Shownotes Transcript
This episode of Against the Odds contains explicit language. Please be advised. It's March 4th, 2011. Inside the control room of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, engineers scurry from their desks to the instrument panels that run the reactors. Supervisor Ikuo Izawa steps forward to address them. T-minus 60 seconds since the earthquake. Magnitude 7.5.
Epicenter is a few miles away. Extensive damage to the roads, so outside relief will be delayed. That means the clock is ticking everyone. Have we confirmed reactor shutdown? He looks expectantly towards the pale green wall of instrument panels. It's covered with hundreds of dials and gauges and indicator lights, like the cockpit of a giant airplane. Standing at the panel is Noboru Homa, Izawa's deputy. He turns around. Confirm shutdown.
Izawa nods and turns to another of his workers, a young engineer standing near a lever at the far end of the panel. "Commence cooling!" The lever controls the cooling system for Unit 1, one of six reactors at the plant. Izawa adjusts his glasses as he watches the engineer crank the lever. His practiced eyes notice something almost immediately. "Did you check the reactor pressure first?" The engineer freezes, then looks at Izawa in fright.
Izawa frowns, then strides over to examine the gate himself. "It looks quite high to me." Izawa turns back to his deputy. "Homa?" "Yes, sir?" "Commence venting in Reactor One. We need to reduce the pressure." Homa nods, but before he can move, all the lights go out, above their heads and on the instrument panels. They've lost power.
and no power means no way to cool the reactor, which could lead to dangerously high temperatures in the core and eventually meltdown. In the dark, Izawa calls out to Houma again. "Cancel the venting. Confirm cancel. Fire the backup generators." He sees a flashlight click on and watches in the dim light as Houma hustles over to the far end of the instrument panel. "Backup generators engaged.
The lights flicker, then pop back on. Izawa nods. He's about to repeat the order to vent the reactor when a man steps out of the shadows and shouts, Freeze! It's an instructor holding a clipboard. At his command, everyone stops what they're doing. Izawa calls out, That's the end of the drill. Nice work, everyone. Izawa goes over to the young engineer who forgot to check the reactor pressure and gives him a pat on the back.
He likes to reassure and encourage his workers when they make mistakes. Then he turns to the instructor, who's checking boxes on his clipboard. Well, what do you think? That was nearly perfect. Aside from that idiot not checking the pressure, I'm sure he'll remember next time. Well, let's hope so. I'll have to file a report with Superintendent Yoshida. The instructor jots down a few more notes on his clipboard and scurries out of the control room.
Izawa can't help but laugh a little. Those drill instructors, they're always so eager to spot mistakes. But Izawa knows the drills are important. If a real earthquake ever strikes, his men need to know exactly how to shut down the reactors and keep them cool. Otherwise, they could overheat and melt down. Radioactivity would leak into the water and in the air, endangering not only the workers, but hundreds of thousands of people living nearby.
These nuclear plant workers are the only line of defense against such a disaster. As his men get back to work, Izawa feels proud of them. Everyone kept calm and did their jobs. It was just a drill today, but he knows if the real thing ever happens, his control room... In our fast-paced, screen-filled world, it can be all too easy to lose that sense of imagination and wonder.
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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. We'll be ready. From Wondery, I'm Mike Corey, and this is Against the Odds. On March 11th, 2011, a massive undersea earthquake rocked the eastern coast of Japan. It registered 9.0 on the Richter scale, the fifth largest quake ever recorded. Thousands of aftershocks followed.
An hour later, a massive tsunami slammed into the northeast coast. It was the largest tidal wave Japan had seen in a thousand years. This combination of events spelled disaster for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which supplied energy to thousands of homes and businesses in the region. The plant stood on the site of a former army base just yards from the Pacific Ocean and 100 miles from the earthquake's epicenter.
When the quake and tsunami hit, they kicked off a series of crises at the plant, threatening to unleash the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Only the heroic efforts of a small group of engineers and supervisors could prevent a catastrophe that would displace tens of millions of people and render large swaths of Japan uninhabitable. This is Episode 1: Triple Disaster.
Masao Yoshida stands on the balcony of his apartment, tending to a few flowerpots. It's early Friday morning on March 11th, 2011. Yoshida is a tall, slender man with rectangular glasses. A cigarette bounces on his lips as he bends down to pick weeds out of the dirt. He always enjoys this moment of calm before he starts another busy day at his job, superintendent of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
It's early spring and still quite cold. Yoshida shivers despite the long underwear beneath his suit. His rhododendrons have not yet bloomed, but he's hoping they will soon. The balcony door slides open. Yoshida immediately snuffs out the cigarette in the dirt of a pot. But he and his wife Yoko have been married for over thirty years. And she isn't fooled. "Don't tell me you're smoking again!"
I guess I'm busted. Why do you worry so much about me smoking? Those things are deadly. You could get cancer. Dear, whatever happens happens. It's all in the hands of Buddha and the gods. Yoko doesn't look pleased, but lets the matter drop. They share a quiet moment, watching the city below come to life. I should get going. I have a report to finish before the office party this afternoon.
"You'll be home for dinner? By seven o'clock. Promise." Yoshida smiles at his wife and walks briskly towards the door. He'll have to hurry to finish that report. Supervisor Ikuo Izawa stands up, yawns, and stretches at his desk in the center of the reactor control room. He's starting to regret swapping shifts today,
Another supervisor had a colonoscopy scheduled and needed the day off. Izawa was happy to help out, but it's made for a long week. He glances at the Mickey Mouse clock on his desk. 2:30 PM. He sighs. Six more hours until the end of his shift. To wake himself up, he walks around the cramped control room. He examines the gauges that monitor the two reactor cores he's in charge of.
Deep in the heart of each reactor sits a tank of water holding several dozen fuel rods made of uranium. When a uranium atom splits in a process called fission, it releases energy in the form of radiation and heat. The heat boils the water in the tank and turns some of it into steam. That steam then pushes a turbine that generates electricity.
The whirring, buzzing instruments in the control room monitor every step of this intricate process. Because of them, this room is Izawa's favorite place in the world. He grew up on a farm nearby and always admired the plant for helping pull the Fukushima region out of poverty and providing thousands of jobs. He never thought he'd become a supervisor here, the man in charge of the control room and its two dozen workers.
As tired as he is at the moment, he arrives back at his desk satisfied. He's lucky to work here. Suddenly, the room starts to heave back and forth. Izawa grabs his desk and watches several of the workers fall to the floor. A few desks tip over. Then, the power goes out. There are no windows in the control room, so Izawa and his men are plunged into blackness. Izawa yells out, "Earthquake! Stay put, everyone!"
Fire up the backup generators! Backup generators engaged!
When the lights snap back on, Izawa orders everyone to their posts. Warning lights start flashing on the pale green instrument wall. Alarms blare, but they completed a drill for the scenario only a week ago. Izawa raises his voice so Houma can hear. Have the reactors shut down! Confirm shutdown!
then commence cooling." Izawa glances over at the young engineer by the lever. To Izawa's relief, he checks the reactor pressure first, then proceeds to crank the lever. "Not too fast!" The engineer nods, and Izawa relaxes. Now it's just a matter of physics. Shutting down a reactor interferes with the nuclear fission process, but even after shutdown, the uranium continues to generate heat. Lots of heat.
Izawa's team must therefore cool the reactor by pumping cold water into it. The other reactor that Izawa is in charge of, Reactor 2, has an electronic cooling system that activates with the push of a button. That one is fine for now. Reactor 1 is different. It's older and has a slower, more cumbersome cooling system, with a lever that has to be constantly pumped back and forth.
During sticky situations like this, Izawa has a little ritual. He checks his breathing and heart rate. Both seem steady. He also checks to see if his palms are sweating. He's pleased to find that they aren't. But he can't get ahead of himself. That earthquake felt huge. It could have damaged equipment around the plant. And Reactor 1 still needs to be cooled with the lever. The next few hours will be touch and go.
Plant superintendent Masao Yoshida picks his way across his ruined office. The earthquake stopped just seconds ago, and now he quickly surveys the damage. His television and computer monitor have crashed onto the ground. Bookshelves have tipped over as well and blocked the path toward the door. As he climbs over the shelves, he unleashes a small avalanche of books and tries not to stumble over them.
At 56 years old, he's no stranger to earthquakes, but he's never experienced one this powerful. Outside his office, the hallway is in complete disarray. Lockers are tipped over, papers are spilled everywhere, a window is shattered, and a cold breeze from the nearby ocean chills him.
As superintendent, he has to get to the plant's emergency response center as quickly as possible. The ERC is a special command bunker for times of crisis. From there, he can get video feeds and updates from all over the plant, including the control rooms running the reactors. He just hopes that the reactors are okay. If the hallway and the broken windows are any indication, the damage from the earthquake could be extensive.
But after a few steps down the hallway, he suddenly remembers something. He turns around and heads back to his office. He picks through the scattered books on the floor until he finds a single volume, a slender collection of Zen Buddhist sayings. He often turns to these proverbs for strength. And if the consequences of the earthquake are as bad as he fears, he's going to need every ounce of strength he can summon.
Ikuo Izawa covers his ears and tries to think. It's been half an hour since the earthquake hit. He needs to send men to reactor buildings 1 and 2 to make sure the generators are okay.
And here in the control room, his team needs to continue the delicate process of cooling the reactors. But he can barely hear himself think. The fire alarms have been blaring for 30 minutes straight. His men have to yell at the top of their lungs or use hand gestures to talk to each other. It's frustrating and distracting. The occasional rumble of aftershocks isn't helping either. Izawa calls out to Noboru Houma for an update on the cooling.
After the quake, both reactor temperatures had gotten as high as 600 degrees. Now, they're back down to 450. That's still well short of their goal of 200 degrees. But they're making slow and steady progress. Izawa sees the light flashing on his desk phone. The alarm is so loud he couldn't even hear it ringing. He picks it up and hears the voice of Superintendent Yoshida, but can't make out what he's saying.
You'll have to speak up, sir. I can't hear you over these alarms. Has the reactor shut down? Yes, sir. And the backup generators are on. We've commenced cooling. Be advised, we've received a tsunami warning. Izawa expected this. Tsunamis almost always follow offshore earthquakes. But he's not worried. There are breakwaters and other barriers to protect the plant.
And they're 33 feet above sea level, which is higher than the worst recorded tsunami in Japanese history. After hanging up with Yoshida, Izawa tries to get Homa's attention for another temperature update. But Homa can't hear him. That's the last straw.
Izawa marches over to his lead electrician. I want you to reset the fire alarms. I can't until we've checked the grounds for fires. I understand, but the sound is driving everyone crazy. If we can't hear each other, we're far more likely to make a serious mistake. The electrician still looks reluctant. This is a violation of standard procedure. Izawa tries to reassure him.
"Look, all we're doing is resetting them. If there really is a fire, the alarms will sound again!" The electrician scowls, but walks over to the wall of instruments. He removes a control panel and grabs a screwdriver. A minute later, the alarms stop. Instantly, Uzawa can see everyone relax. He calls out another round of encouragement and gets thumbs up all around.
Another few hours to cool the reactor core and everything will be fine. Outside on the Fukushima power plant grounds, a staff engineer hunches down and runs a finger along a huge crack in the foundation of the main administration building. He pulls out a tape measure to determine its size. It's 3:25 PM, about 40 minutes since the earthquake, and he's checking for damage.
He's part of a team of engineers inspecting every building, including the six reactors. Some of the buildings are painted green, some blue, colors that are supposed to evoke the ocean, which is only about 100 yards away. The company slogan is "A nuclear plant at one with the environment."
Thankfully, three of the six reactors are shut down for routine maintenance today, and the engineer has heard from his team that all six reactor buildings are intact. That's good news, but the main administration building is another matter. There are gigantic cracks here. He jots down the measurements of this one on his clipboard. Then he hears something behind him and turns toward the ocean. A tsunami is coming.
Even from this distance, he can see the ocean slowly rising, forming a wall of water that accelerates towards the shore. He watches it approach the offshore breakwater. 60,000 massive concrete blocks stacked from the sea floor to well above the waterline to sap energy from any surges. There's also an 18-foot seawall. With all that protection and the plant's elevation, he feels safe. He's more curious than worried.
But then, the tsunami slams into the breakwater and some of the massive concrete blocks go flying backwards. Seeing them flick like dominoes sends a chill down the engineer's spine. Still, there's the 18-foot seawall. He watches the tsunami reach it and waits for the water to peak and recede. Except, it doesn't recede. The water keeps rising and rising until it spills over the top of the wall.
The engineer has never seen a surge this big in his entire life. Suddenly, it dawns on him. The plant sits 33 feet above sea level. But this wave is much higher than that. It's going to reach the reactors. And him. He needs to get to higher ground immediately, or else he'll be swept away. As the roar of the tsunami grows deafening, the engineer drops his clipboard and runs for his life.
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Head over to Symbiotica.com and use code ODDS for 20% off and free shipping on your subscription order. Engineer Masamitsu Iga approaches the 18-story building that houses Reactor 1 with a second engineer in tow. They're wearing safety helmets and blue overalls. They're one of two teams sent from the control room by Ikuo Izawa to check on the emergency generators in the basements of Reactor Buildings 1 and 2.
It's a little after 3:30 PM, about an hour since the earthquake. What they're doing is a routine check after a quake, but a vital one. The plant has lost power and the backup generators are their lifeline. They need to make sure that they're functioning smoothly. Iga lets his partner enter building one first.
The plant has strict security. Each employee has to swipe a keycard at an outside door. Then, you enter a small airlock, about the size of a walk-in closet. Inside the airlock, you punch a security code into a keypad to enter the building itself.
Logging in like this can take a while, and Iga is anxious to get to the generators. He ducks over to another airlock entrance a few yards away instead of waiting for his partner. He swipes his card and heads inside. In the airlock, he tries his security code twice, but an electronic display shows an error message. Iga sighs. He's run into this problem before. The system is glitchy. Then he hears a muffled voice.
"Iga? Did you get in?" It's the other engineer. "Where are you?" "Trapped in the airlock. You?" Iga groans. Now they're both locked in. At least there's an intercom. He can call security to get them out. He pushes the button and speaks into the call box. "Hello, I'm trapped in airlock 7B in reactor building 1." No one answers. Iga tries several times, but the security crew must be busy elsewhere.
he yells to his partner just sit tight someone should be along soon but then iga hears a roar the airlock has a window that faces the ocean and when iga looks through it his mouth drops open in horror a huge black wall of water is rushing straight towards him it's picked up several cars from the employee parking lot and is tossing them around like toys
Iga watches helplessly as the water and cars crash into the building. The airlock window shatters. Water begins to rush in. The sheer force of it pins Iga against the locked inner door. "Help! Help!" He jabs the intercom button, but it shorts out. He can hear his partner screaming in the other airlock. Within seconds, the water is up to Iga's chest. He tries to get to the broken window to climb out, but the surge won't let him move.
Soon, the water is above his head. The strap of his helmet starts to choke him, and he scrambles to undo it. He swims upward in the chamber, fighting to keep his mouth above water. But the water just keeps rising. Pretty soon, he can touch the ceiling. He's practically kissing it. He thinks of his three little boys back home, and his darling little girl. It's his last thought before he resigns himself to death.
Supervisor Ikuo Izawa is about to call out for an update on the reactor temperatures when something jolts the entire control room. Izawa loses his footing and nearly falls. At first, he assumes it's an aftershock, but it doesn't feel like one. Earthquakes start slow and then build. This was abrupt, like a giant hand slapping the building, but he can't see outside because the control room has no windows.
The voice of his deputy, Noboru Homa, cuts through the murmurs of the other men. "The diesels are sputtering!" Izawa isn't sure he heard correctly. "You mean the backup generators? What's wrong?" Before Homa can answer, the overhead lights cut out. The only light now comes from the glow of the instrument panels. But soon, those lights flicker and die as well. Now, the room is pitch black. Izawa's mind freezes for a moment.
Then, his training takes over. He clears his throat. S.B.O. We have an S.B.O. S.B.O. stands for Station Blackout. It means they've lost all power, as well as all ability to monitor or cool the reactors.
Izawa runs through a mental checklist of what he needs to do. First, figure out what went wrong with the generators. Second, restore power as quickly as possible. He also remembers the two teams that he sent to check on the generators in the basements of reactor buildings 1 and 2. Whatever's going on, he hopes they're okay. Masamitsu Iga is sucking in the last millimeters of air near the ceiling of the airlock.
He braces himself for the last breath of his life before the cold water overwhelms him. But then, the water starts to recede. He feels himself floating downward as it drops away from the ceiling. After a minute, his feet touch the floor. Somehow, water is draining out of the airlock. He's not going to drown.
At least, not for the moment. Back in school, Iga's teachers drilled into the students that earthquakes can cause multiple tsunamis. So, he can't just sit around. He's got to escape. He also needs to find out what happened to his partner. "Hello? Are you okay? Hello?" No answer. Iga wades over to the window with the shattered glass.
He knocks some loose shards aside and accidentally slices his hand. The cut gushes blood, but he steals himself and squeezes through the window. "Iga! Iga!" He can hear his partner now. He splashes over to the other door, fighting through the mud and seaweed strewn everywhere. Through the still intact airlock window, he can see his partner slumped against the wall. Iga pounds on the glass to get his attention. "Hold on! I'll get you out!"
Iga has to smash the window. But with what? He splashes through the muck, the salt water stinging his cut hand. Finally, he finds something. A log about a yard long. It feels sturdy. He turns toward the airlock, cocks the log like a baseball bat, and swings with all of his might.
The glass is thick, and his cut hand throbs with pain every time he hits it. But he's got to get his partner out, so he keeps swinging. He can see the glass cracking. He focuses the blows, hitting the same spot over and over. Finally, the window shatters. He knocks the glass aside and helps his partner through. Now they have to get back to the control room.
As they turn the corner of the building, Iga stops in shock. As far as the eye can see, the grounds of the plant lie in ruins. He sees cars flipped over and huge oil tanks flung aside like tin cans. They may have survived the airlock, but clearly the crisis at the plant is just beginning. Ikuo Izawa stands in the darkness of the control room, flipping through the reactor's manuals with a flashlight.
He needs to figure out why the backup generators cut out, but so far, he can't solve the mystery. Before they lost power, he sent two teams to the reactor buildings to check on the backup generators. Maybe they'll have an answer when they return. Suddenly, the door of the control room bursts open. It's the two teams, including engineer Masamitsu Iga. Iga steps forward. "We're screwed." "Screwed? What do you mean?"
Izawa points his flashlight toward Iga and is startled to see that he's soaking wet. In fact, all four men are waterlogged. Why are you wet? There's water everywhere. In the reactor buildings? Is there a leaky pipe? No, it's seawater. We nearly drowned, and the basement of Building 1 must be flooded. The other team says Building 2 is the same way.
It takes Izawa a moment to realize the full impact of what Iga is saying. If the basements are flooded, then the backup generators are underwater and out of commission. Only one thing could flood the basements with seawater: a tsunami. At first, Izawa can't believe it. The plant is up too high. But then he looks again at Iga and the others, standing there completely soaked. It's all the proof he needs.
He can feel the worry in the room emanating from his men. He and his team have run hundreds of drills on dozens of different emergencies, but every single scenario relied on the backup generators. What are they going to do without them? In the darkness, he hears a voice by his side. It's his deputy supervisor, Noboru Houma. "Um, sir? Yes? Is this where someone yells freeze?" Izawa is startled for a moment.
Then starts to laugh. The rest of the control room does too. This whole situation seems like something those drill instructors would dream up. It's all so absurd. How can a nuclear power plant not have power? When the laughter subsides, Izawa takes a quick survey of where things stand. Without power, he has no idea what's happening inside the reactor cores. Even worse, they can't cool the reactors. This is no drill.
Isawa needs to find a new source of power, fast. Because if he can't, and the reactors start overheating, well, he doesn't even want to think about that. Shattered dishes crunch underneath the boot heels of Katsuaki Hirano as he walks through his home toward the front door. His home suffered serious damage in the earthquake, but he doesn't have time to worry about that.
Right now, his main concern is getting to his place of work, the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Hirano was scheduled to work today, but had a colonoscopy this morning. So he and his colleague, Ikua Izawa, swapped shifts. That means it should have been him in charge of the control room right now, not Izawa. Hirano has decided to go to the plant to help.
Outside, he climbs into his car and pulls out of the driveway. Some neighbors surveying the damage to their houses stare at him as he drives by. The plant is only six miles away. Normally, it shouldn't take him more than 20 minutes to get there. But a mile from his home, his eyes go wide as he hits the brakes. In front of him sits a massive slab of asphalt and dirt, where the ground has buckled and pushed up the roadway.
There's no way his car can get past it, so he shifts to reverse and tries another route. But it's not much better. Live power lines dangle across the road, snapping like dragons as he inches past. Some manhole covers have collapsed into sinkholes. Others have been thrust upward, still attached to their concrete shafts. They poke out of the ground like huge pistons. He sees people digging through piles of rubble that were once their homes.
Others brush debris off their cars and pull broken pieces of timber out of smashed windshields. Some look grimly determined and stoic. A few wail and moan. Others sit on the curbs, staring blankly, overwhelmed.
Gerano swallows hard. His community is devastated. And while his small sedan has squeaked by the biggest holes and barriers on the road, fire trucks, ambulances, and other rescue vehicles might not be able to navigate these roads for hours, maybe even days. Finally, Gerano reaches an intact road and accelerates towards the plant. But then he notices something. There are hundreds of cars heading away from the plant.
His is the only car heading towards it. Do they know something he doesn't? He slows down and pulls over, watching the stream of cars and wondering if it's crazy for him to continue. But he keeps thinking of poor Izawa and feels overwhelmed with guilt. Today was his day to work. He owes it to Izawa and every man in that control room to offer his help. So he puts his car in gear and pushes on one way or another
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He can see some parts of the plant through the ERC's giant windows, but the feeds provide better views. On the monitors, he sees workers scurry around, trying to remove debris. A few carry injured colleagues on stretchers. About the only place that isn't damaged is the ERC building in which he stands. It has its own power supply, which was too high up for the tsunami to flood.
The ERC building also sits on huge shock absorbers. Yoshida once heard a construction worker say, "It won't budge even if you fire missiles into it." More than anything else right now, Yoshida wants a cigarette. He can feel the screws of his nerves tightening inside of him, but he just doesn't have time. He takes a deep breath instead and whispers a few of his favorite Buddhist sayings. Suddenly, an aide hollers his name.
Mr. Yoshida, the governor's office is on line two. Yoshida sighs. He hates dealing with bureaucrats. Transfer the call to my phone. In the center of the ERC sits a large gray oval table with dozens of blue plastic chairs. That's where Yoshida's workstation is, at the center of everything. He walks over there now and picks up his phone.
He explains to the governor's office that damage to the plant has been minimal. The control rooms have lost power, but his staff has assured him that the plant has plenty of battery power from the generators. After he hangs up, Yoshida realizes he hasn't heard from Ikuo Izawa since the tsunami. He dials the number for the control room. "Izawa, it's Yoshida. What are the temperatures of the reactors?"
I don't know. I don't have time to talk. Yoshida is annoyed by Isao's brusque attitude. What do you mean you don't know? Look at your instruments. I told whoever called last time. We've lost electrical power. What about the batteries? What batteries? The backup batteries. My engineer said- We don't have any fucking batteries. There's no power. What part of that don't you people understand? Yoshida nearly drops the phone.
Izawa is the calmest, most capable supervisor at the plant. To hear him swear, at the plant superintendent no less, is shocking. But my engineer said, "He's wrong!" And with that, Izawa hangs up. Yoshida's mind is left reeling, spinning through all the consequences of what Izawa just told him. Nuclear fuel behaves differently than chemical fuel.
Chemical fuel like coal or oil needs a spark to burn, and it burns out relatively quickly. But uranium generates heat for years. All by itself. It doesn't need a spark. The fissioning atoms just keep pumping out more and more heat every second. And that's why the water flowing into the cooling system is so important.
It absorbs heat from the core and removes it. If the cooling system shuts down, the remaining water inside the core will boil away. Then, the molten uranium will melt through the containment vessel and escape the reactor. A meltdown. From there, the escaped uranium can start fires and send radioactive atoms into the air on billows of smoke, or seep into the groundwater and poison everything for miles around the planet.
For the first time, it dawns on Yoshida just how dire things are. He picks up the phone and calls the headquarters of TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the corporation that owns the plant. He asks them to send generator trucks to the plant, along with some extra fire trucks that can pump water into the reactor. The plant has a few fire trucks of its own, but Yoshida isn't sure if they survived the quake and tsunami undamaged, so it won't hurt to have more.
Then he hangs up the phone and waits. If the trucks don't get here soon, the earthquake and tsunami will be the least of their concerns. At 4:30 PM, Katsuaki Hirano pulls his sedan up to the gates of the Fukushima plant. It's taken him an hour to drive six miles and he's seen destruction every inch of the way. Even so, he's unprepared for the sight that greets him now.
There's a giant lake where the parking lot used to be. The remnants of the tsunami. It's surrounded by smashed cars and collapsed metal fences. All of it stands between him and where he needs to go. There's no way his car can make it any further. So, he gets out and begins waiting. Halfway across the parking lot lake, he spots a dead fish.
its white belly turned upward. After several hundred yards, the lake ends at a pile of twisted metal. He grabs it and climbs. After scaling the metal pile, Pirano walks past grounds that now look foreign to him. He remembers studying World War II in school.
And the wreckage here reminds him of photos he saw of bombed out cities. Buildings with sides missing, twisted metal girders, trucks and cars flipped onto their roofs. He stops to let an aftershock pass. Several pieces of wreckage are still swaying when he catches his balance and moves forward again.
After 20 long minutes, he reaches the control room building. The sun is setting now, and it's dark inside, but he knows the way up by heart. When he reaches the control room, he's blinded by the glare of flashlights. The men holding them stare at him in disbelief. Mr. Hirano? You came! Mr. Hirano, he's here. Is it really him? Wow, he came. Is it really you?
Then, applause breaks out. Ikuo Izawa strides up to shake his hand. "I'm so glad you've come. Did you think I'd leave you here alone? It'll be good to talk things through with someone else who knows the plan." Together, the two supervisors go over next steps. First, they need to know the state of the reactors. And soon. Normally, they can monitor the reactors remotely, with electric gauges and instruments. But not without power. Luckily, there is another way.
The cooling systems also have gauges attached to the machines and tanks themselves, inside the reactor buildings. And those will still be working even without power. Hirano suggests that they send out a few men to take direct readings. "It's the only way, Izawa. We can learn the pressure, water levels, everything. But we don't know what areas are safe out there.
Hirano sees his point. After the tsunami, there could be chemical spills, unstable debris, sinkholes. Probably no radiation leaks. Well, at least not yet. But Hirano reminds Izawa it's only a matter of time. We have to think about the reactors. You've had no power for what, 90 minutes? Things could be getting dangerous. I've been told that the ERC ordered generator trucks.
Look, I've seen the roads. The trucks won't make it here anytime soon. We need to act on the assumption that we won't get power. Sending people outside is a risk, yeah, but not sending them is a bigger risk. We have to check the reactors and figure out what we're dealing with. Izawa is convinced. They gather everyone around a whiteboard and lay out some safety rules for sending men out. As shift supervisor, Izawa takes charge.
He forbids anyone from going out alone. They can leave the control room only in groups of two or three, and never for more than an hour. The workers all nod in agreement. They understand the importance of safety protocols, and the urgent need to get pressure and temperature readings. Izawa picks two engineers from the first excursion and sends them off.
A moment later, he catches Hirano's eye and tries to smile, but Hirano can see the worry on Izawa's face. He's nervous about sending people out to such an uncertain fate, but they simply don't have a choice. Five minutes later, the two engineers splash through the muddy plant grounds as they approach the Unit 1 reactor building. They wear hard hats, boots, and blue TEPCO overalls.
The shorter engineer sputters and wipes mud from his face. "Can't you walk any slower? I'm getting mud all over me." "I am too. This whole place is like a marshland." "But you heard what the boss said. We have to be quick." As they approach Reactor Building 1, the short engineer feels a twinge of his nerves. Nearby, a huge oil tank has been torn open. The gaping hole looks like razor-sharp origami.
At the security doors, they swipe their keycards and enter the airlock. As soon as they step inside, the short engineer hears a sound that makes his blood run cold. It's his Geiger counter. In 15 years of working at the plant, he's never heard a radiation detector make this much noise. From the look on his partner's face, he hasn't either. "Do you think it's broken? Let me try something." The short engineer steps forward. Then he steps forward again.
Finally, he bends down and holds the Geiger counter to the gap near the bottom of the door, where the tsunami broke the airlock seal. The engineer backs away, as if he's just stumbled across a wild tiger and doesn't want it to leap at his throat. His mind is racing. They're not even inside the building. If they're already detecting this much radiation, there can only be one explanation.
The nuclear reactor core, the throbbing, radioactive heart of the building has already started leaking. This is episode one of our four-part series Meltdown at Fukushima.
A quick note about our scenes. In most cases, we can't exactly know what was said, but everything is based on historical research. If you'd like to learn more about this event, we highly recommend the books Meltdown by Yuichi Funabashi, On the Brink by Ryusho Tadota, and Station Blackout by Charles Casto. I'm your host, Mike Corey. Sam Kean wrote this episode. Our editor is Sean Raviv.
Our audio engineer is Sergio Enriquez. Sound design is by Rob Schieliga. Additional research and script consulting by Simon Campbell. Produced by Matt Almos and Emily Frost. Our managing producer is Tonja Thigpen. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Stephanie Jens, and Marshall Louis for Wondery. Wondery.
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