15 Years After 3/11. Fukushima’s Long Aftermath

You all know that on 11 March 2011, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan suffered a nuclear accident in the wake of the huge Tōhoku earthquake and the subsequent Tsunami. Both, earthquake and tsunami, ferociously hit Japan’s East Coast. As a consequence, the Fukushima Daiichi NPP suffered a power loss. After the diesel generators ran out of fuel, and the general destruction made it impossible to reconnect the station to the grid, the NPP’s nuclear reactors suffered to various degrees due to a breakdown of the regular cooling system, including core meltdowns. To combat this situation and to prevent an even greater catastrophe, the operator TEPCO opted to coarsely cool the reactors with sea water. Consequently, contaminated water was and is being discharged into the ocean. Although efforts have been made to decontaminate the used water to some degree, this is essentially still the situation we are in. The decommissioning of the destroyed plant has barely started.

According to the most recent of IAEA’s “Fukushima Daiichi Status Updates” from 21 January 2026, the discharge of contaminated water continues, although “substantially below the operational targets set by TEPCO“. The IAEA as a pro-nuclear lobbying organisation here banalises the continued poisoning of ground- and seawater. Something, which is the basis of life for plants, animals and humans, who live closeby and farther away.

While the world is shocked by warfare in Ukraine, the middle East – just think of Iran -, and Sudan, while Trump and the other madmen around the world are disrupting economies and international ties, and social disintegration of common societal bonds is well underway, the media apparently stops talking about the climate and the protection of our environment. The sad 15th anniversary of the catastrophe in Fukushima gives us food for thought about what greedy corporate interests are doing to the planet, and especially to those that evidently can hardly oppose them.

Plants, animals and most humans can simply not decide to be contaminated by the fallout of corporate interests or not. They simply have to suffer from it. In the meantime, the nuclear propaganda machine continues to tell the lie of so-called green nuclear energy that could help to stop climate change. In essence, every euro, dollar, rouble, yen, yuan or whatever currency they use, spent in nuclear development, is one unit less used to move on with energy transition towards a renewable system. 3/11 reminds us of that fact, and that fact calls for urgent action.

So let us use the painful experience of Fukushima, and finally move on with the necessary changes in our energy systems. We need to move away from extractive and destructive energy sources, such as fossils and nuclear, towards less harmful means of heat and electricity production. Cheap and renewable energy will be the key for future economic growth and investment. Let us move away from these dinosaurs of a techno-optimistic pasts, and create new, vibrant, and livable futures for us all. Lest Fukushima and the sacrifices of the liquidators, operators, and ordinary people that lost so much, be not forgotten in vain.