Japan: Catastrophe sparks fear of nuclear power

While we watch in “grief and shock at the unprecedented disaster unraveling in Japan,” the world can only marvel at Japanese resilience, said the Seoul Korea Times in an editorial. As whole towns were destroyed—some flattened by the earthquake, others flooded by the tsunami, and still others threatened by radiation from damaged nuclear plants—the Japanese people maintained a “collective composure.” There were no riots, no lootings, no panicked exodus. Instead, grieving survivors “patiently waited in long lines” to receive water rations or buy goods. We stand “in awe of their unfaltering courage in responding to the disaster.”

The damage is already “beyond imagination,” said The Japan Times. While our nuclear reactors, built specifically to withstand earthquakes, did survive the tremors, the tsunami proved too much for them, sweeping away the generators that powered the cooling systems. Now, several nuclear reactors are threatening meltdown. The situation “destroys the credibility of the claim by the government and electric power industry that nuclear power generation is safe.” Once we have the leaks contained, we will have to conduct a “strict review” of the entire nuclear power system. Obviously, at the very minimum, we need “multiple redundancies in safety systems.”

What we need is to “go back to square one,” said Keiji Takeuchi in the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun. The facts are “that a core meltdown has occurred, that a large number of people have been evacuated, and that radioactive materials have been released into the atmosphere.” This horrifying event is bound to “decisively change how the Japanese people think about nuclear energy.” This country chose nuclear power in the first place because of our scarce natural resources. Generating our own power was deemed more reliable than importing oil from abroad. But now our reliance on nuclear power has, “ironically, created risks in energy supply.” It’s time for a national conversation on “such fundamental questions as how far we should count on nuclear energy in this quake-prone country and whether safety can ever be secured for nuclear power plants.”

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First comes the digging out, said the Tokyo Yomiuri Shimbun. Many people are “still stranded at school facilities, on the roofs of buildings, or under debris waiting to be rescued.” And with tens of thousands still missing, it is imperative to improve communications so that evacuees can be reunited with surviving relatives. Aftershocks are still occurring, and more tsunamis are likely. This is the worst disaster to befall Japan since World War II—and it’s not over yet.