Walls built by memories of the earthquake: The day Kashiwazaki Kariwa shook and the shadow passed on to Fukushima (2007)

Walls built by memories of the earthquake: The day Kashiwazaki Kariwa shook and the shadow passed on to Fukushima (2007)

In July 2007, the Niigata Chuetsu-oki Earthquake shook the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, which stretches along the Sea of Japan, so violently that it raised fundamental questions about the earthquake resistance of nuclear power plants. The facility, which boasted one of the world's largest outputs, suffered building damage, equipment ruptures, fires, and toppled radioactive waste drums in rapid succession, greatly shaking public concerns. Most serious, however, was the malfunctioning of the Emergency Response Office, which was supposed to be the center of disaster response. Walls collapsed, communications were cut off, and not even a space for command was secured, revealing just how fragile and defenseless the massive apparatus of a nuclear power plant was in the face of the earthquake.

This experience served as a powerful lesson within TEPCO and led to fundamental changes in subsequent safety measures. The bitter failure at Kashiwazaki Kariwa led directly to the decision to build a seismically isolated critical building at Fukushima Daiichi. When completed in 2009, the seismically isolated critical building was the brain and heart of the plant in the event of a disaster, with a structure to absorb seismic shaking, an independent power supply, multiplexed communication facilities, a large space for worker evacuation, and even medical facilities. No one could have imagined that it would play such an important role.

However, when the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident occurred in March 2011, the seismically isolated building continued to serve as the sole base of operations, hosting hundreds of workers and command staff. Communications were maintained during the loss of power and explosions, and all onsite decision-making was centered in this building. As many people involved in the accident later said, "Without the seismic isolation building, the damage would have been even more serious." The facility, born of the painful memories of the Chuetsu-oki Earthquake, became a lifeline in the midst of the earthquake and the accident.

In the four years between the Chuetsu-oki Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi accident, Japan's nuclear power administration remained in the shadow of the safety myth. The assumption that a serious accident would not occur had overshadowed the entire system, there had been delays in revising earthquake resistance standards, and nuclear policy had neglected crisis preparedness in the name of economic efficiency. But the lessons learned on that day when Kashiwazaki Kariwa shook took shape in the form of the seismically isolated critical building, the last wall that barely held up the worst of Fukushima. The destruction wrought by the forces of nature simultaneously created a future defense. The shaking of that day continues to quietly raise questions about the nature of nuclear power.