On March 11th, 2011, Japan faced catastrophe as a powerful earthquake and 50-foot tsunami hit the country (Fackler). The earthquake was a record 8.9, the most powerful earthquake to hit Japan and the sixth largest earthquake since 1900. Waves, by some account, reached 23 feet, and reached neighboring countries as well though at a decreased height. The quake occurred due to tectonic plate interactions between the plate on which Japan sits (it is currently undetermined which plate that is) and the Pacific plate which slides underneath. The fast movement of the Pacific plate leads to rapid buildups of large amounts of enemy. As It moves, it stick to the plate above it, pulling it down until the plate snaps back upwards. The seafloor thus springs up several meters, resulting in relatively frequent earthquakes in that area. Due to this, Japan has invested heavily in protecting its coast and in building buildings that absorb the shock of the ground and sidewalk’s movement (Sample). Therefore, the most horrific consequence of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami is probably that which occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
The March 11th natural disasters caused necessary cooling systems in the nuclear plant to stop working, leading the reactors to overheat so that three out of six melted down. Uranium fuel rods liquefied and burned through the reactor’s steel walls and the plant’s concrete floors, and it was unknown exactly where the molten fuel had reached. As the plant’s operator, Tepco has worked tirelessly in the cleanup process, having already decontaminated rural towns around the plant. However, without actually working on the plant itself, it will be difficult to persuade the public that the 2011 accident is in the past. In July, a small robot was finally able to successfully navigate through one of the destroyed reactors and take images through the hole that the molten uranium burned through, producing pictures of uranium fuel resting underneath. With some idea of where the fuel now resides, Tepco hopes to begin the internal cleanup process. Thus, the government has invested into a $100 million research center to develop robots to enter the reactor and cleanup the fuel, a new and challenging test for the country’s robotic engineers. It will another few decades to complete the cleanup of the plant in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which is the “worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl (Fackler).

Fackler, Martin. “Six Years After Fukushima, Robots Finally Find Reactors’ Melted Uranium Fuel.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/science/japan-fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-fuel.html.

Sample, Ian. “Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: What Happened and Why.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 11 Mar. 2011, www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/11/japan-earthquake-tsunami-questions-answers.