Fukushima five years on, and the lessons we failed to learn | Dave Sweeney | Opinion | The Guardian

Fukushima five years on, and the lessons we failed to learn | Dave Sweeney | Opinion | The Guardian

 People pray toward the sea to mourn victims of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster in Fukushima prefecture
Photograph: KYODO/Reuters

Thursday 10 March 2016 23.34 GMTLast modified on Thursday 10 March 2016 23.52 GMT

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Five years ago this week the world held its breath, crossed its fingers and learnt a new word.

Fukushima went from being the name of a provincial Japanese city to becoming global shorthand for a costly and contaminating nuclear disaster.

Fukushima means “fortunate island” but the region’s luck melted down along with the reactors on March 11, 2011. The subsequent system failure, meltdown and uncontrolled release of large volumes of radiation at the Tokyo Electric Power Corporation’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex has become one of the defining events of our age.