On detecting the earthquake, the active reactors automatically shut down their normal power-generating fission reactions. The accident was triggered by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred in the Pacific Ocean about 72 kilometres (45 mi) east of the Japanese mainland at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011. While the 1957 explosion at the Mayak facility was the second worst by radioactivity released, the INES ranks incidents by impact on population, so Chernobyl (335,000 people evacuated) and Fukushima (154,000 evacuated) rank higher than the 10,000 evacuated from the Mayak site in the rural southern Urals. The result was the most severe nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, classified as level seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) after initially being classified as level five, and thus joining Chernobyl as the only other accident to receive such classification. The earthquake triggered a powerful tsunami, with 13- to 14-meter-high waves damaging the nuclear power plant's emergency diesel generators, leading to a loss of electric power. The proximate cause of the disaster was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan. On 11 March 2011, a nuclear accident occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. ġ6 with physical injuries due to hydrogen explosions, Ģ workers taken to hospital with possible radiation burns ģ7☂5′17″N 141☁′57″E / 37.42139°N 141.03250☎ / 37.42139 141.03250ġ confirmed cancer death attributed to radiation exposure by the government for the purpose of compensation following opinions from a panel of radiologists and other experts, medical sources pending for long-term fatalities due to the radiation exposure. Water vapour/"steam" venting prevented a similar explosion in Unit 2. Hydrogen-air explosions in Units 1, 3, and 4 caused structural damage. The four damaged reactor buildings (from left: Units 4, 3, 2, and 1) on 16 March 2011.
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