at the forefront of discussing the Fukushima Daiichi disaster at the intersection of social, environmental and energy security and good governance when such issues dominate global agendas for sustainable futures. Its powerful critique of the risks and hazards of nuclear energy alongside poor disaster management is an important counterbalance to the plans for nuclear build as central to sustainable energy in the face of climate change, increasing extreme weather events and environmental problems, and diminishing fossil fuel, peak oil, and rising electricity costs. Adding significantly to the consideration and debate of these critical issues, the book will interest academics, policy-makers, energy pundits, public interest organizations, citizens and students engaged variously with Fukushima itself, disaster management, political science, environmental/energy policy and risk, public health, sociology, public participation, civil society activism, new media, sustainability, and technology governance.

Fukushima and the Arts

Fukushima and the Arts
Author: Barbara Geilhorn
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2016-08-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317208382

The natural and man-made cataclysmic events of the 11 March 2011 disaster, or 3.11, have dramatically altered the status quo of contemporary Japanese society. While much has been written about the social, political, economic, and technical aspects of the disaster, this volume represents one of the first in-depth explorations of the cultural responses to the devastating tsunami, and in particular the ongoing nuclear disaster of Fukushima. This book explores a wide range of cultural responses to the Fukushima nuclear calamity by analyzing examples from literature, poetry, manga, theatre, art photography, documentary and fiction film, and popular music. Individual chapters examine the changing positionality of post-3.11 northeastern Japan and the fear-driven conflation of time and space in near-but-far urban centers; explore the political subversion and nostalgia surrounding the Fukushima disaster; expose the ambiguous effects of highly gendered representations of fear of nuclear threat; analyze the musical and poetic responses to disaster; and explore the political potentialities of theatrical performances. By scrutinizing various media narratives and taking into account national and local perspectives, the book sheds light on cultural texts of power, politics, and space. Providing an insight into the post-disaster Zeitgeist as expressed through a variety of media genres, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese Studies, Japanese Culture, Popular Culture, and Literature Studies.

The Meanings of a Disaster

The Meanings of a Disaster
Author: Karena Kalmbach
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2020-12-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789207037

The disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was an event of obviously transnational significance—not only in the airborne particulates it deposited across the Northern hemisphere, but in the political and social repercussions it set off well beyond the Soviet bloc. Focusing on the cases of Great Britain and France, this innovative study explores the discourses and narratives that arose in the wake of the incident among both state and nonstate actors. It gives a thorough account of the stereotypes, framings, and “othering” strategies that shaped Western European nations’ responses to the disaster, and of their efforts to come to terms with its long-term consequences up to the present day.