Please come to honor our newly elected Full and Associate Members and to hear our speaker Dr. Tomoyuki Shibata.
Dr. Tomoyuki Shibata
Assistant Professor, Public Health Program, NIU
Environmental Effects of the Japanese Nuclear Accident
Two years ago, the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, called “the Great East Japan Earthquake”, occurred near the northeast coast of the Tohoku region in Japan on March 11, 2011. The earthquake was followed by a massive tsunami that destroyed coastal communities and agricultural areas with complete destruction of over 115 000 homes and damage to an additional 700 000 homes. The earth quake and tsunami killed 15,882 people with 2,668 still missing. Due to loss of power, the tsunami-impacted Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Fukushima-1 NPP) overheated with explosions starting on March 12, 2011 that released approximately 630 000 −770 000 terabecquerel of radiation, which is equivalent to 12−15% of the radiation released during the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in the Ukraine (former Soviet Union) in 1985. Currently, there are 313, 00 evacuees still living in temporary houses. Dr. Shibata will talk about environmental impacts and challenges in recovering from of the triple disasters in Japan. He will also discuss similarities and differences between the Japan disasters and the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans, where he and his colleagues have also investigated in 2005.
Dr. Shibata is Assistant Professor of Public Health and Faculty Associate of the Institute of the Study for Environment, Sustainability, and Energy. He has received Ph.D in Civil (Environmental Discipline) Engineering and the M.Sc. in Environmental Health and Safety from the University of Miami and the B.Sc in Health and Hygiene from Azabu University in Japan. His areas of expertise include evaluation of environmental risk factors (e.g. biological, chemical, physical, and socioeconomic) that potentially affect human health, especially children’s health.
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