On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi
Ryusho Kadota
4.07
129 ratings13 reviews
March 11, 2011.
The Tōhoku earthquake struck just before three on a Friday afternoon. Massive earthquake damage was followed by tsunami rising to heights of 40 meters that swept 10km inland, scouring the land of homes, school, communities, and people. The earthquake and tsunami alone were disasters of incredible proportion, resulting in over 15,000 deaths, over 100, 000 buildings destroyed, and economic losses estimated as high as $235 billion by the World Bank.
And that was only the natural disaster.
The manmade disaster began the same day, as the tsunami swept over the seawall of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, flooding the facility and destroying much of its equipment, including its onsite emergency power generators. Cut off from all external power sources, the reactors and spent fuel-rod assemblies began to overheat.
Three reactors suffered meltdowns. Hydrogen gas explosions blew apart the outer containment buildings on three reactors. And the world watched as Japan struggled to bring the situation under control before the worst scenario came to pass.
Despite further natural and manmade obstacles, the men and women at the plant succeeded in their efforts, gradually bringing the reactors under control, restoring power, and edging back, one inch at a time, from the very brink of disaster.
This is their story, based on extensive interviews with the people who fought and won that battle, and especially with Masao Yoshida, the man who drove them all to get the job done.
Here at last is the inside story of what they faced, what resources and information they had to work with, and why they made the decisions they did.
Genres
History
Nonfiction
Japan
Science
308 pages, Paperback
First published November 24, 2012
This edition
Format
308 pages, Paperback
Published
October 7, 2014 by Kurodahan Press
Language
English
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圓神出版社有限公司
2015
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Taka
684 reviews
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September 20, 2019
Good, but a bit uneven--
The stories of the people who prevented the worst possible consequences at the Fukushima nuclear power plants are on the whole well told and quite moving, especially when the core members (including the director, Yoshida) decide to stay behind to continue working, knowing they'd die. I also liked I was able to understand the perspectives of the politicians and experts who seemed, at the time of the accident, seemed less than competent. But the book loses steam and focus toward the end—I would've appreciated some more details on what happened at each stage and what happened afterwards (and what's happening now).
On the whole, a good book about something everyone in Japan should know.
2019
nonfiction
research
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Sean O'Hara
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20 books
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February 27, 2015
It's frightening how, despite involving incidents decades apart in vastly different cultures, many of the problems identified in this book are the same as the ones that Eric Schlosser found cropping up in the Damascus accident. In both cases, engineers on the scene had a fair idea what needed to be done to get everything under control, but they had to wait for permission from higher-ups, who got into debates over what course of action to take, hampered by an incomplete or garbled understanding about what was going on on the ground. At both Fukushima and Damascus, the nature of the accident rendered instruments inoperative and limited the ability of those on site to make repairs. The situation in Fukushima was worse in this regard since, instead of everything being confined to a single, military hierarchy, both the government and a private corporation were involved, and both had other considerations in mind.
While there've been several books published on the Fukushima disaster, this one is notable for being based almost exclusively on interviews conducted with those involved, with technical details kept to a minimum. This does prove to be a shortcoming in one way -- while several government ministers and advisers, including Prime Minister Kan himself, granted the author interviews, as did employees of the plant, apparently none of the higher-ups at TEPCO were willing to talk with him, creating a huge blind spot. We get enough information from other sources to see that upper management was criminally incompetent (they dragged their feet, for instance, on sending additional radiation suits to the plant to replace those that had been contaminated, telling the plant manager to make do with what was available on site), but it would've been nice to see what was actually going on at corporate headquarters and how they were making their decisions. Still, given how incompetent PM Kan comes off, despite giving his own version of events, it's not surprising that TEPCO officials would avoid the author. Nor, given the long-standing rumors that TEPCO is a branch of the Yakuza, is it surprising the author would want to avoid too much prying into the upper management of the company.
But while that blindspot is unfortunate, the book is still more than worth reading for the detailed, first-hand accounts of what happened in the control room during the disaster, and the honest assessment of how much worse it could have been.
history-far-east
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Rebecca
481 reviews
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January 16, 2015
I remember being riveted to the news when the events in this book were taking place. While being absorbed in the technical details of what was happening, I had always wondered about the workers who stayed at the site, at great personal risk. This book attempts to tell that story. The book covers the first week of the disaster from the perspectives of a handful of employees. The author does a good job of describing the tension and confusion at the site, as radiation levels rise and supplies dwindle. It didn't come off as overly melodramatic. This book doesn't tell the whole story of Fukushima. That isn't its intent. This adds dimension and background to a complex story. I enjoyed it for what it was. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
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Andrew
34 reviews
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May 6, 2016
The Japan Times (12.13.14) notice for this book said the personal testimonials "are riveting and heartbreaking." It's a dollar cheaper on Nook than elsewhere.
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Steve Bowbrick
133 reviews
7 followers
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May 7, 2021
Bought this one after we watched Chernobyl on Sky. Realise I'm a bit of a junky for these catastrophe stories. And now Amazon won't stop marketing them to me - you might also like the Herald of Free Enterprise, Piper Alpha, some more Chernobyl…
Anyway, this one's genuinely terrifying. A non-fiction chronology of the chaos, heroism, grief, and the unvarying tick-tock of near-panic and existential dread as time passes, reactors get hotter and more radioactive... The sense of duty that motivated all the engineers, scientists and workers who laboured inside the exclusion zone and inside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant itself to prevent the ultimate nuclear catastrophe is awe-inspiring.
I learn from this book, which is written (or translated?) in an intriguing, slightly naive style (lots of exclamation marks!) by a local journalist, that, although only two people died inside the plant as a direct result of the Tsunami and a handful more as a result of radiation, the outcome could have been immeasurably worse. One of the engineers involved says they narrowly avoided a disaster on the scale of "ten Chernobyls" (there are six reactors on the Fukushima site, all of which would have gone critical, plus those at a nearby plant that would also have had to be abandoned). And the level of institutional inertia plus actual stupidity and venality on the part of companies and politicians involved is grimly instructive.
But the men who stayed inside the plant's control room and vowed, collectively, to die before they abandoned the plant, are an amazing lot. Mostly middle-aged (all the young workers are sent away early on because they're considered to be more vulnerable to the radiation), they're locked into what I assume is a very Japanese sense of the importance of hierarchy and a deference that's kind of touching (a senior engineer will defer to a friend and colleague who was in the year above him at school, for instance, and the country's Prime Minister pulls rank over the plant chief because he got a better degree).
Aspects of the nuclear power system described were clearly so bound up in tradition and habit that it actually impeded the response to the catastrophe. In the middle of what was quickly becoming a meltdown, for instance, everything stops for an official visit by the Prime Minister. The PM's own science background causes him to interfere in the response too, over-riding even experienced nuclear engineers at the plant (there's a bit of dramatic shouting and desk bashing here).
If there's a film or a Netflix series about the catastrophe (maybe it's too soon) this book will become the key source for the writers. All the characters are here - the brave firemen, pumping sea water to cool the reactors with no protection; the personnel manager who risks her life by staying in the radiocative plant to support the recovery teams; the men who volunteered to enter the damaged buildings in pairs to manually open valves when the power failed; and, of course, the cool-headed plant boss - Masao Yoshida - who will definitely be the hero of the series.
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AJ Perez
413 reviews
31 followers
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June 22, 2022
I have watched about this disaster in the news but it's nothing like reading about it and learning more details. The book is thrilling in a way that the reader will feel afraid about the disaster that's looming in the corner. I didn't realize how close it was to being something that's even worse than Chernobyl. As much as it's frightening, it is also inspiring to read about the heroes who risked their lives just to avoid a bigger disaster. I have the highest regards and respect for those selfless people who did what they had to do even it means giving up their own lives.
Overall, there are a lot of things that you will learn when you read this book. I am fascinated about nuclear energy but I can't really understand the most complex concepts so I am glad to have found something that speaks my language but doesn't diminish the events.
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Simon Varnam
1 review
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October 7, 2020
[Disclosure: I am the translator.]
Here's the Japan Times review of the Japanese original Kadota Ryūshō's 「死の淵を見た男」 that impelled me to translate this book into English.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/201...
Any failures in the English version are mine.
As far as factual content goes, bear in mind that Kadota's book was published only 18 months after the event. Much more has been revealed since then.
I am posting updates on different aspects at the book's FB page: https://www.facebook.com/fukushimadis...
There is also a Google map of relevant sites here:
http://tinyurl.com/onthebrinkmap
Please feel free to add questions and comments there too.
SPV
====
Shihab Siddiquee
7 reviews
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May 12, 2023
ফুকশিমা পারমানবিক বিদ্যুৎ কেন্দ্র হটাৎ করেই সুনামির কবলে পড়ে পাওয়ার সাপ্লাই হারিয়ে ফেলার পর কয়েকজন অসহায় মানুষের নিউক্লিয়ার ডিসাস্টার ঠেকানোর সংগ্রাম নিয়ে বইটি। চিফ ইঞ্জিনিয়ার ইয়শিদা এবং ইউনিট সুপারভাইজার ইজাওয়ার সাহসিকতা এবং প্রজ্ঞা যদিও শেষ রক্ষা করতে পারেনি তবে তাদের অক্লান্ত প্রচেষ্টা আরো বড় ভবিতব্য দুর্যোগ রুখে দিতে সক্ষম হয়। লেখক খুব সহজ ভাষায় রিয়েক্টর রিলেটেড অনেক কঠিন কঠিন জিনিস ব্যাখ্যা করেছেন যা সত্যিই প্রশংসার দাবিদার। জাপানি অনুবাদের ইংরেজি অনেক সহজ ছিল বিধায় পড়তে কোনো অসুবিধা লাগে নি। সহজ ভাষায় লেখা সুন্দর একটি বই।
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Debeehr
59 reviews
6 followers
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August 16, 2017
Probably not good intro
This book probably requires a more closely grained knowledge of the people and context surrounding the Fukushima disaster to get the most out of it and would be best read after getting a working knowledge of events.
disaster
history
=====
Michael A. Simmons, Sr.
192 reviews
3 followers
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March 21, 2021
Well written overview
A well written overview of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Complex. The author presents a detailed chronology of events as witnessed by the engineers and technicians in their futile attempt to prevent core meltdowns in multiple reactors.
===
On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi Kindle Edition
by Ryusho Kadota (Author), Akira Tokuhiro (Editor), Simon Varnam (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 167 ratings 4.1 on Goodreads 129 ratings
====
March 11, 2011.
The Tōhoku earthquake struck just before three on a Friday afternoon. Massive earthquake damage was followed by tsunami rising to heights of 40 meters that swept 10km inland, scouring the land of homes, schools, communities, and people. The earthquake and tsunami alone were disasters of incredible proportion, resulting in over 15,000 deaths, over 100,000 buildings destroyed, and economic losses estimated as high as $235 billion by the World Bank.
And that was only the natural disaster.
The manmade disaster began the same day, as the tsunami swept over the seawall of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, flooding the facility and destroying much of its equipment, including its onsite emergency power generators. Cut off from all external power sources, the reactors and spent fuel-rod assemblies began to overheat.
Three reactors suffered meltdowns. Hydrogen gas explosions blew apart the outer containment buildings on three reactors. And the world watched as Japan struggled to bring the situation under control before the worst scenario came to pass.
Despite further natural and manmade obstacles, the men and women at the plant succeeded in their efforts, gradually bringing the reactors under control, restoring power, and edging back, one inch at a time, from the very brink of disaster.
This is their story, based on extensive interviews with the people who fought and won that battle, and especially with Masao Yoshida, the man who drove them all to get the job done.
Here at last is the inside story of what they faced, what resources and information they had to work with, and why they made the decisions they did.
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Ken Watanabe and directed by Setsuro Wakamatsu!
====
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
pjf
4.0 out of 5 stars Good detailed account of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant disaster from the plant superintendent.
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
Concentrating on the activities of the superintendent of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant, Masao Yoshida, from the events of the earthquake until cancer caused him to go on sick leave from his duties after the plants were "subdued" with seawater injections and drenches, this is a detailed and riveting account of the hours and days following the events of 3.11.
There hasn't been a book like this published yet so far - most have been simple overviews from news media sources followed by pundits talking about legislative or sociological themes. This book covers the events on the ground, and in the control room, from those struggling to deal with the reactors, in the face of daunting physical conditions and unbelievably incompetent company and government management. As an example, these people had little food and water (not enough to drink, much less decontaminate) and even the masks and suits needed to do repairs were running extremely short. When the Prime Minister chose to visit, he interrupted their efforts to get the reactors under control. The fire engines that arrived to cool one of the units sat for an hour and a half while the cores melted further while the P.M. was sent off in his helicopter. His staff and TEPCO insisted the plant provide safety gear for him, rather than him bringing it for him OR FOR THEM, even though they had not enough for their own repair efforts. Even as the operators were disconnecting and reconnecting car batteries to get control room instrument readings, (to save the batteries) the TEPCO staff were criticizing them for failing to keep them updated.
I had a lot of larger questions after this, in that if they could air lift the PM in by helicopter, why not protective gear, batteries, generators, compression pumps, even food and water. Once the station lost both landline power and the generators, and they knew they only had a few hours of battery power, the company and government should have focused on getting them power. Rather than the local personal scavenging for car batteries in vehicles and local stores. TEPCO management off site was very ineffectual. And the government at least at some junctures, actually hindered the efforts to stop the core meltdown and hydrogen explosions, rather than help.
It's obvious from the book that the operators themselves were dedicated to the point of risking their lives. They also disobeyed orders when orders from company management and the government were clearly wrong. But there was an amazing disconnect of purpose, on both sides, after this catastrophe. I don't think it is unique to Japan, though I think cultural distinctions and propriety made them more reluctant to challenge and demand what they needed in an emergency, and left many solutions in the hands of lower level people taking initiative, then good management and procedures instigated from the top down, and the government lending resources in a crisis that affected its citizenry.
This book has faults - it tends to ramble after the health issues that caused Yoshida to leave the action. Then it concentrates on his health issues and the fate of the two workers who drowned in Unit 4 during the tsunami at a later point in the book. It thus leaves the final status of the plant murky, as if the author didn't have the same access to others as to Yoshida. This is clearly his story. Still, the first 3/4 of the book is a fascinating account of details that aren't readily available from any other source to date.
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Rob HNL
5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and sobering bottom-up perspective
Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2022
Verified Purchase
If we can be sure of anything about nuclear disasters and near-misses, it’s that reality at every step is always worse than what we hear from proponents, regulators and media. There are systematic reasons for this, but the thrust of this book is a refreshingly human first person story, with just enough straightforward technical explanation to make sense of what was actually happening on the scene.
If we had an equally insightful account of what has occurred in the following ten years it would be another “ten times worse” .
4 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Great overview of the Fukushima Disaster
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2021
Verified Purchase
Having read up n the Chernobyl accident, Fukushima seemed the next step. This is an excellent overview of the disaster from the control room and the surrounding area through amazing interviews with those that lived it. Wonderful usage of dialogue from the interviews, so you hear it in the operators words, not an interpretation.
3 people found this helpful
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Stephen Armstrong
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good summary and timeline of this disaster...
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2016
Verified Purchase
I have now read three books on nuclear plant meltdowns. This one clearly is the best one: detailed, understandable, and human. Kadota details the problems faced by plant superintendent Yoshida, the immense courage of the plant operators, firefights, and other persons. The tidal wave was totally unanticipated and overwhelmingly large, perhaps as high as 70 meters (? not sure about that). The wave destroyed all of the backup equipment and shorted all of the electrical systems. The operators were left in a pitch-black control room without sensors. They had to use DC batteries to hook up any sort of sensors. It was amazing that the operators had any control at all.
The players who come off worst in this book are the Prime Minister and some of the TEPCO (electric company) officials from Tokyo. Nevertheless, Kadota has tried to be fair: he interviewed most of the players up to two years after the event, to get their "side" of the story.
I wish a book like this had been written about Chernobyl or Three Mile Island.
10 people found this helpful
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Mike Simmons
4.0 out of 5 stars Well written overview
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2021
Verified Purchase
A well written overview of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Complex. The author presents a detailed chronology of events as witnessed by the engineers and technicians in their futile attempt to prevent core meltdowns in multiple reactors.
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BLAKHARTZZ
5.0 out of 5 stars Very awesome and well written
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2021
Verified Purchase
I love that it includes actual everyday people who went through that...i don't believe the electric plant should be blamed however ..they did not ask for the earthquake and tsunami ..and it seems to me they did everything they could !!! Very good book well worth reading .
4 people found this helpful
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Kelly E. Templin
4.0 out of 5 stars Long, but detailed.
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2020
Verified Purchase
Informative and thorough. A great story. Often dry and detailed. Great sacrifice and human drama. It did read a bit like a doctoral dissertation.
2 people found this helpful
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Vicki M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Grim, exciting, and humbling.
Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2015
Verified Purchase
Very interesting backstory about the brave technical and support staff, firefighters, and military workers who remained on site to contain the disaster and prevented contamination of vast areas of Japan. The workings of the reactors are explained so well that a layman can develop an understanding of how difficult and dangerous the work was and appreciate the ingenuity of the staff in over-coming totally unexpected problems using the limited materials present. Ends with a discussion of alternate reactor technology. Well worth the read.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries
KUNISAN
5.0 out of 5 stars You can understand what really happened there, what the TEPCO staff did and how they felt during the event
Reviewed in Japan on March 29, 2015
Verified Purchase
I have lived in Tokyo since I was born. I still clearly remember the big and scary tremors which we felt even in Tokyo, hundreds of kilometers away from the epicenter, and scary scenes of tsunami and the accident of the nuclear power plant (TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi) on TV in March 2011. While I read this book, I sometimes remembered those scenes.
I also got a lot of information from this book about what really happened in the plant, what the TEPCO staff did and how they felt and thought about their families during their harsh tasks with risks of even losing their lives. Though the results of the accident were not favorable to anyone, the situation would have been even worse without the huge efforts by the TEPCO staff.
I hope that this book will be read by a lot of people who live outside Japan so that they will see what really happened in Fukushima and how the damages will be restored in the future. I also hope that that this kind of accident will never happen again anywhere in the world.
4 people found this helpful
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Stewart Lacey
4.0 out of 5 stars A very human story
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 2, 2023
Verified Purchase
I thought that, since the text was translated from its original Japanese, it might be a little difficult to read. In fact I found it very readable and a compelling chronology of the devastating tsunami and subsequent drama at Fukushima. It is told through the eyes of people who were there and you can feel the emotions and tension as the events unfolded
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Helen R.
5.0 out of 5 stars The best and the worst of people dealing with a natural and technical disaster
Reviewed in Germany on July 22, 2019
Verified Purchase
this is an honest book about how professional people deal with extreme situations, and how senior and political people fail to understand their responsibilities.
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M & M Giacomini
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting and illuminating book
Reviewed in Italy on January 27, 2023
Verified Purchase
A very interesting and illuminating book. Very factual.
A day by day diary of what really happened in Fukushima when the tsunami struck. The men in charge refused to leave and did everything possible to save Japan from a total disaster. The company who built the nuclear power station didn't take into consideration the power of nature. Profit before safety. As usual.
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Geoff Vaughan
5.0 out of 5 stars How they saved Fukushima
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2021
Verified Purchase
Interesting take on what happened at the site during the critical few hours after the tsunami struck. The workers were heros, as they were working blind for some of time, and having to make big decisions on little information. Reads like a thriller at times.
A good buy.
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