Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Fall of the Shah is a historical drama from the BBC World Service. And do stay subscribed here so you can hear our brand new one too. A massive earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale strikes the east coast of Japan. It is the 11th of March 2011. Stay down! Do not try to leave the building! It cripples roads, severs power lines and claims the lives of over 18,000 people.
But this is only the beginning. Fukushima Daiichi is a nuclear power plant operating on Japan's east coast and already reeling from the quake. The tsunami waves crash over the plant's barriers, slamming into the facility. First the earthquake.
Then the tsunami. And then... This is Fukushima Daiichi. We are in a nuclear emergency. This is Fukushima, an original seven-part drama podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Amy Okamura-Jones. I play the part of Akiko, a student in search of the truth. We tell the story of how the disaster unfolded... We are at war! An invisible enemy is trying to occupy Japan! ...and of the people who fought to contain it on the ground. You are under no circumstances to stop seawater injections. And our cast recreate the extraordinary drama at the heart of government. We will be overrun if we do not bring this situation under control.
Togo Igawa plays Kiyoshi Suto.
a former executive at TEPCO, the company responsible for the plants. TEPCO itself just tried to avoid action of responsibility and he feels the whole disaster is partly his fault. It's my choice, Akiko-san. I don't understand it. You're a riddle to me, Suto-san. A riddle? My character, Akiko, is a journalism student who, ten years after the disaster, goes in search of the story behind the headlines.
of how it unfolded and the consequences for the world. Mankind learning to harness nuclear power is like a mouse finally figuring out how to build a mousetrap.
One can admire the mouse's ingenuity, but the obvious question remains, do you really understand what you've built?