Fukushima review a devastating account of disaster and denial in 2011 nuclear catastrophe

"It was a natural and human-made disaster that left 20,000 dead and a further 164,000 displaced from the area, some with no prospect of return. The earthquake damaged the cooling systems that prevent meltdowns and caused three near-apocalyptic explosions, bringing the nation close to a catastrophe that would have threatened its very existence. Incredibly, the ultimate calamity was finally staved off by nothing more hi-tech than a committed fire brigade spraying thousands of tons of water on the exposed fuel rods."

"The film plunges us into the awful story moment-by-moment, accompanied by interviews with the chief players of the time prominently nuclear plant employee Ikuo Izawa, a shift supervisor and de facto leader of the Fukushima 50 (actually 69 people) who became legendary in Japan and beyond for their self-sacrificial courage, staying in a nightmarish reactor when everyone else had been evacuated."

"Perhaps we could have been given more context and less immediate drama, particularly more background about the plant's dismal corporate owners, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, which had closed a nuclear plant in 2007 after an earthquake, with a resulting loss of profits. But to skimp on the drama might be obtuse, given the pure hair-raising shock of events."

"The archive footage of the tsunami spreading across the fields and farmland of Japan is deeply disturbing; nightmare is a word casually used, but appropriate here. The Japanese soul had been uniquely traumatised by the nuclear issue in 1945 and Fukushima was the opening of an old wound; Barack Obama's offers to help were received warily and the film hints that some of a certain age might have even suspected a kind of opportunistic emergency takeover, like the Douglas MacArthur rule that followed the war."

A cataclysmic tsunami triggered the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, causing 20,000 deaths and displacing 164,000 people, some permanently. Earthquake damage disabled cooling systems, producing three near-apocalyptic explosions and imminent meltdowns that threatened national catastrophe. Thousands of tons of water sprayed onto exposed fuel rods by a committed fire brigade prevented the worst outcome. Nuclear plant employee Ikuo Izawa and the Fukushima 50 (actually 69) remained on-site, demonstrating self-sacrifice. Tepco's prior safety and profit decisions and wartime nuclear trauma shaped public unease, while archive tsunami footage conveyed profound national shock and suspicion toward international aid offers.

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