Emergency response technical work at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: Occupational health challenges posed by the nuclear disaster

摘要

Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant (NPP) was heavily damaged by the tsunami that resulted from the 9.0-magnitude earthquake which occurred off the coast of eastern Japan on 11 March 2011.The loss of all alternating current (AC) electrical power, even from emergency generators, disabled cooling functions and the supply of recycled water. Hydrogen explosions destroyed two reactor buildings and there was meltdown of the reactor cores. The nuclear accident was assigned the maximum severity level of 7, which is equal to that of the Chernobyl disaster that occurred in 1986.