Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster

By: Susan Stranahan, David Lochbaum, The Union of Concerned Scientists, Edwin Lyman

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake large enough to knock the earth from its axis sent a massive tsunami speeding toward the Japanese coast and the aging and vulnerable Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors. Over the following weeks, the world watched in horror as a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe: fail-safes failed, cooling systems shut down, nuclear rods melted.

In the first definitive account of the Fukushima disaster, two leading experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists, David Lochbaum and Edwin Lyman, team up with journalist Susan Q. Stranahan, the lead reporter of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Pulitzer Prizewinning coverage of the Three Mile Island accident, to tell this harrowing story. Fukushima combines a fast-paced, riveting account of the tsunami and the nuclear emergency it created with an explanation of the science and technology behind the meltdown as it unfolded in real time.

The narrative also extends to other severe nuclear accidents to address both the terrifying question of whether it could happen elsewhere and how such a crisis can be averted in the future.

©2014 Union of Concerned Scientists (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Much is NOT about Fukushima

A significant amount of this relates only to the US nuclear industry and regulators. The United States isn’t at the center of the universe, and the writers seem to have missed that point. I’m still hunting for a GOOD history of this event. This is not it.

Well done

Non-biased. Well presented summary of events and the complex implications, then and now. I was there as a responder. I appreciated the view from other perspectives. Well done.

need to stick to the facts

the story about what happen at Fukushima is really good. As the book ran on it became very clear the writers of this book were trying to force the facts into fitting within their specific and narrow minded opinion. what they really wanted to blame the United States for problems in Japan. further they want to force the nuclear industry into taking policy positions that would made it impossible to actually operate nuclear power plants. plus they refused to give any credit to efforts being done to improve nuckear safety if the possitions did not fit into their narrow view. This started out as a really good book but then drives way to deep into unsupportable political opinion and so I will probably never listen to this book again.

not what i was expecting

i thought this was going to be more of a timeline of events of the accident and less of a policy analysis and warning. it's good for what it is but it wasn't what i was hoping for.

Good story of a terrible catastrophe

Very informative, explains a lot about the nuclear industry, some segements were a bit dry