As a hibakusha survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Keijiro Matsushima, 82, has been speaking publicly about his personal experience in English for foreign audiences. Soon after the accident at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant triggered by the March 11 massive earthquake and tsunami, he was asked to give an interview with the U.S. cable TV news channel CNN.
As a hibakusha survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Keijiro Matsushima, 82, has been speaking publicly about his personal experience in English for foreign audiences. Soon after the accident at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant triggered by the March 11 massive earthquake and tsunami, he was asked to give an interview with the U.S. cable TV news channel CNN.
While reports of radioactive leaks were making headlines, he thought how best to describe what was happening and what went through his mind.
Atomic bombs release intense heat and blasts in addition to radiation. Their destructive power is incomparably greater than nuclear power plant accidents, which do not lead to nuclear explosions. People who underwent atomic bombings may see the Fukushima accident differently, depending on their experiences.
After much thought, Matsushima made up his mind to speak frankly without hesitation about how he felt.
"It's like the third atomic bomb attack on Japan. But this time, we made it ourselves," he told CNN.
It is true the accident was triggered by a mega-earthquake. But even though Japan experienced atomic bombs, didn't it underestimate the horror of nuclear energy once it got out of control? Every time Matsushima heard news about the accident, he could not help asking himself this.
The accident evoked images of nuclear weapons in Matsushima. But he is not the only one.
Actually, in the past, a nuclear accident prompted the leader of a major power to take steps toward nuclear disarmament. It is Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the Soviet Union leader at the time of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster.
Faced with the accident, Gorbachev felt he experienced virtual nuclear warfare. In terms of levels of radioactivity, an explosion of even the smallest nuclear warhead is equivalent to three Chernobyl-class accidents, he said in a speech. Even if a very small part of accumulated nuclear warheads explode, it would lead to a catastrophe, he said, expressing his determination to put an end to a nuclear arms race. Twenty months after the accident, the Soviet Union and the United States signed a treaty to cut down on nuclear warheads in their possessions for the first time ever.
What about the Fukushima accident? How will it influence the nuclear issues?
Many U.S. experts share the view that the accident caused their wariness against terrorism targeting nuclear power plants to grow stronger. It is a nightmarish scenario that combines "9.11" and "3.11."
For example, Allison Macfarlane, associate professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University, has concerns about the vulnerability of spent fuel pools. The Fukushima accident made it clear in everyone's eyes that the loss of cooling water at pools can result in a radioactive leak crisis.
"If pools were damaged by a terrorist attack and water was lost, the scenario would be the same as what occurred at the Fukushima plant," said Macfarlane, who is also a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission, a U.S. government advisory panel on nuclear waste.
Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists, points out the risk of cyber terrorism to nuclear power plants. Having served as a consultant with the National Nuclear Security Administration and National Laboratories, he worries about a possible cyber attack that could instantly kill a regional grid that provides electricity to nuclear power plants and on-site backup electrical systems, resulting in a Fukushima-type disaster. He is planning to form an experts group to study how to prevent such cyber terrorism.
National defense concerns have also surfaced. Let us presume one country has numbers of nuclear power plants in operation. If those plants were attacked by conventional missiles and their huge inventories of radioactive materials were released into the atmosphere, society in the targeted country would be in turmoil. Princeton University professor Frank von Hippel believes that the Fukushima accident impressed on security policymakers the potential threat of attack on nuclear power plants.
Several days after the crisis began on March 11, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the expanding threat of a nuclear catastrophe in Japan had changed his thinking on the safety of nuclear power.
"It certainly caused me to reconsider the projects of building civil nuclear power plants" in Israel, he said. Von Hippel's interpretation of this comment is that considering the instability in the Middle East today, Netanyahu's new position reflects, at least to some extent, security concerns about the potential use of nuclear power plants as "radioactive bombs" if they are targeted for attack.
Be that as it may, the growing concern about the danger of nuclear power plants has its upside. Why not make the most of the situation to prevent nuclear proliferation? Such views were exchanged at an international conference of experts on the nuclear issues recently held in Washington.
Newly emerging and developing countries are accelerating moves to introduce and expand nuclear power generation in recent years. Naturally, there is growing interest toward ensuring safety of nuclear power plants. At the same time, nations share anxieties about the current situation where more countries are turning to nuclear energy for power under the existing framework of nuclear nonproliferation, which is starting to develop rifts.
If so, why not slow down the expansion of nuclear power use by intensifying debate on safety and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation system in the meantime, a German researcher suggested.
How many times did I hear the name Fukushima mentioned outside Japan? Japan has added a negative legacy to its name as Fukushima became as common a word as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
As the only nation that underwent atomic bombings and radioactive pollution caused by a nuclear power plant, how should Japan face nuclear energy? This is a question it must squarely address itself.
While calling for peace, safety and security, can we coexist with nuclear energy? If we can, what conditions must be met? Is the goal achievable with the power we now possess?
Unexpected situations could happen and we must not simply dismiss them as "outside the scope of assumptions." This lesson from the Fukushima accident weighs extremely heavily in this age of nuclear weapons and energy.
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Fumihiko Yoshida is an Asahi Shimbun editorial writer and former correspondent based in Washington and Brussels.