Talk:Fukushima nuclear accident/Archive 13

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There's been more than one death!

The studies have shown that chucking tens of thousands of people out of their homes and, even more importantly, shutting down all the hospitals, KILLS PEOPLE.

The studies have shown that even just the disruption to medical services has killed around 200 people. When people can't easily get their insulin or heart pills or blood thinners or whatever, guess what? They die. The nuclear disaster shut down all the hospitals in the area.

That's not "stress", it's not that people are terrified by the radiation, nor is stress simply a psychological condition. Their entire lives have been thrown out of their control.

Meanwhile people here are still trying to pretend that 'nuclear hasn't really killed anyone' and are trying to claim only one person died in the entire disaster, whereas the studies currently point to more people dying from the effects of the meltdown, than were killed in the entire province by the tsunami. GliderMaven (talk) 21:54, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

stress related, not accident related. and you are conforming it--Dwalin (talk) 22:11, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Not Due To Nuclear

This is why it should NOT be called a "nuclear disaster". "Disaster" is a scary word, and accounts for the extremely bad decision for people to be evacuated from, and subsequently to abandon, the entire area.The earthquake was a disaster that broke Daiichi's connection to the grid, but these three power plants survived it, until the tsunami destroyed their emergency backup diesel power.

Shall we call it a "Diesel disaster" or a "tsunami disaster"?

The use that people who are fanatically against nuclear power, either from ignorance, or from the knowledge that it could put them, Fossil Carbon, out of business, is a propaganda disaster for the biosphere. --

DaveyHume (talk) 16:57, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree that more visibility should be given to the effects of the evacuations because they were the greatest health effect of the accident. But it is difficult to decide which number to use. 51 people died during the evacuation. The 1600 "disaster-related deaths", or a newer publication says about 2000, is more controversial. There is an incentive to classify deaths as disaster-related because then relatives get some compensation. But there is no proof that all those deaths were actually caused by the evacuation. They may have been caused by the evacuation, which entitles for the compensation money. --TuomoS (talk) 15:32, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

@GliderMaven, Dwalin, TuomoS, and Boundarylayer: Hi and thanks for your contributions! As we edit this article, please keep in mind that there are many contributors with good intentions and with a deep, emotional connection to its topic. Disputes regarding content are fraught and we all need to keep any discussions civil. For instance, I think we can all agree that the sources make clear that the "stress", to which some deaths can be attributed, was a product of the disaster and the response to it. Also, perhaps we should avoid using all caps and exclamation points :-)

I feel confident that the issue of how the government's response to the event has affected the evacuees is a significant part of the story, and the article should contain a well-sourced and appropriately-placed discussion of it. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 03:46, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

While I would agree Informata ob Iniquitatum, is there likely to be a reliable AKA non-informed-by-lawyers secondary source, ever to be published that we can use to tell this "significant part of the story"? I'll keep an eye out, though haven't come across one as of yet. Likely it will be published in Japanese first, right? Perhaps there are some sources from the Japanese-wiki article?

Boundarylayer (talk) 06:39, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

@Boundarylayer: I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "non-informed-by-lawyers secondary source". The article contains reliable sources already, including Nature and the Mainichi Daily News. Full disclosure, I am an attorney in RL. Please don't hate me :-) Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 06:56, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

regarding all i can add. there are also compensation of workers that had tumors AND received dose of 5mSv. but all literature agrees that that levels of radiation is not cangerogenic. if it is so, a good part of italian population, or spanish, or finnish, have to die of radiation tumors for natural backgrount. in japan it is only a temporal correlation, not a causal correlation for workers. it is hard to whrite, and also hard to explain to people that knows nothing of radiation. so, how we can define stress-related deaths? in mayor count? no, they are not related to accident, they are related to relocation, not for relocation of a nuclear accident. hardly--Dwalin (talk) 08:00, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

A point of clarification. There is no such thing as radiation that is not carcinogenic. Additionally, the Mainichi Daily News article was mistranslated and as such, I have deleted the references to the figures quoted in it.--Senor Freebie (talk) 14:39, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

@Dwalin: Do you have a reliable source that says that "it is only a temporal correlation, not a causal correlation" for those workers? If so, please show me and feel free to make or propose an edit. Thanks again. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 08:24, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

How about formulating the infobox like this: 51 people died during the evacuation^[111]; mortality increased due to the long-term relocation^[5] Would this be acceptable to all? --TuomoS (talk) 09:30, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

It would be acceptable for me. It should also be noted that stress-related premature deaths are estimated, and cannot be taken as actual deaths resulting from the accident. They also mostly affect people over 70. Also, the most important part to mention for context is that the evacuation itself is widely considered to have been unnecessary and harmful, thus it is a result of poor accident management rather than the accident itself.

References

@TuomoS: I think that's fine. I'm not sure if the evacuation content belongs in the infobox. @Ita140188: Again, while I see your point about poor planning, I think you're splitting hairs here. I mean, ultimately, you can always trace damage from a disaster to past decisions. If a house is destroyed in a forest fire, you (typically) wouldn't say that it was a result of poor planning on the part of the builder who located it there rather than the fire itself. The accident exposed the poor preparedness on the part of TEPCO and the government, but it's still part of the story of the disaster. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 16:04, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. An equivalent to your fire example would be to blame the government for allowing to build houses next to the plant. But this was not the problem. The evacuation order was a direct result of overly conservative radiation exposure limits and irrational fear of radiation exposure. If the government had not ordered the evacuation, these deaths would not have happened. These deaths therefore are not the direct result of the accident itself, but of a mistake of the government. --Ita140188 (talk) 16:15, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I updated the infobox. There is no space in the infobox for explaing about the necessity of the evacuations, or about evacuating too many people for too long time. If somebody is going to update the article text, this and this may be good references, in addition to those that are already there. --TuomoS (talk) 20:09, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

@Ita140188: I agree that my forest fire analogy is not entirely apt. Yes, the evacuation and its effects were a product of decisions (perhaps poorly-made) by those in charge. However, all of them--the decisions, the evacuation, and its effect, all flowed causally from the disaster. Therefore it belongs here. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 05:29, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

I absolutely don't agree that this is just the result of the Government screwing up an evacuation. If they hadn't evacuated people, for example, allowed the older people who are less sensitive to radiation to stay, how would they have looked after them, in the middle of a fallout zone, where anyone who has a family or was young would have quite sensibly left? Who would provide nursing care, or doctor services? How would you get food to them? Maybe there's some way to thread that needle and end up with fewer deaths, but FFS would nobody have died with what would almost certainly have been a situation that all the hospitals ended up shutdown in that zone??? It's just ridiculous. People would still have died. GliderMaven (talk) 04:44, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

@Ita140188, GliderMaven, Dwalin, TuomoS, and Boundarylayer: I propose we remove the fatalities and injury section from the infobox and instead create an "effects" entry which would contain the evacuation details (#'s, areas, short and long term), amount of radiation released, physical damage to the plant, costs, and monetary damage figures. There body can deal with this topic more fully. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 05:42, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

That sounds as a step in the scholarly direction, as raw numbers of 'deaths' without any context will be misinterpreted, moreover it would be to engage in WP:OR/original resource.

As something of a guide for all editors, within the scientific literature of energy accidents, it is frequent to describe health effects as direct and indirect. However contrary to what you might be now thinking, the indirect health effects within the scientific literature are still casual, such as the pollution related issues, which in our case would be the suspected elevated cancer rate from the fallout and associated mortality projections. The present Indirect deaths category within the literature , does not entertain any such government/social/hysteria related deaths, as they could just as easily have occured if a new president arrives and decrees evacuation, out of a city for no apparent reason. Just like how after September eleventh, people started fearing planes and with that driving a lot more in the US, instead of flying and with that increased road-usage, there is the convincing data that more people died worldwide from road-traffic accidents as a social result of the event, than actually died on the day itself.

professor estimates an extra 1,595 Americans died in car accidents in year after September 11 attacks - Yes that is a coincidence in numerical amount to the oft-cited decision-making effects from Fukushima

Though that is still notable, did the hijackers or whomever cause it? It isn't included in the infobox of that article, as to do so would be absolutely absurd. So with that in mind, I think we can take something of a guide from that article on how to deal with this one. A completely separate addendum to these casual categories of direct and indirect health insults, should at least in my assessment, include the health effects from the social/government mismanagement/radiophobia chain of events. Alongside the panic-induced, reactionary policy, that whomever was in government. Clearly didn't consult with any health physicists, over whether it was necessary to evacuate a disc shaped area of land around Fukushima.

In this proposed addendum for our article, to cover the social-effects-deaths, There is also this quasi-notable other attempted or still ongoing lawsuit, that given your occupation, you might alreadly be keenly aware of? USS_Ronald_Reagan#2011. That too should be added to the fuzzy social-effects addendum.

https://www.courthousenews.com/attorneys-implore-judge-to-keep-sailors-fukushima-case-in-u-s/

Apparently the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of those 'sick' sailors, Charles Barner has a history of making one billion dollar requests in damages. Keep trying I suppose, someday he may have his break? Though to answer your other question, no I don't hate all lawyers as that would be too broad, it is well accepted though that people on the other hand, don't have much time for charlatans who frequently are lawyers engaged in court-room FUD theatre [and ethically maligned Dramaturgy], in order to win and then consider their win as evidence of health impacts when all scientists know, that to prove a negative beyond a reasonable doubt, is literally and absurdly impossible, it is a joke but unethical lawyers have gamed the court-room AKA the drama-stage multiple times in order to pervert and influence broader society in so many ways that have set human living back, that its full effects can only begin to be imagined. With the very same fearmongering done, only slightly evolved as it has, from the days of the witch-hunt. 'Placed in water, if she sinks she is a witch, if she doesn't she is now a dead witch.'

For completeness for our article however, this very preliminary study, would also be a necessary addition to our article, for all these downstream decision-making-determined deaths.

Japan's coal-fired plants 'to cause thousands of early deaths'

Boundarylayer (talk) 04:12, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

@GliderMaven: Please append your comment to the bottom of the discussion. If needed you can cite a specific comment. If we all start modifying the discussion by appending comments in the middle it would soon be impossible to follow anything. As for the evacuation, I am not suggesting that everybody should have been evacuated except old people. I was citing studies that demonstrate that the whole evacuation was unnecessary, as the radiation levels of the "fallout" (as you call it) is actually within the natural variation of background radiation, thus it does not constitute a danger to the population. --Ita140188 (talk) 11:05, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, how about no, you don't get tell me what to do?

Anyway, even if that was the case, which frankly is a pretty fucking big if, the people that died, still died because of the Fukushima meltdown, and not the tsunami. You don't get to erase deaths because a study that was performed years after the fact suggested that there might have been a better way. Hey, maybe the Titanic would have had less deaths if (something) (something). It makes no difference. We can only hope the next meltdown will be better; there's always another meltdown, roughly every 20 years. GliderMaven (talk) 16:46, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

FWIW the populations of people that are native to regions with very high background radiation levels seem to be evolutionarily disposed to higher immunity to radiation; children that were highly sensitive would have died before reproducing- over thousands of generations you would be left with a population with genes that can handle it better. This says nothing good about how Fukushima's population would respond to a similar situation- their population genome hasn't evolved liked that. GliderMaven (talk) 16:46, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

In any case, that's irrelevant, what's relevant is that there's excess deaths specifically in Fukushima. GliderMaven (talk) 16:46, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

@DaveyHume: Hi and thanks for contributing! Per the sources and the definition used by the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, this topic is appropriately called a disaster. I disagree that "accident" is more neutral. It implies the lack of human agency in the event and that suggests that the decisions and actions of the government and TEPCO played no part in the damage done. I like your point about the public's fear of nuclear power and the harmful effects of fossil fuels, but that discussion probably doesn't belong here. See Nuclear power, Nuclear power debate, or Anti-nuclear movement, for a more appropriate venue. Also, it would be helpful to me and other participants if you could put your comments at the end of the discussion, instead of inserting them between two prior edits. Thanks again Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 08:27, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

"Accident" does not imply the lack of human agency in the event. Actually, it is the opposite. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, accident is "an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance". This definition perfectly fits the Fukushima accident. Disaster, on the other hand, is "a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction". Thus, the word disaster is far from neutral; it implies that the event caused "great" damage, which is very subjective. --TuomoS (talk) 08:46, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@TuomoS: That is the second definition that Merriam Webster gives. the first is "an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance" (emphasis mine). You cannot hold a person responsible for something that was unforseen. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as happening "unexpectedly and unintentionally." But more to the point, the groups who respond to disasters have their own definition, which doesn't involve cause at all. Too wit: "a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources. Though often caused by nature, disasters can have human origins." This topic clearly satisfies the IFRC's neutral definition. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 09:17, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the false claim that more people have died due to evacuations

I attempted to address this a long time ago, when this article was structured quite differently, and I had the user who included this information come after me very aggressively. I've now come back to find the segment that I proved to be incorrect now included very prominently in the article's lede. I'll say this clearly. This article is pushing propaganda, using a dead link, to an article that I demonstrated was a mistranslation of a Japanese source. The 1,600 deaths referred to, accounts for all deaths that occurred due to the evacuation from the Tsunami. That there has been no new sources added to back up this claim, for what is a momentous deathtoll for a manmade disaster, while the false information has been made more prominent in the article since 2013 only serves to illustrate that this is being included in the article incorrectly. I'll be deleting the line shortly, and will expect a full explanation and more up to date sources before anyone attempts to include it again.--Senor Freebie (talk) 14:20, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Of the fatal cases of victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, the number of fatalities recognized by the local government in Fukushima prefecture as "disaster related death" rose to 1,539 as of the end of August A daily newspaper survey showed that it was approaching the number 1599 (prefecture disaster control headquarters survey). It also turns out that at least 109 people are under application. It is certain that we will soon surpass direct death.

The above is retrieved via Google Translate from the Newspaper's Japanese language article, which the English article used as a source for both Wikipedia and other source for the figure (NBC). I've twice now confirmed with Japanese people that this meaning is clear. The article refers to the natural disaster evacuations in general, and not specifically people who died due to evacuations caused by the reaction to Fukushima plant's failures. Further, this erroneous information seems to have been used repeatedly throughout this Wikipedia article, and is included in sentences that clearly are there to imply outcomes that are misleading.--Senor Freebie (talk) 14:32, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

If you run into trouble, you can leave a message on your talk page asking me to support you to avoid running into the 3 revert rule problem. (I may or may not be immediately active on Wikipedia, though).--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 18:30, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. I'm not very active myself, so I'll just check in here when I get the chance.--Senor Freebie (talk) 06:39, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Section 8.1 Non-Sequitur

I'm not a regular editor or anything so I didn't want to just dive in and change things, but the second to last paragraph of section 8.1, Japan's Reaction to the disaster, seems to end on a massive non-sequitur. After mentioning a local group using off-the-shelf Geiger counters, it launches into a diatribe on a specific design of radiation dose-detecting equipment, ending with a random note about how UC Berkeley did air testing. My impression is that this is a combination error- one person going overzealous trying to discredit the Geiger-counter using group by going way too in-depth on the "proper" equipment they would need to use to be taken seriously. The second is someone accidentally posting the bit about UC Berkeley under the "Japan" reaction section instead of the international section.

Is there an official "approved" editor who might look at and fix this section? Or can I clean it up myself? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:602:8b80:fcb0:e183:89f8:8f45:45dc (talk) 19:53, September 23, 2021 (UTC)

You are right. I removed the sentences. By the way, there are no official "approved" editors in Wikipedia. --TuomoS (talk) 20:26, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 2 December 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Fukushima nuclear disaster; there's a clear consensus that just "disaster" is ambiguous with the accompanying tsunami, but adding "nuclear" would be precise enough whilst still being a recognised commonly used name. Sceptre (talk) 17:58, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

---

• Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster → Fukushima disaster
• Fukushima disaster → Fukushima disaster (disambiguation)

Alternative: Fukushima nuclear disaster

– Clear common name per Google NGRAMS and Google Scholar (12,100 results for "Fukushima disaster" and 8,890 results for "Fukushima nuclear disaster" compared to 4,960 for "Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster"). "Fukushima disaster" overwhelmingly refers to this event. (t · c) buidhe 11:41, 2 December 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. BD2412 T 07:30, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• Disagree. The new name should be "Fukushima nuclear accident", for which Google Scholar gives 15,200 results. --TuomoS (talk) 12:05, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

That's another possibility but NGARMS results suggest "Fukushima nuclear accident" is significantly less popular than "Fukushima disaster". (t · c) buidhe 14:05, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: The proposed name is ambiguous with the broader disaster in Fukushima caused by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, of which the nuclear accident was one of many bad things that happened in the disaster. Someone looking for "Fukushima disaster" might be looking for information about the entire disaster rather than just the nuclear accident. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Proposed title isn't precise enough. Concur with BarrelProof. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 16:45, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Name is fine as is. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Fukushima disaster could also refer to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami...and other disasters occurring in the prefecture beyond 2011. The current name explicitly refers to the incident therefore I don't see a reason for a move. --Dora the Axe-plorer (Nopen't) 09:52, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose: I agree with BarrelProof, CaptainEek, and Dora the Axe-plorer: the title needs "nuclear" to avoid confusion with the overarching disaster. It should probably also keep "Daiichi" to avoid confusion with Daini. — W.andrea (talk) 02:32, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: Strange discussions here. It was a nuclear disaster (or nuclear catastrophe) due to a nuclear accident. It is generally known as the 'Fukushima nuclear disaster'. Search for "nuclear disaster" fukushima site:tepco.co.jp. See e.g. https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu12_e/images/120620e0101.pdf or https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2013/1233165_5130.html:
  

"A progress report on the investigation into lingering questions about the causes of the Fukushima nuclear disaster ...".

If we talk about the technical cause, it is about the accident itself; if we talk about the consequencies/impact, it is about the disaster.

As this is the main article about the disaster, the title "Fukushima nuclear disaster" would be the best title. Without refering to the plant's name, thus without 'Daiichi' would be sufficient. --Wickey (talk) 12:08, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: Added requested move for associated disambiguation page. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 15:36, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per BarrelProof. ~Junedude433(talk) 04:00, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support Fukushima nuclear disaster per Wickey - More concise, less surprising, more natural. Daini does not need disambiguating as nothing commonly referred to as a "disaster" happened there. Additionally "Daiichi" and "Daini" are simply Japanese for "No.1" and "No.2", but the reader is not going to understand this nor typically use these words. FOARP (talk) 08:56, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Exactly my experience. I was confused by the word "Daiichi". --Wickey (talk) 10:29, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support Fukushima nuclear disaster per Wickey - as above; can live with current name. --User:Haraldmmueller 09:10, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support Fukushima nuclear disaster per Wickey Red Slash 23:50, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - Vinyl472 The title isn't really relating to the incident enough, as the 'disaster' is summarily linked to the power station's failure. 11:32 8 December 2021 (UTC)
• Note: Relisting for additional input on the alternative proposal to move this title to Fukushima nuclear disaster. BD2412 T 07:31, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support Fukushima nuclear disaster: there is no ambiguity since what happened at Daini (number 2) power plant has never been defined as a disaster; Oppose Fukushima disaster to avoid confusion with the wider Tohoku earthquake disaster in Fukushima prefecture. --Ita140188 (talk) 15:02, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support Fukushima nuclear disaster per others. Current title fails WP:CONCISE, Fukushima disaster fails WP:PRECISE. YttriumShrew (talk) 20:53, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
• To clarify I also support Fukushima nuclear disaster as an improvement over the current title (t · c) buidhe 06:14, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support Fukushima nuclear disaster per Wickey and YttriumShrew Signed, I Am Chaos (talk) 16:21, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Disaster management has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:15, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Japan has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:17, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Earthquakes has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:17, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Energy has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:17, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support alternative Fukushima nuclear disaster. Ticks all the boxes. I'm sceptical that we really need a DAB, but if we do have one it belongs at the base name as at present IMO. Andrewa (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 11 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mdean10, Dsun20, Palocomitre.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Plant Design section should come before Accident section

With aircraft crash articles, for example, the aircraft is described before the crash is. And if there is background information, that comes before either. What do you think? Grassynoel (talk) 12:13, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@Grassynoel I like that idea and have done it. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Why titled "disaster"?

Why is this article titled "nuclear disaster"? There was a major natural disaster and it caused a nuclear accident that killed 1 person according to the article (or zero according to a comment on the talk page). I can find no other place in Wikipedia where a single death is labelled as a "disaster." They are all called "accidents." Wouldn't it be more accurate and less "political" to title this article "Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident"? user:Davey Hume I agree. It was not a "nuclear" disaster, it is a propaganda and ignorance disaster, and a Loss Of Clean Power disaster ongoing. Evacuations from the Fukushima were clearly unnecessary and harmful, as the people who stayed at the reactor had no casualties. The one cancer death that received "compensation" specifically was NOT proven attributable to radiation. Emissions from fossil fuel to make up for the reactor losses will harm the Pacific ocean, and some of the people of Japan, far more than the small amount of radioactivity released. DaveyHume (talk) 16:17, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

It is considered a disaster due to the large destruction caused. The final paragraph of the lead section states: On 5 July 2012, the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) found that the causes of the accident had been foreseeable, and that the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), had failed to meet basic safety requirements such as risk assessment, preparing for containing collateral damage, and developing evacuation plans.

It cannot be an accident if it was foreseeable. Therefore it is a disaster. FlowerPetals📪 22:19, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

FlowerPetals📪 22:26, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Many accidents would have been foreseeable in hindsight. Note that NAIIC is an "accident" investigation commission, not a disaster investigation. --TuomoS (talk) 06:33, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

=== 2000: Tsunami study ignored ===

An in-house TEPCO report in 2000 recommended safety measures against seawater flooding, based on the potential of a 50 foot (15 m) tsunami. TEPCO leadership said the study's technological validity "could not be verified." After the tsunami a TEPCO report said that the risks discussed in the 2000 report had not been announced because "announcing information about uncertain risks would create anxiety."

===2008: Tsunami study ignored===

In 2007, TEPCO set up a department to supervise its nuclear facilities. Until June 2011, its chairman was Masao Yoshida, the Fukushima Daiichi chief. A 2008 in-house study identified an immediate need to better protect the facility from flooding by seawater. This study mentioned the possibility of tsunami-waves up to 10.2 meters (33 ft). Headquarters officials insisted that such a risk was unrealistic and did not take the prediction seriously.

Yukinobu Okamura of the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center (replaced in 2014 by the Research Institute of Earthquake and Volcano Geology (IEVG)], Geological Survey of Japan (GSJ)), AIST) urged TEPCO and NISA to revise their assumptions for possible tsunami heights upwards, based on his team's findings about the 869 Sanriku earthquake, but this was not seriously considered at the time.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned of a risk of losing emergency power in 1991 (NUREG-1150) and NISA referred to that report in 2004, but took no action to mitigate the risk.

Warnings by government committees, such as one in the Cabinet Office in 2004, that tsunamis taller than the maximum of 5.6 meters (18 ft) forecast by TEPCO and government officials were possible, were also ignored.

Can you tell me how this is hindsight? FlowerPetals📪 18:45, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Part of me thinks it is just due to the collective bias of Wikipedians being from the West/English speaking world (i.e. the reason Three Mile Island is an accident and Chernobyl is a disaster is the same reason why powerful people in Europe/America are "entrepreneurs/politicians" and powerful people in Asia are "oligarchs") in combination with bias among writers being more "anti-nuclear" than "pro-nuclear". I disagree with @FlowerPetals' justification for this name; most things people would call "accidents" are "preventable", and renaming a whole bunch of "accident" pages to be consistent with this rule would not go well. "Disaster" is also a term commonly associated with natural disasters, which is pretty much the opposite of what @FlowerPetals describes. Generally, what I would consider the separation between the two in common use is severity or the very low probability of an event. By this definition, "disaster" is probably acceptable, but only in casual conversation.

Personally, I would support a move to "Fukushima nuclear accident". It is a far more specific and neutral name which is used much more often in literature. Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 21:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Jgoldst (talk) 13:20, 30 October 2018 (UTC)Prof. Joshua S. Goldstein, Amherst, MA USA

This and Chernobyl are the only level-7 accidents according to the International Nuclear Event Scale; both are called "disasters" here in the WP - so there is some consistenty to this. Whether it's worth to change that or not ... well, I personally don't care. --User:Haraldmmueller 13:38, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Jgoldst: accident is a neutral word, disaster is not. TuomoS (talk) 15:18, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

This has been discussed many times before - a quick trawl through the talk page archives will show you that the title is unlikely to be changed quickly, but you never know. You could try a WP:Requested move, there was one a few years ago that was strongly contested, leaving the article at its current name. For what it's worth, "disaster" has always seemed a little over the top to me. Mikenorton (talk) 15:46, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I also agree that the correct name should be accident, not disaster. However, I suspect it would not be easy to reach consensus on a name change for this article unfortunately. --Ita140188 (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I would call it a disaster because of all the radiation that was released into the air causing Fukushima inhabitable for maybe 200 years or more. But one death isn't a disaster I agree. But let's keep in mind the radiation levels are 50x higher than deemed to be safe. The dust found on abandoned items are highly unsafe to touch due to radioactive particles. It is both a disaster and accident due to the earthquake plus tsunami leading up to the nuclear plant. over 15,00 died due to the natural disaster. But it is also sad to see a beautiful small town abandoned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.216.255.162 (talk) 16:53, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The town was abandoned because of unreasonably stringent radiation levels requirements from the government. Even now the radiation around the power plant is within the natural background radiation variability in other parts of the world. --Ita140188 (talk) 17:07, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not decide if something was a disaster or not. Wikipedia should just describe what happened and what were the consequences, from a neutral point of view. WP:POVNAMING: "titles should be worded neutrally, so as not to suggest a viewpoint for or against a topic". --TuomoS (talk) 19:42, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I would also say this should be considered an accident. A new book is out further developing this argument. A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.60.34.48 (talk) 20:40, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree that the title needs rewording. Using the word "disaster" is latching on to the media sensation around the accident, which is wrong. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 02:02, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Does somebody have a better idea for a title than "... accident"? If not, I'm going to move to "... accident". --Distelfinck (talk) 16:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I am personally in favour of the change, but I think you should seek consensus first. --Ita140188 (talk) 08:32, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

References

Requested move 6 September 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. No consensus on moving the Chernobyl article, but that can be discussed further in a new move request at that article's talk page. (closed by non-admin page mover) – MaterialWorks 22:13, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

---

Fukushima nuclear disaster → Fukushima nuclear accident – This event is most commonly referred to as the "Fukushima nuclear accident" in literature. Additionally, "accident" is a far more neutral word; the purpose of this page is to not be an editorial. The "disaster" colloquialism should probably still be mentioned as an AKA, as it is commonly used (as we have seen from the numerous discussions on this topic). Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 21:49, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support per nominator. Killuminator (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support - Per policy, we should characterize it based on what the majority of RS's call it. A simple text search for the word "disaster" in the References section shows me 33 occurrences, and for "accident" I counted 67 occurrences.---Avatar317^(talk) 01:02, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support – Accident is more neutral. TuomoS (talk) 06:09, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support - Much more fact-based and encyclopedic. Cloud200 (talk) 09:50, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support "accident" is more accurate and neutral, and widely used in reliable sources --Ita140188 (talk) 11:02, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support - Likewise, Chernobyl disaster is also more appropriately to be renamed and moved to Chernobyl nuclear accident at the same time. In which article, it says "It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven" in the lead section. — Jojoyee^t@lk 08:00, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  While I definitely agree on your point regarding the Chernobyl page, I fear there may be a lot of opposition from other editors due to it being an accident in the USSR and being generally well-known. Perhaps fixing up other accident page names to "(x) nuclear accident" will give more legitimacy to such a change? For example, Three Mile Island accident could be changed to Three Mile Island nuclear accident Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 15:03, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Let's stay on topic here, we are talking about Fukushima, not Chernobyl. The case for renaming Chernobyl is much weaker in my opinion. Ita140188 (talk) 19:18, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Both are related anyway. I don't quite understand why one is better called a disaster and the other an accident, yet both accidents are rated the same at seven. This may reflect what Inanimatecarbonrobin has said is true to a certain degree in this section: "Part of me thinks it is just due to the collective bias of Wikipedians being from the West/English speaking world..."  — Jojoyee^t@lk 01:55, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  INES has a very specific way of rating accidents, and both of them happen to meet the requirements for level 7. However, these are very different events. Chernobyl was not caused by any external factors, and there have been many deaths directly attributed to the accident. For Fukushima, the disaster was the earthquake and tsunami, the plant accident was a result of this (and there have been many other serious accidents at industrial facilities such as refineries on the coast due to the tsunami). There are no deaths attributed to the accident specifically, while the tsunami caused almost 20,000 deaths. Ita140188 (talk) 12:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think severity is a good reason for the use of that word, especially when the accident at the Fukushima plant (I would argue) was much worse in terms of the resulting loss of human life. Honestly, trying to compare two events like this isn't very neutral. Also, your point about Chernobyl not having any external confounding factors is simply incorrect, and the Touhoku earthquake was not the only "cause" of the accident (see: Fukushima No. 2 station). It's important to keep in mind that reality is radically simplified to be communicated to the public. Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 15:02, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

  How is the accident at Fukushima "much worse in terms of the resulting loss of human life"? There are literally no deaths directly attributed to it. Also if you think that one of the largest earthquakes and tsunami ever recorded in history was not the immediate cause of the accident, I am not sure what we are talking about here anymore Ita140188 (talk) 15:32, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

  In terms of immediate loss of life to ARS, the one at Chernobyl is the clear "winner" (or if you just average all of the popular estimates), but I view these two events in a more nuanced framework involving things such as the human response to the accident. For example, the loss of life resulting from evacuation/displacement or resulting public perception of nuclear energy use (See: Mayak). Also, consider that "attribution" is disputed (numbers vary from dozens to tens of thousands for both events). In fairness, I am also somewhat biased to consider the accident at Fukushima to be worse in general as the result of a greater number of failures than the accident at Chernobyl purely from a technical/design/organizational aspect.

  As for the cause, are you not very familiar with the events which occurred? The earthquake and tsunami are only part of it. For example, other power stations experienced the same (or greater) impacts from the earthquake and tsunami, yet they did not result in similar accidents (See: Onagawa nuclear accident). Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 16:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

  See also Comparison of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents. If Chernobyl was rightfully a disaster and not an accident, is the title of the article to be renamed as Comparison of the Chernobyl disaster and Fukushima nuclear accident for consistency? — Jojoyee^t@lk 01:23, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

  INES is mostly a rating system used to communicate what types of immediate emergency response is warranted; it's not some sort of precise historical or archival rating system. If you must compare the two events, this should be done with specifics. Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 15:07, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support for neutrality -- NotCharizard ^🗨 09:19, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
• Reference Despite our support, this commission considered it as a manmade disaster. "Although triggered by these cataclysmic events, the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster—that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.”—Kiyoshi Kurokawa, “Message from the Chairman, ”The Official Report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission [Onagawa: The Japanese nuclear power plant that didn't melt down on 3/11]  — Jojoyee^t@lk 05:46, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

  I'm sure that most of us here would also consider it a disaster; I know I do. Doesn't make it a good article title though. Also, I think it is interesting that "accident" is used over 300 times in that report, but "disaster" is used ~59 times.

  It is also important to consider what the chairman is trying to communicate through that statement though. Essentially he is stating that the event was not so much caused by the touhoku eq/tsunami, but by anthropic factors. (relevant to @Ita140188) Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 16:56, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Too Detailed

I think it's fair to say that for Wikipedia standards, the page is a bit long. However, I think it's also fair to say that a power station accident on this scale should not be held to the standard of a celebrity biography page. I don't believe the section describing the series of events can be meaningfully shortened without significantly reducing the quality of the information. Also, in my personal opinion, the description of the event should probably take priority on the main page over the following political fights and whatnot, which are similarly long.

For now, I have removed the discussion template from units 1-3 to improve readability but discussion should continue here. Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 16:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Most such events are described in a very detailed way as they unroll and shortly after, with lots of speculations and little details that seem important at that time. After 10 years, most of that is completely irrelevant and can be removed or summarised, and whole paragraphs can be compressed to one sentence. Cloud200 (talk) 19:03, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Death count and fatalities

In the article it lists 2,202 deaths from evacuation in the info box, unfortunately I cannot check the sourced article due to a paywall but the number aligns closely to the 2,220 patients and elderly under the Fatalities section.

Following the source provided in the Fatalities section, it does not state that they died, just that those were the number of hospital inpatients and elderly people in nursing facilities in the surrounding area before the evacuation. Rather the death numbers listed were 12 of a group of 27 severe patients and later reported more than 50. Which matches the number of 51 given by the government elsewhere in the article.

Could someone with access please double check the article and numbers provided? 2A02:C7C:9824:8A00:6488:54E2:2639:324C (talk) 20:12, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

The article says specifically 2,202 deaths "from evacuation stress, interruption to medical care and suicide" according to the government's Reconstruction Agency, and that "[t]he wider death toll from the quake was 15,895, according to the National Police Agency." 1,984 of the deaths were over 65, again according to the Financial Times, so take from that what you will. Reconrabbit (talk|edits) 21:36, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Fatalities of evacuation in summary

I think a total of 50 or so are attributed to the evacuation. Not 2000+ BoNiLi (talk) 20:44, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I was confused based on what the article said about this as well but the 2200+ number checks out from multiple sources. Source for the 50 number in the article text doesn't seem accessible but it seems like it's from a very limited set of people in hospitals or nursing homes while the 2200+ number is the entire population within the evacuated zone. Leaving the mention of the 50+ number in the article but I've added a mention of the wider number. – Stuart98 ( Talk • Contribs) 09:18, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

the nuclear disaster in japan

whom was behind it 2001:8F8:2D45:B59C:852A:E54A:5F6A:C393 (talk) 15:49, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

nuclear accident : why not "nuclear disaster" ...

Hello, I am french, I write to you in english, learned at school, not very good, I wish you can understand... Fukushima disaster is more important than a so-called nuclear "accident". In french : accident nucléaire. Isn't it rather a nuclear "disaster", in french : catastrophe nucléaire. This is an important debate.

I wish the french wikipedia would write : CATASTROPHE nucléaire de Fukushima. Thank you for your response Evelyne Genoulaz 89.3.51.240 (talk) 08:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

This article used to be called Fukushima nuclear disaster, but it was moved after a discussion. See the link near the top of this page. As for French Wikipedia's title, that's not anything that English Wikipedia has any say over. Meters (talk) 08:15, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

missing talk page archives

talk page archives 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 are all red links. Not sure if this is the right spot to mention it, but oh well. Gaismagorm (talk) 19:12, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Skeptical Inquirer not Reliable for scientific info

Unfortunately this is not listed in WP:RSP but based off Skeptical Inquirer I do not think this is a reliable source for scientific information. I am removing it in a few locations. The reason I am making such a stir about this is the structure of the section on Radiation Effects in Human is clearly inspired by the Skeptical Inquirer source.

• "a number of media reports incorrectly describing thousands of victims of tsunami as if they were victims of the "nuclear disaster" - Skeptical Inquirer is the only source for this claim. I think this is an example of the kind of non-scientific claim that it could be a reliable source for, but this seems like something that should have more sources.

• "Worldwide media coverage of the incident has been described as 'ten years of disinformation'" - Skeptical Inquirer is the only journal using this term this is not a widely held belief. If this POV was notable then it should have been attributed; however, this POV is not notable so I am removing it. I reworded the claim and moved it to the section on Germany's response since the source was talking about German media coverage.

Czarking0 (talk) 17:44, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

International Impact

As part of consolidating the two international impact sections, I removed this line because it was unsourced: "Responders included IAEA, World Meteorological Organization and the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization."

The CTBTO actually has some nice info on this that is probably notable to add back in with some appropriate sources. Think some non-state actors other than the IAEA would be notable. https://www.ctbto.org/news-and-events/news/fukushima-related-measurements-ctbto

This image was also removed. They don't really belong right now but I think they could be added back in the right context.

U.S. Navy humanitarian flight undergoes radioactive decontamination

Czarking0 (talk) 04:28, 3 June 2024 (UTC)