[expl*si*n]
[bright music playing]
[heroic music playing]
[narrator, in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[narrator, in Japanese]
[foreboding music playing]
[glass shattering]
[people screaming]
[metal clanging]
[debris falling]
[people screaming]
[water rushing]
[people screaming]
[ominous music playing]
[news anchor 1]
One of the biggest earthquakes
ever recorded has hit Japan.
It triggered a tsunami
that coursed
several miles inland,
washing away everything
in its path.
[news anchor 2]
The situation there is...
is nothing less
than apocalyptic.
[Lester Holt]
But the big concern continues
to be that nuclear power plant,
the Fukushima Daiichi,
uh, nuclear plant...
[expl*si*n]
[rumbling]
[man, in Japanese]
[government official,
in Japanese]
[news anchor 3] There's been
another major expl*si*n
at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
[alarm blaring]
[man, in Japanese]
[news anchor 4]
Only 50 brave employees
are still at the plant,
trying to stave off
a total meltdown.
They are risking their lives
to avoid this meltdown
that could be historic
and terrible
for the whole country.
[rumbling]
[man, in Japanese]
[ominous music playing]
[music fading]
[tense music playing]
[newsreel narrator 1] At 8:15,
a weather plane reports
from Hiroshima
that conditions are good.
[unsettling music playing]
[newsreel narrator 1]
At 9:15, the b*mb is dropped.
[eerie music playing]
[newsreel narrator 2] On the
first day of November 1955,
the United States Atoms
for Peace exhibition
opened in Hibiya Park, Tokyo.
America's ambassador to Japan,
John M. Allison,
conveyed a message
from President Eisenhower.
That the exhibit stands
as a symbol
of our countries'
mutual determination
that the great power
of the atom shall be dedicated
to the arts of peace.
A message
from Prime Minister Hatoyama
praised the greatness
of atomic science
in the present century.
[tense music playing]
[bright music playing]
[female narrator, in Japanese]
[inspiring music playing]
[foreboding music playing]
[haunting vocalization]
[Ikuo Izawa, in Japanese]
[haunting vocalization]
[in Japanese]
[tense music playing]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[man on TEPCO video] Here
at the nuclear power plant,
highly trained professionals
work hard to protect safety.
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[man on TEPCO video]
Knowing the dangers,
that's where
operator education starts.
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[man on TEPCO video]
Twenty-four hours a day,
we generate, deliver,
and protect.
Safety is our first priority.
We are TEPCO.
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[loud thud]
[alarm blares]
[loud thud]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[uneasy music playing]
[Carl Pillitteri]
I've been assembling things
since I was a kid, you know?
If a package would come
or a box would come,
my dad would always say,
"Let Carl put it together."
And the first thing I'd do is
bust out the instruction sheet
and get right to the parts list,
and lay out the parts,
making sure there was 24 nuts
and 24 bolts.
I was just very particular.
I just... It's just
a natural-born way, uh...
way for me,
and I've been working
in nuclear power now,
just over 40 years,
all over the globe.
The US, Spain, Switzerland,
Sweden, Taiwan, Japan.
Loved working in Japan, too.
I just loved it.
It was a beautiful day.
March. You'd think March 11th
in Japan might be cold,
but it was sunny,
beautiful, clear.
[foreboding music playing]
[clock beeping]
[indistinct radio chatter
in Japanese]
[traffic rumbling]
- [cars honking]
- [violent shaking]
[car alarms blaring]
[cars honking]
[official speaking Japanese]
[lights shaking]
[rumbling]
[anxious chatter]
[strong tremor]
[frantic chatter]
[violent shaking]
[objects falling]
[people screaming]
[severe shaking]
[objects crashing]
[people screaming]
[glass shattering]
[people screaming]
[man] Oh, my God! This is weird.
I've never experienced
the ground shaking like this.
[ominous music playing]
[seagulls squawking]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[ominous music playing]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
I was in Unit 1
on the turbine building.
The sounds coming off
the structural steel...
like those old Japanese movies
where Godzilla was doing
that squeaky metal sound,
like that-that screech
he would make.
That's what it sounded like
to me, you know.
And I know I felt
the whole building shift
east and down.
Not inches.
It was in... it was...
It was in feet.
[eerie music playing]
[Wakana Yokoyama, in Japanese]
[alarm blaring]
[Yokoyama, in Japanese]
[tense music playing]
[Yokoyama, in Japanese]
[man over loudspeaker,
in Japanese]
[waves crashing]
[alarm blaring]
[tense music playing]
[alarm blaring]
[man speaking Japanese]
[man panting]
[alarm blaring]
[indistinct announcement
over loudspeaker]
[man over loudspeaker,
in Japanese]
[man panting]
[alarm blaring]
[indistinct chatter in Japanese]
[man 1, in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[alarm blaring]
[man 2, in Japanese]
[man 3, in Japanese]
[man 4, in Japanese]
[men gasp]
[man 5, in Japanese]
[man 6, in Japanese]
[people screaming]
[man 7, in Japanese]
[horns honking]
[water rushing]
[alarm blaring]
[helicopter hovering]
[helicopter pilot, in Japanese]
[somber music playing]
[somber music continues]
[in Japanese]
[static crackles]
[unsettling music playing]
[Pillitteri] I got out
of the building
and I watched
the tsunami come in.
Water got higher and higher
as it went over the seawall.
You would think it's loud
but it's not.
It only started to make noise
when it started
to snap and crack,
and break things off
when it hit land.
[loud crashing]
I didn't think about the plants
till I watched it rush
around them.
I watched it just rush
around the four buildings,
off the highlands behind me,
like these big black
ominous clouds
came rolling in real low.
Almost felt like it pulled
the atmosphere down on us,
and began to snow even.
[water rushing, crashing]
It felt like
the end of the world.
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[water rushing]
[whirring, beeping]
[machine powering down]
[in Japanese]
[machine shutting down]
[indistinct shouts]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
One of the
most powerful earthquakes
ever recorded has struck Japan.
The terrible devastation
in northeastern Japan.
The destruction there,
simply epic.
The death toll mounting,
exact numbers unknown.
[news anchor 5] Local television
has shown shocking pictures
of entire towns being swept away
by a wall of water
kilometers wide
as people run for their lives.
[news anchor 6]
Fears that the eventual toll
could be
in the tens of thousands.
[news anchor 7]
The tsunami waves
that followed moved so quickly,
at a speed
of 800 kilometers an hour,
that they proved to be
an unstoppable
and devastating force.
[Fackler]
I was working as a journalist
for the New York Times.
I was based in Tokyo
where I'd been living
for eight years.
After the earthquake struck,
we had decided to head north
to where the tsunami caused
most damage.
It was like entering hell.
The tsunami
had basically ripped away
everything that was there.
So if you can imagine
just like a... a field,
like a plane,
uh, from the surface
of the moon.
Dark grey mud
covering everything.
An occasional piece
of a home, or building,
or even an occasional home
that had somehow
randomly survived.
Uh, big pools of water,
things were on fire,
and mounds of debris.
You know, pieces of buildings,
and fishing boats,
and crushed buses,
and mangled cars.
Uh, there were dead animals,
dead pets,
and of course dead people.
No one survives that tsunami.
You either get out of the way
or you're dead.
[indistinct radio chatter
in Japanese]
[Naoto Kan, in Japanese]
[somber music playing]
[Fackler] Kan and the
Democratic Party of Japan
were a very inexperienced
government.
This was their first time
in office since 1955.
And they now had to deal with
an extremely challenging set
of circumstances.
The country
was in complete chaos.
Thousands of people
are missing,
and they have
this developing situation
at Fukushima
that had the potential
to be many, many times worse
than Chernobyl.
That disaster
involved one reactor.
Fukushima involved six.
[news anchor 8]
Japan now telling
the UN nuclear watchdog,
the IAEA,
that they have
a heightened state of alert
that has been declared
at their nuclear power plant.
This is the Fukushima,
uh, nuclear power plant.
[news anchor 9]
Radiation levels are up,
according to
the Kyodo News Agency,
eight times the normal level
at a monitoring station
outside the plant,
1,000 times above normal
in a control room
inside the plant.
[somber music playing]
[Fackler]
The worst case scenario
would be a cataclysmic meltdown
of the reactors
called a China Syndrome.
And what that refers to is
the... something like 100 tons
of uranium fuel
is inside the reactor.
It melts out of control.
It melts down,
which means it collapses
to the bottom of the vessel,
like a... just a lump
of like lava almost.
If you can't cool it,
which they can't
because there's no electricity
to pump water into the reactor,
it rises to a temperature
of something like
2,000 degrees.
It burns
through the vessel itself.
It'll melt through the vessel,
drop into the building,
almost like bore its way
through the concrete
'cause of the heat,
it escapes into the earth
and is out of control.
And if that were to happen,
experts talked about the loss
of northern Japan.
The entire northern half
of Honshu becomes uninhabitable
if this thing
gets out of control.
[Katsuaki Hirano, in Japanese]
[tense music playing]
[eerie music playing]
[Hirano, in Japanese]
I watched four TEPCO guys
pulling on a van or something,
and they got out,
and they all walked towards me
'cause I was right
at the top of the stairs.
And they all walked down
that stairs,
they were all
in their TEPCO uniforms,
and they were all
about 35 years old, I'd say.
Like, they were all, like,
in their mid-30s.
We just all made eye contact
as they went by.
They went down that stairs,
and they were probably part
of the operations group
or whatever.
And I remember those four guys
going down,
probably had to stay
and work that mess they had.
When we parted ways
and I went up that hill,
uh, to get to my rental car,
you know, I didn't know
they were gonna be headed
for a meltdown
in less than 24 hours.
I didn't know at that time
how bad things were gonna get.
[breathing in gas mask]
[Hirano, in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[news anchor 10] This could be
a catastrophe in the making,
Japan's nuclear power plants.
Officials say cooling systems
in some reactors have failed
and some radiation has leaked.
The next 24 hours
are considered crucial.
What's meant to happen
inside a nuclear
power station is this.
In the reactor,
the rods of nuclear fuel
go through
the process of fission.
The atoms splitting
and releasing energy.
Water is pumped in
and flows around the fuel
where it heats up
and turns into steam.
That drives generators
to make electricity.
But if a reactor runs dry,
as one did today,
the fuel rods overheat and melt.
And that may have started
in three reactors.
The nuclear fuel could then sink
to the bottom of the reactor,
the beginning
of what's known as meltdown.
But provided the steel wall
of the container does its job,
there shouldn't be a leak.
[Kan, in English]
This was my first experience
of a severe accident
of this sort.
I would not hide anything.
But as Prime Minister,
I would also not say anything
I could not be certain of.
That was my policy.
I told the special advisor
I would go to Fukushima.
"Please make preparations."
[foreboding music playing]
[helicopter whirring]
[Kan, in English] I was joined
by the Chairman
of the Nuclear
Safety Commission.
I clearly recall asking,
"Is there any danger
of an expl*si*n?"
To which the Chairman
answered with conviction,
"An expl*si*n is out
of the question."
[unsettling music playing]
[fax machine whirring]
[Katsutaka Idogawa, in Japanese]
[whirring]
[fax machine whirring]
[Idogawa, in Japanese]
[alarm blaring]
[Idogawa, in Japanese]
[breathing in gas mask]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[unsettling music playing]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[static crackles]
[foreboding music playing]
[Manabu Terata, in Japanese]
[Kan, in English]
We arrived in a w*r zone.
The hallway
was full of workers,
several of whom
were lying on the floor.
Some were wrapped in blankets.
In the conference room,
they explained,
"We are considering
whether to vent manually.
We will decide
in the next hour."
I said,
"We couldn't wait that long."
To which they replied,
"We will create
a suicide squad."
[music fades]
[in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[unsettling music playing]
[Terata, in Japanese]
[Kan, in English]
This nuclear accident
placed the very existence
of our country in danger.
Our ability to evade a crisis
depended on venting
these reactors.
[tense music playing]
[Hirano, in Japanese]
[breathing in gas mask]
[muffled chattering]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[Hirano, in Japanese]
[expl*si*n]
[unsettling music playing]
[alarm blaring]
[alarm continues blaring]
[Hirano, in Japanese]
[Idogawa, in Japanese]
[expl*si*n]
[Terata, in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[Kan, in English] When I saw
the expl*si*n on TV,
it was over an hour
after it had happened.
And I hadn't received
a word from TEPCO.
[expl*si*n]
I ordered
my executive secretary,
"Get me
some information quickly."
Everyone in the country,
in the world,
knew of the expl*si*n,
but we had no information
or explanation.
[news anchor 11]
The blast was seen
and heard for kilometers.
Reactor 1 at Japan's Fukushima
Nuclear Power Plant explodes,
sending radioactive gas
spewing skywards.
[haunting music playing]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[beeping]
[alarm blaring]
People talk about 2011
as being a triple disaster.
But really it was
two separate things.
There was the tsunami
and the earthquake
which were an act of nature
that k*lled tens of thousands.
Then there was
the nuclear accident
which was actually something
completely different.
The nuclear accident was
an entirely man-made disaster.
When we started
looking into it,
even in those first days,
TEPCO was making mistakes.
Now, there was a big gap
between the plant
and headquarters in Tokyo.
The plant was repeatedly asking,
"Could you send up batteries
so we can restart
our cooling systems?"
Uh, "Can you send up generators
on trucks?"
But TEPCO management
was in such chaos
that they just continually sent
the wrong items.
It's like
the wrong size batteries.
Or it's stuff you don't need,
you know. It-It's...
There's... At some point,
there's a pile of unused,
unneeded objects
that just builds up
in the parking lot.
Also the drivers
of these trucks
that are being sent from Tokyo
refused to go to the plant.
They refused
to go near the plant,
it's too dangerous.
So they stop
at this TEPCO dockyard
that's two hours
south from the plant,
and drop off their stuff there.
And then the TEPCO workers
at the plant
are told to drive down
and get it.
So no one
is coming to help them.
[breathing in mask]
[Fackler] On top of all that,
Reactor 3 is now out of water
and has started
to produce masses of hydrogen.
[in Japanese]
[somber music playing]
[news anchor 12]
Concerns are now being raised
over three separate
nuclear reactors at Fukushima
following an expl*si*n
at one yesterday.
There are worries
that the reactors could overheat
leading to meltdown.
There are also safety issues
at two other nuclear sites.
Officials are reassuring
the public
that there is
no immediate danger,
but an exclusion zone
around Fukushima
has been extended.
The evacuation of people
from the area
now runs into the hundreds
of thousands.
[news anchor 13]
Strong aftershocks
are still being felt
across the country,
adding to the risks
the rescuers face.
The problems
at the nuclear plants
are making a bad situation
even worse.
Huge swathes of the country
still have
no electricity supplies.
On television here,
they're looking for reassurance
from the experts.
But it's hard
for the Japanese public
to be sure about the level
of risk they face.
We are working aggressively
to support our Japanese ally
at this time
of extraordinary challenge.
Search and rescue teams
are on the ground in Japan
to help the recovery effort.
A disaster assistance
and response team
is working
to confront the aftermath
of the earthquake and tsunami.
As I told Prime Minister Kan
last night,
the Japanese people
are not alone
in this time of great trial
and sorrow.
The US military,
which has helped...
[Charles Casto] Honestly,
I think
the Japanese government
worried about an American
getting too involved
with the nuclear disaster.
I think there was a perception
in Prime Minister Kan's mind
that we would take over
if they failed.
So they wanted to be able
to fix it themselves.
But these reactors
were American in design.
So it was only a matter of time
before the US government
sent someone.
We've also deployed
some of our leading experts
to help contain the damage
at Japan's nuclear reactors.
[Casto]
And that someone was me.
I'm Charles Casto.
I'm a nuclear
safety consultant.
I've worked in nuclear power
for over 45 years.
I'd never been to Japan.
I knew very little
about the country.
So I was sort of plopped down
in the middle of a...
an international disaster
with really no understanding
of the culture,
the language, the people.
Although I did know
the facility,
the nuclear plant very well,
um, because I worked at a plant
almost identical
to Fukushima Daiichi.
So, I had been an operator
and instructor at that plant.
That's partially the reason
that I was chosen
to lead that effort.
[plane engine rumbling]
[Casto] When I landed,
we rushed to the embassy,
and I was thrust
in a secure video conference
with US government
and US military
to discuss next steps.
The US has a large
military presence in Japan.
Over 80,000 people.
So we had our concerns.
Not a lot of information,
a lot of speculation.
So one of the...
You know, one of my goals
was try to reduce that chaos.
But, um...
it was days
before we felt comfortable
we were getting
good information.
Many days.
[news anchor 14]
It seems yesterday's expl*si*n
in the plant's Unit 1 reactor
was caused by a buildup
of hydrogen gas
inside the building.
It destroyed its walls,
but the containment chamber
surrounding the nuclear core
remained intact,
preventing a potentially
catastrophic radiation leak.
But it's now thought
that a partial meltdown
in a second reactor
at the plant, Unit 3,
is highly possible.
A complete meltdown
could release uranium
and dangerous byproducts
into the environment.
[dramatic music playing]
[Fackler] So on the 14th,
the team at the plant
were using a small fire truck
to pump water into Reactor 3.
And so this... this single
fire truck with these hoses
is the only thing
cooling the reactor.
And they're now having to use
seawater to do this,
which is something
TEPCO told them not to do
because seawater would ruin
the longevity of the reactor.
But at this point,
saving the reactor
is out of the question.
They just need
to do anything they can
to get on top of this.
But they just
don't have the tools
to stop the hydrogen buildup.
[dramatic music building]
[expl*si*n]
[unsettling music playing]
[in Japanese]
Japan's nuclear crisis
worsened today
when a second reactor building
exploded.
The suspected hydrogen expl*si*n
did lead to the release
of some radioactive material
into the air.
Officials have been
giving assurances
the containment structures
that house nuclear material
remain intact.
But it's becoming clear
that those assurances
are not based on any certainty
about what's going on
inside the reactors.
A short while ago,
the plant owner,
the Tokyo Electric
Power Company,
announced that water levels
in Reactor Number 2
are dangerously low,
raising the specter
of a nuclear meltdown.
[Fackler]
As soon as Unit 3 is lost,
Unit 2 starts to go downhill.
And for various reasons,
Unit 2 is worse
than Unit 1 or Unit 3.
The-the pressures
are much higher.
And so the big fear
was that the reactor
would actually blow up,
like a balloon popping,
in a Chernobyl-style rupture
of the reactor itself.
And that's when
they start talking about...
you know, can we even
control the plant?
You know,
why are we even staying?
[unsettling music playing]
[Fackler] TEPCO management
then calls the government
to say, "We don't think
we can deal with this.
We may have to evacuate."
[Kan, in English]
I was speechless.
If they withdraw now,
the very existence
of this country
would be in jeopardy.
We had to contain the accident.
And we had to be prepared
to lose life in the process.
I told them,
"I'm going
to TEPCO headquarters.
Make preparations."
[Casto] Looking in
from the outside,
the situation was completely
dysfunctional and disconnected.
First meeting was,
"Look at our track record.
Like, how good...
how strong it's been."
Well, that's over, you know.
[chuckles]
That was my thought.
TEPCO couldn't get
a hold of the situation.
And the government also seemed
to be completely ill-informed.
Prime Minister Kan had experts
who he would listen to.
They came up
with this popcorn scenario.
Like a chain reaction.
One reactor
would set off another,
then another, and then another.
It could just get worse,
and worse, and worse out there.
[in Japanese]
[Casto] So he had
immense pressure on him.
He wanted everything,
as you might imagine,
wanted everything faster,
stronger, bigger.
I was sent there to help.
They didn't want to listen
to an American,
which is understandable
given our history.
[Akira Kawano, in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[Kan, in English]
I arrived at TEPCO headquarters
a little after 5:30 a.m.
A number of monitors
were lined up
in the operations room.
One of them was connected
to Fukushima Daiichi.
I addressed everyone.
[in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[expl*si*n, static noise]
[news anchor 15,
in German]
[woman, in French]
[news anchor 16] Good evening.
The situation at Japan's
Fukushima nuclear plant
has gotten worse.
While a Tokyo Electric official
said in a press conference
that he does not believe
a critical event is imminent,
a senior
nuclear industry executive
told the New York Times
that Japanese nuclear managers
are, quote,
"Basically
in a full-scale panic."
[Fackler]
After the Unit 4 expl*si*n,
TEPCO did evacuate the plant.
Kan agreed to the evacuation
of most people from the plant
if a small number would stay
to-to... basically,
to man the fire trucks.
They had three fire trucks
that were pumping water
into the reactors.
That was it. That was the
entire response at that point,
was three fire trucks.
Kan wanted enough people
to stay
to man those fire trucks
and to monitor the reactors,
and a total
of 69 people stayed.
They're known
as the Fukushima Fifty,
but there were
actually 69 of them.
They were staying
so the others could leave.
Uh, and... they stayed knowing
that they may not come back.
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[somber music playing]
[somber music continues]
[news anchor 17]
Japanese engineers
marshalled all
their remaining tools today
in the week-long struggle
to prevent
a full-blown nuclear disaster.
[news anchor 18]
Filmed just yesterday
from a military helicopter,
this shaky footage
is the best image we have yet
of the crippled
Fukushima nuclear plant.
No workers can be seen outside.
With radiation
at such high levels,
it's simply too dangerous.
The dense steam
is believed to be rising
from a storage pool holding
100 tons of nuclear fuel.
And alarmingly, two more pools
nearby are also heating up.
Normally, at least five meters
of cooling water
cover the rods,
stopping them from overheating
and protecting workers
from a deadly radiation.
But reports now indicate
the pool
has run completely dry,
a potentially
catastrophic development.
Radiation levels there
are believed to be lethal.
No one can go near.
Seven days into this crisis,
no one is any clearer
on how this nuclear emergency
will end.
[indistinct chatter]
[dramatic music playing]
[worker, in Japanese]
[worker speaking Japanese]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
At this moment, 70 brave souls
are still working
at the stricken
Fukushima plant in Japan.
They are trying to prevent
a nuclear meltdown
and apparently suffering
great radiation.
We've obtained a statement
from the International
Atomic Energy Agency, Peter,
that says the levels
at the plant,
and I want
to make that very clear,
at the plant itself,
are enough to k*ll a man
within five hours.
[breathing in gas mask]
[Hirano, in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[unsettling music playing]
[squad leader shouting
in Japanese]
[squad members shouting
drill commands]
[Toyohiko Tomioka, in Japanese]
[phone ringing]
[alarm blaring]
[siren wailing]
[breathing in gas mask]
[squad members chatting
in Japanese]
[rescue squad member 1,
in Japanese]
[Tomioka, in Japanese]
[rescue squad member 2,
in Japanese]
[Tomioka, in Japanese]
[rescue squad member
speaking Japanese]
[machine beeping]
[rescue squad member 3,
in Japanese]
[Tomioka, in Japanese]
[alarm blaring]
[tense music playing]
[shouting in Japanese]
[squad member speaking Japanese]
[squad member 4, in Japanese]
[squad member 5, in Japanese]
[shouts in Japanese]
[breathing in gas mask]
[Tomioka in Japanese]
[indistinct chatter in Japanese]
[Tomioka, in Japanese]
[breathing in gas mask]
[alarm blares]
[tense music playing]
[in Japanese]
[machine beeping]
[breathing in gas mask]
[beeping continues]
[Tomioka, in Japanese]
[breathing in gas mask]
[beeping continues]
[somber music playing]
[Tomioka, in Japanese]
[in Japanese]
[breathing in gas mask]
[Hirano, in Japanese]
[hopeful music playing]
[in Japanese]
[music fading]
[news anchor 19]
A few dozen workers
at the Fukushima nuclear plant
finally were able to restart
the reactor's cooling systems.
[news anchor 20] Workers have
entered a reactor building
at Japan's Fukushima
nuclear plant
for the first time
since it was damaged
by March's earthquake
and tsunami.
[Fackler] After the
Hyper Rescue Team came,
more and more people
arrived to help.
And they finally start to get
a handle on the disaster.
[haunting music playing]
What follows
is civil suits, inquests,
and TEPCO executives
making public apologies.
[cameras clicking]
[TEPCO executive, in Japanese]
[Fackler] It's also revealed
that TEPCO received a report
warning that a tsunami
of 15 meters
was possible
at the Fukushima plant.
But instead of acting on it,
TEPCO sat on the report
and only gave it
to nuclear authorities
on March 7th, 2011,
four days
before the disaster struck.
[haunting music playing]
Japan is the nation that
invented the word "tsunami."
So the idea
that a Japanese plant
wouldn't be ready
for a tsunami looks ludicrous.
And yet they weren't.
When-when the waves hit,
the plant was literally caught
with its pants down.
You don't even...
even need a wave wall.
All you need
is a waterproof power system.
Like you have in a ship,
or a submarine, or something.
It-it wouldn't have taken
a whole lot.
And they just didn't do it
because to raise the risk
of a tsunami,
to raise the risk of something
like that happening,
would go against the orthodoxy
of the "safety myth."
If you questioned
the safety of a plant,
even something like, "Hey,
let's have a few more
backup systems,"
it could possibly
cost you your career.
And so people didn't do it.
They-they...
They had to toe the line.
And the plant was... was...
was left vulnerable
to something that
in Japan, frankly,
should have been... foreseeable.
[in Japanese]
[somber music playing]
[Fackler] The aftermath
of the accident
is still going on today.
And we are still decades
from cleaning up
the radioactive material
in the reactors.
Uh, it'll be my grandchildren
who see that cleaned up.
And after years of mothballing
the nuclear program in Japan,
it's firmly back
on the agenda.
They've restarted 14 reactors,
and there are plans
to build many, many more.
It's not just Japan.
Much of the world,
faced with climate change
and energy insecurity,
is now turning back
to nuclear power.
[seagulls squawking]
If... You know,
if there was a big lesson
from the accident,
it would be the necessity
of transparency
and-and coming...
being frank with people, right?
You would hope
that lesson has been learned.
But the government has
never been fully transparent
about what happened
in Fukushima.
TEPCO has never revealed
fully what happened.
We have very few records
of what was being said
or done at that time.
It feels like
any question of risk,
any question of what
can go wrong is gone,
and people just don't want
to talk about that.
We're back to, you know,
"Don't worry about it,
we'll take care of it,
everything's okay."
[upbeat music playing]
[cartoon narrator, in Japanese]
[Fackler] And their messaging
leaves us wondering,
has anything really changed?
[cartoon narrator, in Japanese]
[gentle music playing]
[Izawa, in Japanese]
those brave emergency workers
who are walking
into a wall of radiation.
[Izawa, in Japanese]
[haunting music playing]
[Casto] The operators there do
not see themselves as heroes.
You know,
they felt they were culprits
more than heroes,
that they caused the accident,
which they didn't.
Some told me that, you know,
we feel like Vietnam veterans.
You know,
that in America where...
You know, we think
we fought a noble battle
but our people don't think
this is a noble w*r.
So we're not heroes.
[haunting music playing]
[Casto] But for me,
unlike the military,
none of those
who stayed behind at that plant
expected they would have
to give up their life.
They, like anyone else
with a nine-to-five job,
turned up on the 11th
with their lunchboxes
to work their shifts.
Then they were faced
with all of this.
And they chose to stay.
And I think understanding that,
anyone would have to agree
that they are
absolutely heroic.
[somber music playing]
[in Japanese]
[pensive music playing]
[birds squawking]
[somber music playing]
[plaintive music playing]
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Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare (2026)
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