which nuclear power station in japan was destroyed by tsunami
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (福島第一原子力発電所事故, Fukushima Dai-ichi ( pronunciation) genshiryoku hatsudensho jiko) was an energy accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima Prefecture, initiated primarily by the tsunami following the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011.[6] Immediately after the earthquake, the active reactors automatically shut down their sustained fission reactions. However, the tsunami disabled the emergency generators that would have provided power to control and operate the pumps necessary to cool the reactors. The insufficient cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen-air explosions, and the release of radioactive material in Units 1, 2 and 3 from 12 March to 15 March. Loss of cooling also raised concerns over the recently loaded spent fuel pool of Reactor 4, which increased in temperature on 15 March due to the decay heat from the freshly added spent fuel rods but did not boil down to exposure.[7]
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku (東北地方太平洋沖地震, Tōhoku-chihō Taiheiyō Oki Jishin) was a magnitude 9.0–9.1 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on Friday 11 March 2011,[4][9][10] with the epicentre approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and the hypocenter at an underwater depth of approximately 29 km (18 mi).[4][11] The earthquake is often referred to in Japan as the Great East Japan Earthquake (東日本大震災, Higashi nihon daishinsai)[12][13][fn 1] and is also known as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake,[28] and the 3.11 earthquake. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.[10][29][30] The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture,[31][32] and which, in the Sendai area, traveled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland.[33] The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 2.4 m (8 ft) east, shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm (4 in) and 25 cm (10 in),[34][35][36] increased earth's rotational speed by 1.8 µs per day,[37] and generated infrasound waves detected in perturbations of the low-orbiting GOCE satellite.[38] Initially, the earthquake caused sinking of part of Honshu's Pacific coast by up to roughly a metre, but after about three years, the coast rose back and kept on rising to exceed the original height of the coast.[39][40][41][42]