Customer Reviews

Fukushima Meltdown: The World's First Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like the author, I was dismayed, though not surprised, about the deliberate downplaying (if not outright lying) in the media coverage of the Fukushima meltdown. American media viewers received a lot of experts telling us how thus and such could not happen, until it did happen (over and over as events worsened), until shortly after the accident was declared equal to Chernobyl the American media pretty much stopped covering it altogether in favor of the events in Libya. I was hoping this book would present a more detailed view of the Fukushima events, with consolidated reports from independent investigators (much of which the press ignored) and international bodies. This book does not do that.

That doesn't mean the book isn't valuable in its way, which is to essentially present a series of reasons why the precautions taken to secure other Japanese nuclear plants against damage from earthquakes and tsunamis are inadequate. So far is it goes that information is fine, but given the title of the book, I was expecting something rather different and none of this information was new to me.

As for Tokyo Electric Power, their statement that the tsunami was an unimaginable event was laughable to me when I first heard it back in March. As a small schoolchild, I learned about tsunamis in Japan, and read stories about their great heights and the damage they caused. Everyone is familiar with "The Great Wave" artwork. The pitiful precautions against tsunamis at Fukushima were ridiculous given historical precedent, even for anyone even distantly familiar with that history. So that information is not new to me, (though apparently it was new to TEPCO before the tsunami). The information about the problems regarding nuclear power in tsunami or earthquake prone areas is good for the average reader.

The three stars I am giving the book is more because the title of the book is not really descriptive of the text. I was hoping for an anatomy of the disaster, a chronology of events before and during, and a long term summary of the events after, with radiation levels and information about the local populace and what is happening in the areas - particularly since the American news media have essentially dropped the story. This book is more of a treatise against nuclear power in Japan, with Fukushima as an example. Perhaps someone will write the book I am looking to read.

After the Three Mile Island and then the Chernobyl nuclear accidents, Japan's nuclear power experts (who Takashi Hirose calls the Nuclear Power Mafia) said in chorus, It can't happen here. And it seemed persuasive to many; after all, if Japan can't produce safe nuclear energy, who can? Then what "couldn't happen", happened. Among the many excellent features of this book is an exploration of the strange reality-denying mentality of the nuclear-power engineers and promoters, the mentality that made this accident possible. People like Hirose, who for many years have been making the obvious argument that nuclear power is simply too dangerous, have been ridiculed, called scare-mongers, and kept out of the mainstream media. Even now after the worst is happened, the Nuclear Power Mafia do their best to act as though it hasn't. Hirose makes clear that we will never learn from either government or nuclear industry representatives what happened at Fukushima, what is continuing to happen, and how likely it is that the same thing can happen elsewhere. From this book we can learn not only what happened, but also why we are not being told what happened. It is clearly and forcefully written; you do not need to be a nuclear engineer to understand it. The danger caused by nuclear power is real, and it is everywhere. By all means read this book.