![]() ![]() Perhaps what struck me most was the generally calm approach to the crisis displayed by frontline workers, their kindness toward each other, and their remarkable capacity to control panic and work together. They were found entrapped in the basement, covered in seawater so filled with radiation that recovering their bodies proved a near-impossible task. This harrowing scene happens somewhat late in the series when Yoshida learns of the death of two of his employees who had gone missing after being sent out to inspect one of the buildings housing the reactors shortly after the earthquake.īoth were young men – ages 25 and 21 – and their very youth is what shakes Yoshida to the core. For me, one of the most moving moments was when the Fukushima Daiichi station manager, Masao Yoshida (ably played by Koji Yakusho Koj), a warm, likable fifty-year-old guy who knows the plant better than anyone and is a beacon of hope for his team breaks down sobbing. A must-watch if you are in need of uplifting examples of heroism. And it highlights both the arrogance and the fragility of human endeavor: Nature is quick to remind us who is master.īut in the face of disaster, humans react with uncommon courage and selflessness, and that is what is most heartening about The Days. The series uniquely depicts the deep frustration and helplessness that gripped Tepco employees, upending their world forever. Nature, in the form of a devastating tsunami that covered the reactors in five meters of seawater, paralyzed the whole station, threatening a nuclear disaster of a magnitude that could have literally wiped out Japan off the map (as explained towards the end of the series by a Tepco manager to a bewildered – and very angry – Prime Minister). And, poignantly, the series brings home what it means when you are a frontline worker on the ground and your main tool – electrical power needed for everything, from monitoring to operating the reactors – suddenly goes missing. Unsurprisingly, NISA paid with its demise for its strikingly defective oversight of nuclear safety and following the Fukushima disaster it was replaced by a new regulator in 2012, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA ).Īlthough this particular information is not covered in the series, the extraordinary obtuseness shown by the NISA expert in this crisis is put on full display. Tepco’s managers sitting in Tokyo spew out unrealistic orders meanwhile, the government is a helpless bystander, with the Prime Minister seething in frustration, the military stubbornly sticking to rules while the pundit from NISA, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency stutters banalities. The power station employees put their lives on the line, the Fukushima community around them, family and friends, suffers the consequences the corporate organization, i.e. Second, the story is told from the point of view of all those directly involved: As a result, The Days presents three major perspectives: workers and their families, private company managers and public officials – which perfectly brings out their different take on the crisis. The creator Jun Masumoto cites three specific publications as his primary sources: The Yoshida Testimony (the station manager Masao Yoshida’s first-hand account of events) the official Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission repor t and journalist Ryusho Kadota’s book On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi. įirst of all, it is well-researched and carefully strays away from cheap Hollywood sensationalism, sturdily sticking to reality, no matter how mundane. On Monday, tests of newly constructed facilities to do so began despite the strong opposition from local fishing communities and neighboring countries, including Korea and China – and of course, Greenpeace. However, Japan is preparing to release a massive amount of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea, saying release is unavoidable. Most of the radioactive debris blasted by the hydrogen explosions we witnessed in the Netflix miniseries has been cleared and the torn buildings have been fixed. The crisis, as we know, lasted much longer, some nine months and the nuclear plant wasn’t declared stable until mid-December that same year. The Netflix series, developed and produced by Jun Masumoto (known for his work on Code Blue, a Japanese television drama series) and directed by Masaki Nishiura and Hideo Nakata, is focused on what happened during the three days following the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. ![]() The earth’s axis shifted by some 17 centimeters (6.5 inches) and Honshu, the main island of Japan moved 2.4 meters (8 feet) east. The Days portrays in 8 episodes what happened when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on the eastern coast of Japan was hit at 2:46 pm on March 11, 2011, by a powerful earthquake. ![]()
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