The Accident of Fukushima Daiichi Japanese Nuclear Power Plant

On March 11, 2011, a violent earthquake occurred 80 km east of the Japanese island of Honshu. This magnitude 9 earthquake (generally referred to in international literature as the "Great East Japan Earthquake") was followed by a tsunami that hit the coast of northeast Japan in particular. These phenomena severely affected the Japanese territory in the Tohoku region, with major consequences for the population (over 15,000 people killed and thousands injured) and considerable damage to infrastructure.

One of these major events was to have a profound impact on nuclear safety: the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The earthquake and tsunami devastated the plant site, causing core meltdowns in three nuclear reactors and prolonged loss of cooling in fuel storage pools. Explosions also occurred in reactor buildings. Significant radioactive releases into the environment occurred. The accident was classified at the highest level of the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), level 7, which corresponds to a "major accident". It led to a profound reappraisal of nuclear safety worldwide, and in some cases to the implementation of new approaches, such as the "hard core" approach in France (see [BN 3 825] ).