Fukushima’s tragic legacy—radioactive soil, ongoing leaks, and unanswered questions

CISAC Co-Director Rod Ewing tells National Geographic that, “In some cases, as we become more sophisticated, we’ve lost the ability to see what’s most obvious.”
Nuclear Power symbol

On March 11, 2011, Koide Hiroaki was in his laboratory in Kyoto, Japan. It was a gray, wet afternoon, and the 61-year-old nuclear engineer was hard at work when the earthquake hit. Fifteen miles beneath the surface of the sea, one tectonic plate rumbled beneath another. A slippery clay layer helped the great pieces of crust slide, releasing centuries of stress. The seabed rose up 16 stories, and slipped sideways 165 feet.

Read the rest at National Geographic