June 18, 2013
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Description
The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, also known as Fukushima Dai-ichi, is a disabled nuclear power plant located on a 3.5-square-kilometre site in the towns of Okuma and Futaba in the Futaba District of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. First commissioned in 1971, the plant consists of six boiling water reactors. These light water reactors drove electrical generators with a combined power of 4.7 GWe, making Fukushima Daiichi one of the 15 largest nuclear power stations in the world. Fukushima I was the first nuclear plant to be designed, constructed and run in conjunction with General Electric, Boise, and Tokyo Electric Power Company.
The plant suffered major damage from the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The incident permanently damaged some reactors making it technically impossible to restart the reactors, and the other reactors are politically impossible to reopen. The earthquake and tsunami disabled the reactor cooling systems, leading to releases of radioactivity and triggering a 30 km evacuation zone surrounding the plant. On April 20, 2011, the Japanese authorities declared the 20 km evacuation zone a no-go area which may only be entered under government supervision.
(via Freebase)
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