4 ms·

The reactor was built in 1982. 40 years ago Are you in all seriousness implying it wasn't built to withstand earthquakes?

• lispm 4y ago
  > Are you in all seriousness implying it wasn't built to withstand earthquakes? The question is to what kind of earthquake they were built to withstand and with what knowledge of earthquake risks? Also taking into account the level of corruption and the attempts to avoid extremely expensive building costs. It's a complex risk calculation - one won't build for arbitrary strong earthquakes, that would be very expensive. The Fukushima site had inspections and was considered safe, only later being exposed to have multiple systemic risks: not enough protection from a tsunami, loss of power backup, loss of outside power, high-risk spent-fuel pools in need of extensive cooling, spent-fuel pools not being easily accessible, no cooling strategies for spent-fuel pools under loss of electrical power, building weakened due to cooling with seawater, no facility to clean cooling water, melted cores, no technology to investigate buildings with melted cores, hydrogen explosion in buildings, ... and much more. Some of the reactors in Japan were built on fault lines with high risk of strong earthquakes. After a strong earthquake it could take many years to bring a nuclear power plant back online, if ever. This is what happened.