1986 [Music] [Music] so [Music] floods fires earthquakes tornadoes natural disasters when these kinds of phenomena occur they bring with them loss of human life often on a massive scale tragic environmental devastation plus destruction and hardship to spare arguably though when it comes to man-made disasters we have a different responsibility our focus for this chilling but fascinating episode of desperate hours is on nuclear and industrial disasters nuclear power depends on harnessing the energy released during one of two processes nuclear fission or nuclear fusion in both nuclear fusion and nuclear fission energy is released from the high-powered atomic bonds between the particles within a nucleus the nuclear energy produced can then be used to generate electricity ironically nuclear power is a relatively clean source of energy which is great but of course unless the utmost precautions are taken in generating nuclear power then the consequences can go beyond merely disastrous to the unthinkable the horrific [Music] fukushima japan march 11 2011. it was then that a terrible earthquake followed by a tsunami triggered a fault at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant to create one of the worst nuclear disasters of our times first a series of seven tsunamis some as high as 15 meters saw to it that diesel generators at fukushima daiichi were shut down flood waters swamped the generators causing them to fail the reactors began to heat up even after a plant shuts down nuclear fuel requires continued cooling which would usually have come from water being continually pumped into the reactors with the earthquake knocking out electricity at the plant emergency diesel generators were deployed to cool reactor units one two and three but only an hour later flooding from the tsunami knocked out the backup generators its immediate impact was felt by tens of thousands of people with homes near the plant [Music] what with the plant's critical cooling systems knocked out it set off a chain of hydrogen explosions in reactors one two and three and damage the containment structure in reactor four particles from the melted fuel sent radiation levels dangerously high to put it mildly according to the japanese nuclear and industrial safety agency the amount of radioactive cesium that spilled into the atmosphere was equivalent to 168 hiroshima bombs it must be said the efforts of workers at the plant to contain the disaster were nothing short of heroic in the aftermath of the tragedy foreign media looking for a silver lining dubbed these workers as the fukushima 50. [Music] and in 2013 the tokyo electric power company admitted that some 300 tons of radioactive water per day was still leaking from the daiichi nuclear power plant nuclear power has been with us now for 70 years it was developed during wartime world war ii to be precise with the war dragging on in europe and asia there was an arms race going on the likes of which we have never seen before the germans had the edge on atomic power until the early 40s when a nuclear development program called the manhattan project got underway in the us top secret but backed to the hilt by the government the manhattan project's goal was the development of the atom bomb most of the critical research and development took place at a purpose-built facility in the new infamous los alamos new mexico at 5 30 a.
m on the 16th of july 1945 the los alamos scientists successfully exploded the first atomic bomb robert oppenheimer enrico fermi and their team had unleashed the staggering power of atomic reaction in a way their predecessors could only theorize about less than a month later on august 6th and 9th 1945 the first atomic bombs were dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki they remained the only two such bombs ever used in warfare [Music] nuclear testing however went on for decades such as the 1950s when this footage was taken over the pacific of an atom bomb detonated at enwateca atoll [Music] with the end of the war scientists also began exploring the peaceful applications of nuclear energy [Music] those strict security guards the atomic energy commission's laboratories in america newsreel cameras are permitted to report on how the deadly radioactivity of atomic power is being put to work not for destruction but for the benefit of mankind [Music] the first ever nuclear reactor to produce electricity started up in 1951 in idaho the experimental breeder reactor was admittedly very small but within a few years the first commercial nuclear plants had begun supplying electricity to the us russia japan the united kingdom and others but major accidents in 1979 at the three-mile island power plant in pennsylvania and in chernobyl ukraine seemed to cast the shadow of doubt over the future of nuclear power the very name chernobyl has become a byword for disaster not surprising especially when you take into account that 10 times more radiation was actually released at chernobyl than in fukushima it happened during a routine reactor systems test on april 26 1986 a sudden an obvious unexpected surge of power destroyed unit 4 of the soviet-era nuclear power plant in the destruction and the fire which ensued enormous amounts of radioactive material were released into the environment just as at fukushima there were desperate concerted efforts to contain the situation helicopters flew over the burning reactor pouring sand and boron from above this was meant to douse the fire halt any additional emissions of radioactive material and thwart further nuclear reactions they also cut down and buried around a square mile of pine forest in the surrounding area to reduce contamination in the vicinity and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from the region within six months of the tragedy and at great personal risk to the workers involved a makeshift concrete cover was built over reactor four [Music] the purpose of the so-called chernobyl sarcophagus was of course to protect the environment which was hoped it would do for decades to come at an emergency meeting of the international atomic energy soviet officials presented their initial accident report they estimated that radioactivity from chernobyl would cause over 25 000 deaths over the following 70 years a book chernobyl consequences of the catastrophe for people and the environment wrote by three eminent scientists however put the death toll at approximately 985 000 [Music] directly after the meltdown soviet authorities sealed off the power plant within a 30 kilometer radius hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated some directly after the incident many more in following months and years the new sarcophagus will be the largest movable man-made structure ever built on land with radiation immediately above the reactor still much too intense for this new enclosure to be built over the top of it nearby land was cleared and decontaminated however these kinds of massive engineering works often encounter bumps in the road the revised date for its completion is now november 2017. the iaea doesn't actually keep a complete database of all the nuclear accidents to date [Music] in 2011 however the guardian newspaper compiled a list of 33 serious incidents at nuclear power plants dating back to 1952 but nuclear power doesn't need to be involved for an industrial accident to have tragic consequences on an epic scale a natural disaster such as a volcano or earthquake is something we have little to no control over safety in the workplace and care for the environment are a different story deepwater horizon oil spill known also as the bp oil spill began on the 20th of april 2010 in the gulf of mexico the macondo prospect was a bp owned oil rig situated some 66 kilometers from the louisiana coastline on the evening of april 20th a surge of natural gas blasted through a concrete core intended to seal the oil well for later use the gas ignited on the oil rigs platform killing 11 workers and injuring 17. on the morning of the 22nd the entire rig capsized and sank as it did the so-called riser was ruptured this critical piece of hardware is the pipe which connects an oil rig to an offshore oil well with that oil began to discharge into the gulf of mexico at an alarming rate and indeed this was to become the largest marine oil spill of all time [Music] bp executives initially claimed the volume of oil escaping the damaged well was around a thousand barrels per day but u.
s government officials claimed that the leak was more like 60 000 barrels of oil per day under intense but quite justifiable pressure from the u. s government the local population as well as environmentalists and indeed the watching world bp tried to seal the leak in various ways first the supposedly infallible blowout preventer malfunctioned a containment dome in may didn't work either a method called top kill in which mud is drilled and pumped into the well also failed to stem the flow eventually a method called bottom kill was deployed which involved pumping cement into the leaking well via two relief wells i don't understand why it took 87 days [Music] it affects our whole economy in our ecology well it's about time we should have had a backup plan from day one in the five months since it began it was estimated that 4. 9 million barrels of oil leaked into the gulf with only 80 000 of those captured it is hardly surprising then to say that the leak's environmental impact was catastrophic incalculable numbers of fish and thousands upon thousands of birds mammals and sea turtles were plastered with oil [Music] heartbreaking pictures of these bedraggled and ailing animals flashed around the world in 2014 a new orleans district judge ruled that bp's gross negligence was chiefly responsible for the disaster calling their conduct reckless [Music] of course in an industrial accident no amount of financial compensation will bring dead workers back to life or safeguard the environment from long-term consequences now a house of cards it might be a popular tv series but you certainly wouldn't want to work in a real one [Music] but in april 2013 in bangladesh thousands of factory workers found out that's exactly where they were toiling [Music] my [Music] an industrial eyesore on the outskirts of the capital of dhaka is where workers toiled away making western designer clothing for as little as 40 dollars a month it sounds miserable enough but the sweatshop conditions turned into a hell on earth when the building seemed to implode from within survivor accounts were similar to those of earthquake survivors there was a loud cracking noise the concrete floor under their feet began to shift and then concrete pillars and beams collapsed under their own weight worse still some workers had already expressed concern about cracks appearing in the walls of the building some of the officers and a bank had the sense to move their people out of there but the factory workers were told if they wanted to hold on to their jobs they would have to keep going to the factory the search for the dead ended a month later with a death toll of 1129.
