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Comment by mistersquid | Hacker News Reader

18,500 dead for a single weather event is a disaster by any measure.

Additionally the 2011 Fukushima reactor failure is the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl which means it is the second (or third) worst nuclear accident in history. [0]

What do you mean by "the disaster, in context, wasn't the biggest deal that day"?

I'm not trolling. I honestly cannot understand what you are trying to communicate.

Are you diminishing the magnitude of the disaster? If so, you haven't yet presented anything to warrant the designification of the tsunami and subsequent Fukushima reactor failure.

[0] http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents/...

EDIT: Add link and parenthetical "(or third)".

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Hopefully the poster will reply themselves but...

I think they mean that the nuclear accident, wasn't the biggest disaster that happened that day. It is pretty amazing, that a nuclear accident, that's the biggest accident since Chernobyl, wasn't the biggest disaster that was cause by the tsunami.

It is absolutely true, that the impact of the tsunami, and deaths it directly caused, was much bigger than the nuclear accident itself.

The nuclear accident itself caused no direct casualties. Its impact has mostly been that on the local population that was evacuated (which has of course caused much pain, and economic disruption).

No worries. I see two separate disasters here, both linked. The first an absolutely devastating weather event that killed more people than live in my home town in it's entirety + caused massive damage, and secondly the Fukushima nuclear disaster (which seems to be treated separately in many cases, which the article is about and which my comment was directed at).

In my experience, many people & journalists hold Fukushima up as a really bad disaster. I'm trying to communicate that I don't think that Fukushima was a disaster that warranted international coverage - the weather was.

At an international scale, I don't think Fukushima is much worse than a near miss. I would be really interested to get an expert academic order of magnitude on how many people died in the evacuation due to the Fukushima disaster vs. the theoretical number of deaths if they had evacuated more slowly (say over 12 months). It frustrates me that the cost-benefits of the evacuation aren't a more prominent point of discussion.

EDIT: Just for fun; I can't pretend I know anything about radiation or what the Japanese are up to; but on wiki I see things like "absolute increase in the risk of cancer(of all types) during their lifetime, of approximately 1% due to the accident" [1], " Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years ... because of depression, alcoholism, and suicide" [2]. I'd like to know who I can turn to for an honest rundown of the risks, because the radiation doesn't seem that terrible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima...

> At an international scale, I don't think Fukushima is much worse than a near miss.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seems to disagree. They have a very particular rating system for nuclear incidents, and rated Fukushima at highest level 7 ("Major accident"), much above "accident with local consequences" (level 4) or "anomaly" (level 1).

As Fukushima could have been avoided with more careful engineering and caused long-lasting damage to property and the environment on a wide area, I think it's good that nuclear experts take it seriously enough.

From wikipedia:

"but 34 people died as a result of the evacuation" [1].

I'm not sure I can agree that Fukushima isn't an internationally noteworthy incident. It's even one that really requires long term monitoring of radiation levels (locally only of course).

Many mistakes were made in the handling of the Fukushima reactor and accident. Radiation accidents have the potential of be massive disasters. It's important to learn from Fukushima, and not just treat it as an "acceptable cost".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

I don't think they said it wasn't noteworthy.

Didn't they thought?

I'm trying to communicate that I don't think that Fukushima was a disaster that warranted international coverage - the weather was.

I guess you could draw a distinction between the terminology each post used, but it reads the same to me.

> I don't think that Fukushima was a disaster that warranted international coverage - the weather was.

Be reminded that this was a geological, not meteorological, event.

I appreciate your reply and your explanation of assessing the human casualties due to the tsunami separately from the deaths due to the reactor failure. Thank you.

Comparing the Fukushima reactor failure (due to the tsunami) to deaths from the tsunami and concluding the reactor failure was "not the biggest deal that day" seems somewhat of a non sequitur.

That is, the tsunami had two immediate effects and many people feel both are worthy of international attention and historical comparisons.

To my mind, the loss of life does not make the nuclear reactor failure relatively inconsequential. For me, they multiply the crises caused by the tsunami.

I understand how you can arrive at your assessment, but I believe that assessment is based on a comparison that compartmentalizes events a bit too rigidly.

EDIT: remove extraneous word.

What weather event are you two talking about?

I think roenxi is referring to how the Fukisima nuclear accident wasn't the biggest deal that day, as the tsunami had a far greater impact (0 vs 18 500 direct casualties, respectively).

They're referring to the fact that the reactor meltdown at Fukushima is the newest addition to the list of incidents that 'prove' that nuclear fission energy is bad and should be banned. They're glad that the reactor meltdown is juxtaposed to the real disaster (in terms of human life lost) namely the earthquake and the tsunami itself. So that people place the reactor meltdown in the correct category: 'bad, but not a terrible earth-shattering disaster of epic proportions'.

I believe roenxi meant, "the [nuclear] disaster, in context, wasn't the biggest deal that day"

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