Nuclear Disaster Drill

　　Do you know a technical term, "UPZ; Urgent Protective action planning Zone", whose concept was established by IAEA and it indicates the area within approximately a 30km radius from an atomic power plant. The government is strongly required to bolster countermeasures against nuclear disasters in UPZ.
　　My office is located within this UPZ of Ikata Atomic Power Plant and I had to attend the practice session concerning the emergency treatment for nuclear polluted people last year (link). Today, the nuclear disaster drill was carried out in a fairly wide area. As soon as news about the nuclear plant accident came to my office, all the staff members shut all the windows and ventilation fans. That's all we did, but people who lived close to the plant underwent pollution checks and were actually evacuated to even Kyushu by ferries or Navy vessels.
　　Lots of people were killed or went missing by the tsunami in the Great East Japan Earthquake, but nobody was killed by the radiation itself. The seven services of the bullet train, which were on their highest speed, stopped safely when the earthquake broke out. Japanese people have learnt much every time they suffered huge disasters after recorded history. I believe Japan's atomic power plants will be far safer by this unprecedented disaster.
　　The picture of the plant was taken by myself when I visited Okinawa in March this year.

(Vocabulary)
the Great East Japan Earthquake 東日本大震災



http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2014/01/nuclear-hazard.html