but the catastrophe did not end there, in Fukushima prefecture the nuclear plant located in the area, which had 6 nuclear reactors, was carrying out a maintenance process in reactors 4, 5 and 6 when it detected the earthquake and the automatic safety system shut down reactors 1, 2 and 3, and started the fission control system, even shut down, and without generating electricity, the reactors require constant cooling to prevent melting of the core containment.

For this purpose there are a series of diesel generators that power a series of pumps that send water to the cooling system of the reactors, but 50 minutes later, the Tsunami arrives, which reached the area of the backup generators that was 10 meters above the ground. The moment of the impact of the wave was captured on video.

Attempts to connect to generators on a nearby hill failed when the control building was flooded as well, at which point cores 1 and 2 were no longer receiving water for cooling while core 3 was still receiving water from a battery system, but this system is designed only as a backup in case of a delayed transition to diesel generator power, not as a long term solution, At this point the cores of reactors 1, 2 and 3 were already melting, but efforts to send water to cool them continued for days, attempts were made to bring portable generators to connect to the pumps but poor road conditions and flooding of the control room prevented this, attempts were made to connect to the Fukushima prefecture power grid but this failed due to incompatibility of the wiring systems.

While workers struggled to send water to the cores, a series of hydrogen explosions occurred between March 12 and 15, due to excess hydrogen produced by residual fission in the cores which was vented to the open air, the explosions occurred in reactors 1, 3 and 4. The latter was undergoing maintenance at the beginning of the disaster but still required the same amount of cooling as the others.

Source

Power was finally restored on March 20, but at this point, disaster had already struck, reactors 1, 2 and 3 had suffered core meltdowns, and their first containment phase had broken down, they were now only contained by concrete shields, although there was no danger of these breaking, the fracture of the first shields meant that now all the water sent to cool the cores to prevent an explosion or a major leak would emerge highly radioactive. Unknown to the public, some of this water had already been dumped into the sea to prevent damage to the equipment. By May 2011, 300,000 tons of even more radioactive water were dumped into the Pacific Ocean.

Despite repeated appeals by international bodies, organizations such as Greenpeace, and local residents, it was not until 2013 that TEPCO [Tokyo Electric Power Company] authorities admitted the discharge of highly radioactive water into the ocean, not only from the water sent to cool the cores, but also water seeping through the subsoil from rain or natural subway sources to the compromised cores, in that year they also began to implement measures to clean the water of most of the radioactive components.

Water has had to continue to flow through the compromised cores to avoid breaching the concrete shield, and this, combined with the water entering through the ground, means that the water passing through the cores totals about 140 tons per day, which is treated and stored in tanks on the surface, but the core cleanup operations could still take 30 to 40 years, and TEPCO claims that the space and resources to build tanks will run out by the beginning of 2023. And that is why, in April 2021, the Japanese government authorized the release of the water stored in the tanks into the Pacific Ocean. As of today, we are talking about almost 1,300,000 cubic meters of water contaminated with radioactive components such as Tritium and Carbon 14, which cannot be removed from the water in TEPCO's purification process.

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The environmental effects of such components have not been thoroughly studied, and both the Japanese government and TEPCO say the levels of contaminants are safe, as Japanese government officials were accused of conflict of interest in their relationship with TEPCO and of allowing low safety standards.

They were also accused of lack of transparency before the international community.

In addition, the Japanese government has systematically discarded other proposals to deal with the contaminated water such as subsoil injection or evaporation, basically the Japanese government opted for the cheapest options, which raises suspicions among organizations such as Greenpeace. Another important indication is the communiqués from countries such as South Korea, which, in view of the lack of studies by third parties on the effects of the water spill, expressed its concern and announced that it would resort to international organizations to prevent this from happening. While the fishing community in the area is concerned about the long-term effects on marine life, and because even if it is safe, no one will want to buy fish from these waters, for fear of radiation. Which would destroy the way of life of entire communities.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/japan-fishing-communities-alarmed-over-plan-release-fukushima-water-2021-04-15/

It is estimated that the effects could be seen within 30 to 40 years, and would include malformations and reduction of marine life from Japan to as far away as the east coast of the United States, and an increase in cancer cases in coastal populations that consume the most seafood.

Discharge of contaminated waters into the Pacific Ocean is planned to begin in early 2023.

Conclusions.

Undoubtedly the Fukushima disaster, although not as serious in its initial stages as Chernobyl, marked a before and after in how nuclear energy was seen in the world, after the disaster many nuclear energy projects around the world were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out.

However, other countries continue to work on increasing their electricity generation capacity using nuclear power, as nuclear power, regardless of disasters such as Fukushima, is one of the most environmentally friendly and easiest to sustain in the long term as resources such as fossil fuels begin to dwindle on the planet. https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/nuclear-power-the-safer-and-cheaper-alternative-to-fossil-fuels

But the full impact of the Fukushima disaster we haven't seen yet, and we may not see it for years, but it is more serious than we can perceive or calculate. That's why for me, it's easy to say that Fukushima is an
ecological disaster in progress, which the public needs to be informed about, and not let it be hidden behind walls of bureaucracy and Chernobyl documentaries.

Recommended Bibliographic Reference

[1]Fukushima nuclear disaster

[2]sciencedirect.com

[3]Unheard voices fishermen fukushima

[4]earthquake and tsunami