Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Blast in Japan

Fukushima First Nuclear Reactor Blast

Cause of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor blast: 

A dangerous earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean near north east cost Japan has triggered tsunami to flush into towns of Japan. The earthquake magnitude was recorded as 9.0 MW. Surface energy generated by the earthquake is about 2X1017 J.

The cause of the blast was the design of the light water reactor designed and developed by General Electric Company. These model reactors require continuous cooling and the cooling system works on external power after shut down operation. On 11^th March 2011, Out of six reactors number 5^th and 6^th are in maintenance shut down and the 4^th reactor was empty without fuel. When the earthquake occurred reactors 1st, 2^nd and 3^rd were automatically initiated the shutdown operation under the supervision of control room engineers. As per the design the reactors required external cooling and due to the tsunami, all the power supplies were lost. This caused the internal core of the reactor to build up to immense pressure by hydrogen leading to explosion and core meltdown.