Nuclear accidents in Japan
Following an earthquake, tsunami, and failure of cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, a nuclear emergency was declared. This was the first time a nuclear emergency had been declared in Japan, and 140,000 residents within 20km of the plant were moved out. Explosions and a fire resulted in dangerous levels of radiation, resulting in a stock market collapse and panic-buying in supermarkets. As of April 2011, water is still being poured into the damaged reactors to cool melting fuel rods. John Price, a former member of the Safety Policy Unit at the UK's National Nuclear Corporation, has said that it "might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant". Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the International Energy Agency halved its estimate of additional nuclear generating capacity to be built by 2035.