ABSTRACT

Within minutes of the Tōhoku Earthquake that occurred at 14:46 on March 11, 2011, news spread around the world, aided by international news agencies and the Internet. Within an hour, the initial disaster was compounded by an ensuing tsunami with horrifying images and videos of great masses of water swiftly overtaking buildings, homes, and businesses located along Japan’s northeastern coast. While many people in the Kantō area of Japan were still experiencing aftershocks, within 24 hours reports spread of damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facilities located on the coast of Fukushima prefecture. The result was that in the weeks that followed, the powerful shock of the combined disasters of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear situation metamorphosed into “Fukushima.” Yet this simple one-word description belied the ongoing aftermath of the “triple disasters” that would continue to dominate news reporting in Japan and the rest of the world in the following weeks and months as the death toll from the quake mounted to more than 20,000 people.