Fukushima Photo Essay: a Drone's Eye View

Hallie Siegel (2973169) writes "Here's stunning photos and incredible interactive aerial maps of the devastation, cleanup and reconstruction effort in the region around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Adam Klaptocz of Drone Adventures in collaboration with Taichi Furuhashi, researcher at the Center for Spatial Information Science at the University of Tokyo show the current state of the region."

Comments

Re:The Long Road Home

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Well, park my Ford Nucleon and enjoy a refreshing Nuka-Cola, obviously!

Stunning?

[Threni]

Perhaps you'd care to mention which photos you believe are stunning? They all look distinctly average to me.

Re:The Long Road Home

[Jack Griffin]

Imagine telling a child that he or she can never return home to Tomioka because it has been turned into a storage facility for radioactive soil from other regions. Imagine the psychological devastation.

How is that different from any other of the numerous locations that no longer exist either due to economic collapse, or development? I lived in a few places as a kid, none of which exist today. One suburb is now a shopping centre, another demolished to make a forest, and yet another a derelict small town with no economy, soon to be wiped off the map.

What do you do with a parking lot full of radioactive topsoil?

Move it to secure long term storage with lots of signs warning of danger. None of your FUD is really any great concern. Since 7 million people died this year from air pollution mainly from coal power stations, we'll probably do the same thing we do about that, ie not much, but certainly not get all scared about it.

Just to be clear

[JanneM]

Just to be clear here: the devastation is all due to the tsunami, not to the reactor failure. Foreign media seem to often forget or ignore that the disaster was the earthquake and tsunami. That's what killed almost 20k people dead and destroyed the homes of many hundreds of thousands of people.

Re:Just to be clear

[Savage-Rabbit]

Just to be clear here: the devastation is all due to the tsunami, not to the reactor failure. Foreign media seem to often forget or ignore that the disaster was the earthquake and tsunami. That's what killed almost 20k people dead and destroyed the homes of many hundreds of thousands of people.

It seems to me that the root of the Fukushima disaster was the decision to build a nuclear power plant in a place where there was even the remotest chance of Tsunami damage. The government of a country whose history is littered with Tsunami disasters should have known better. The design basis for tsunamis at Fukushima was 5.7 meters, it should have been: "Don't build a nuclear plant within 20-30km of the coast and even then put it on high ground" and keep in mind that this restriction does not account for earthquakes although the Fukushima plant survived a magnitude 7.7 quake rather well so at least in that regard it was better designed..

Re:Just to be clear

[AmiMoJo]

Much of the damage is due to the fact that no-one has been living there to maintain the environment for a few years and nature has started to take over again. Plant roots and branches, blocked drains, storm damage etc.

Re:The Long Road Home

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine telling a child that he or she can never return home to Tomioka because it has been turned into a storage facility for radioactive soil from other regions. Imagine the psychological devastation.

This is a great example of a knee-jerk reaction and "think of the children".

The child generally has less attachment to the old home than the adult. That kind of attachment comes with nostalgia.
Compare the psychological devastation between "There was a disaster so we are going to move and you and your friends are going to school in another part of town." compared to "I have a new job in another town so we have to move and leave all your friends behind."

Yep, that just happened, you brought up an example where a parent getting a new job is worse than a nuclear disaster.