Apocalyptic Imagination after 2011

Abstract

A t 2:46 pm on March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck the western Pacific Ocean at a depth of thirty-two kilometers. Its epicen-ter was approximately seventy-two kilometers east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku, Japan. The quake lasted approximately six minutes, and caused a sequence of major tsunamis which hit the Pacific coastline of Japan's northern islands and resulted in the loss of thousands of lives and devasta-tion-even complete elimination-of many towns along the coast. Waves reached heights of up to 40.5 meters in Miyako City in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture, and in the Sendai area traveled up to ten kilometers inland. The earthquake and tsunami caused an estimated 15,881 deaths, and 2,668 people remained unaccounted for as of March 2013. Over four hundred thousand people evacuated just after the quake; over 280 of them died from exposure, starvation, lack of sanitation, and lack of medical care. In addition to the loss of life and destruction of infrastructure, the tsunami precipitated a series of nuclear incidents, primarily the ongoing Level 7 meltdowns at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Following the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear incidents, and concerns about other similar energy facilities in Japan, a nuclear emergency was declared on March 12. This was the first time a nuclear emergency had ever been declared in Japan, and it forced the evacuation of one hundred and forty thousand residents within twenty kilometers of the plant. The meltdowns have resulted in dangerously high levels of radiation in the surrounding area, and it was reported that food and water were contaminated: food containing radioactive cesium and/or iodine that exceeded official maximums has been found as far as 360 kilometers from the M. Tanaka, Apocalypse in Contemporary Japanese Science Fiction