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One of the biggest earthquakes

ever recorded has hit Japan.

It triggered a tsunami

that coursed several miles inland,

washing away everything in its path.

The situation there is...

is nothing less than apocalyptic.

But the big concern continues

to be that nuclear power plant,

the Fukushima Daiichi, uh, nuclear plant...

There's been another major explosion

at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Only 50 brave employees

are still at the plant,

trying to stave off a total meltdown.

They are risking their lives to avoid this meltdown

that could be historic and terrible

for the whole country.

At 8:15,

a weather plane reports from Hiroshima

that conditions are good.

At 9:15, the bomb is dropped.

On the first day of November 1955,

the United States Atoms for Peace exhibition

opened in Hibiya Park, Tokyo.

America's ambassador to Japan, John M. Allison,

conveyed a message from President Eisenhower.

That the exhibit stands as a symbol

of our countries' mutual determination

that the great power of the atom shall be dedicated

to the arts of peace.

A message from Prime Minister Hatoyama

praised the greatness of atomic science

in the present century.

Here at the nuclear power plant,

highly trained professionals work hard to protect safety.

Knowing the dangers,

that's where operator education starts.

Twenty-four hours a day,

we generate, deliver, and protect.

Safety is our first priority.

We are TEPCO.

I've been assembling things

since I was a kid, you know?

If a package would come or a box would come,

my dad would always say, "Let Carl put it together."

And the first thing I'd do is bust out the instruction sheet

and get right to the parts list, and lay out the parts,

making sure there was 24 nuts and 24 bolts.

I was just very particular.

I just... It's just a natural-born way, uh...

way for me,

and I've been working in nuclear power now,

just over 40 years, all over the globe.

The US, Spain, Switzerland,

Sweden, Taiwan, Japan.

Loved working in Japan, too. I just loved it.

It was a beautiful day.

March. You'd think March 11th in Japan might be cold,

but it was sunny, beautiful, clear.

Oh, my God! This is weird.

I've never experienced the ground shaking like this.

I was in Unit 1 on the turbine building.

The sounds coming off the structural steel...

like those old Japanese movies

where Godzilla was doing that squeaky metal sound,

like that-that screech he would make.

That's what it sounded like to me, you know.

And I know I felt the whole building shift

east and down.

Not inches.

It was in... it was... It was in feet.

I got out of the building

and I watched the tsunami come in.

Water got higher and higher as it went over the seawall.

You would think it's loud but it's not.

It only started to make noise

when it started to snap and crack,

and break things off when it hit land.

I didn't think about the plants

till I watched it rush around them.

I watched it just rush around the four buildings,

off the highlands behind me,

like these big black ominous clouds

came rolling in real low.

Almost felt like it pulled the atmosphere down on us,

and began to snow even.

It felt like the end of the world.

One of the most powerful earthquakes

ever recorded has struck Japan.

The terrible devastation in northeastern Japan.

The destruction there, simply epic.

The death toll mounting, exact numbers unknown.

Local television has shown shocking pictures

of entire towns being swept away

by a wall of water kilometers wide

as people run for their lives.

Fears that the eventual toll

could be in the tens of thousands.

The tsunami waves

that followed moved so quickly,

at a speed of 800 kilometers an hour,

that they proved to be an unstoppable

and devastating force.

I was working as a journalist

for the New York Times.

I was based in Tokyo

where I'd been living for eight years.

After the earthquake struck,

we had decided to head north

to where the tsunami caused most damage.

It was like entering hell.

The tsunami had basically ripped away

everything that was there.

So if you can imagine

just like a... a field,

like a plane,

uh, from the surface of the moon.

Dark grey mud covering everything.

An occasional piece of a home, or building,

or even an occasional home

that had somehow randomly survived.

Uh, big pools of water,

things were on fire,

and mounds of debris.

You know, pieces of buildings,

and fishing boats,

and crushed buses, and mangled cars.

Uh, there were dead animals,

dead pets, and of course dead people.

No one survives that tsunami.

You either get out of the way or you're dead.

Kan and the Democratic Party of Japan

were a very inexperienced government.

This was their first time in office since 1955.

And they now had to deal with

an extremely challenging set of circumstances.

The country was in complete chaos.

Thousands of people are missing,

and they have this developing situation

at Fukushima that had the potential

to be many, many times worse than Chernobyl.

That disaster involved one reactor.

Fukushima involved six.

Japan now telling

the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA,

that they have a heightened state of alert

that has been declared at their nuclear power plant.

This is the Fukushima, uh, nuclear power plant.

Radiation levels are up,

according to the Kyodo News Agency,

eight times the normal level

at a monitoring station outside the plant,

1,000 times above normal

in a control room inside the plant.

The worst case scenario

would be a cataclysmic meltdown of the reactors

called a China Syndrome.

And what that refers to is the... something like 100 tons

of uranium fuel is inside the reactor.

It melts out of control.

It melts down, which means it collapses

to the bottom of the vessel,

like a... just a lump of like lava almost.

If you can't cool it,

which they can't because there's no electricity

to pump water into the reactor,

it rises to a temperature

of something like 2,000 degrees.

It burns through the vessel itself.

It'll melt through the vessel, drop into the building,

almost like bore its way through the concrete

'cause of the heat,

it escapes into the earth and is out of control.

And if that were to happen,

experts talked about the loss of northern Japan.

The entire northern half of Honshu becomes uninhabitable

if this thing gets out of control.

I watched four TEPCO guys

pulling on a van or something,

and they got out, and they all walked towards me

'cause I was right at the top of the stairs.

And they all walked down that stairs,

they were all in their TEPCO uniforms,

and they were all about 35 years old, I'd say.

Like, they were all, like, in their mid-30s.

We just all made eye contact as they went by.

They went down that stairs,

and they were probably part

of the operations group or whatever.

And I remember those four guys going down,

probably had to stay and work that mess they had.

When we parted ways and I went up that hill,

uh, to get to my rental car,

you know, I didn't know they were gonna be headed

for a meltdown in less than 24 hours.

I didn't know at that time

how bad things were gonna get.

This could be a catastrophe in the making,

Japan's nuclear power plants.

Officials say cooling systems

in some reactors have failed

and some radiation has leaked.

The next 24 hours are considered crucial.

What's meant to happen

inside a nuclear power station is this.

In the reactor, the rods of nuclear fuel

go through the process of fission.

The atoms splitting and releasing energy.

Water is pumped in and flows around the fuel

where it heats up and turns into steam.

That drives generators to make electricity.

But if a reactor runs dry, as one did today,

the fuel rods overheat and melt.

And that may have started in three reactors.

The nuclear fuel could then sink to the bottom of the reactor,

the beginning of what's known as meltdown.

But provided the steel wall of the container does its job,

there shouldn't be a leak.

This was my first experience

of a severe accident of this sort.

I would not hide anything.

But as Prime Minister,

I would also not say anything I could not be certain of.

That was my policy.

I told the special advisor I would go to Fukushima.

"Please make preparations."

I was joined by the Chairman

of the Nuclear Safety Commission.

I clearly recall asking,

"Is there any danger of an explosion?"

To which the Chairman answered with conviction,

"An explosion is out of the question."

We arrived in a war zone.

The hallway was full of workers,

several of whom were lying on the floor.

Some were wrapped in blankets.

In the conference room, they explained,

"We are considering whether to vent manually.

We will decide in the next hour."

I said, "We couldn't wait that long."

To which they replied,

"We will create a suicide squad."

This nuclear accident

placed the very existence of our country in danger.

Our ability to evade a crisis

depended on venting these reactors.

When I saw the explosion on TV,

it was over an hour after it had happened.

And I hadn't received a word from TEPCO.

I ordered my executive secretary,

"Get me some information quickly."

Everyone in the country, in the world,

knew of the explosion,

but we had no information or explanation.

The blast was seen

and heard for kilometers.

Reactor 1 at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant explodes,

sending radioactive gas spewing skywards.

People talk about 2011 as being a triple disaster.

But really it was two separate things.

There was the tsunami and the earthquake

which were an act of nature that killed tens of thousands.

Then there was the nuclear accident

which was actually something completely different.

The nuclear accident was an entirely man-made disaster.

When we started looking into it,

even in those first days,

TEPCO was making mistakes.

Now, there was a big gap

between the plant and headquarters in Tokyo.

The plant was repeatedly asking,

"Could you send up batteries

so we can restart our cooling systems?"

Uh, "Can you send up generators on trucks?"

But TEPCO management was in such chaos

that they just continually sent the wrong items.

It's like the wrong size batteries.

Or it's stuff you don't need, you know. It-It's...

There's... At some point, there's a pile of unused,

unneeded objects

that just builds up in the parking lot.

Also the drivers of these trucks

that are being sent from Tokyo

refused to go to the plant.

They refused to go near the plant,

it's too dangerous.

So they stop at this TEPCO dockyard

that's two hours south from the plant,

and drop off their stuff there.

And then the TEPCO workers at the plant

are told to drive down and get it.

So no one is coming to help them.

On top of all that, Reactor 3 is now out of water

and has started to produce masses of hydrogen.

Concerns are now being raised

over three separate nuclear reactors at Fukushima

following an explosion at one yesterday.

There are worries that the reactors could overheat

leading to meltdown.

There are also safety issues

at two other nuclear sites.

Officials are reassuring the public

that there is no immediate danger,

but an exclusion zone around Fukushima

has been extended.

The evacuation of people from the area

now runs into the hundreds of thousands.

Strong aftershocks

are still being felt across the country,

adding to the risks the rescuers face.

The problems at the nuclear plants

are making a bad situation even worse.

Huge swathes of the country

still have no electricity supplies.

On television here, they're looking for reassurance

from the experts.

But it's hard for the Japanese public

to be sure about the level of risk they face.

We are working aggressively

to support our Japanese ally

at this time of extraordinary challenge.

Search and rescue teams are on the ground in Japan

to help the recovery effort.

A disaster assistance and response team

is working to confront the aftermath

of the earthquake and tsunami.

As I told Prime Minister Kan last night,

the Japanese people are not alone

in this time of great trial and sorrow.

The US military, which has helped...

Honestly,

I think the Japanese government

worried about an American getting too involved

with the nuclear disaster.

I think there was a perception

in Prime Minister Kan's mind

that we would take over if they failed.

So they wanted to be able to fix it themselves.

But these reactors were American in design.

So it was only a matter of time

before the US government sent someone.

We've also deployed some of our leading experts

to help contain the damage at Japan's nuclear reactors.

And that someone was me.

I'm Charles Casto.

I'm a nuclear safety consultant.

I've worked in nuclear power for over 45 years.

I'd never been to Japan.

I knew very little about the country.

So I was sort of plopped down

in the middle of a... an international disaster

with really no understanding of the culture,

the language, the people.

Although I did know the facility,

the nuclear plant very well,

um, because I worked at a plant

almost identical to Fukushima Daiichi.

So, I had been an operator and instructor at that plant.

That's partially the reason that I was chosen

to lead that effort.

When I landed, we rushed to the embassy,

and I was thrust in a secure video conference

with US government and US military

to discuss next steps.

The US has a large military presence in Japan.

Over 80,000 people.

So we had our concerns.

Not a lot of information, a lot of speculation.

So one of the...

You know, one of my goals was try to reduce that chaos.

But, um...

it was days before we felt comfortable

we were getting good information.

Many days.

It seems yesterday's explosion

in the plant's Unit 1 reactor

was caused by a buildup of hydrogen gas

inside the building.

It destroyed its walls, but the containment chamber

surrounding the nuclear core remained intact,

preventing a potentially catastrophic radiation leak.

But it's now thought that a partial meltdown

in a second reactor at the plant, Unit 3,

is highly possible.

A complete meltdown could release uranium

and dangerous byproducts into the environment.

So on the 14th, the team at the plant

were using a small fire truck

to pump water into Reactor 3.

And so this... this single fire truck with these hoses

is the only thing cooling the reactor.

And they're now having to use seawater to do this,

which is something TEPCO told them not to do

because seawater would ruin the longevity of the reactor.

But at this point, saving the reactor

is out of the question.

They just need to do anything they can

to get on top of this.

But they just don't have the tools

to stop the hydrogen buildup.

Japan's nuclear crisis worsened today

when a second reactor building exploded.

The suspected hydrogen explosion did lead to the release

of some radioactive material into the air.

Officials have been giving assurances

the containment structures that house nuclear material

remain intact.

But it's becoming clear that those assurances

are not based on any certainty

about what's going on inside the reactors.

A short while ago, the plant owner,

the Tokyo Electric Power Company,

announced that water levels in Reactor Number 2

are dangerously low,

raising the specter of a nuclear meltdown.

As soon as Unit 3 is lost,

Unit 2 starts to go downhill.

And for various reasons, Unit 2 is worse

than Unit 1 or Unit 3.

The-the pressures are much higher.

And so the big fear was that the reactor

would actually blow up, like a balloon popping,

in a Chernobyl-style rupture of the reactor itself.

And that's when they start talking about...

you know, can we even control the plant?

You know, why are we even staying?

TEPCO management then calls the government

to say, "We don't think we can deal with this.

We may have to evacuate."

I was speechless.

If they withdraw now,

the very existence of this country

would be in jeopardy.

We had to contain the accident.

And we had to be prepared

to lose life in the process.

I told them,

"I'm going to TEPCO headquarters.

Make preparations."

Looking in from the outside,

the situation was completely dysfunctional and disconnected.

First meeting was, "Look at our track record.

Like, how good... how strong it's been."

Well, that's over, you know.

That was my thought.

TEPCO couldn't get a hold of the situation.

And the government also seemed to be completely ill-informed.

Prime Minister Kan had experts

who he would listen to.

They came up with this popcorn scenario.

Like a chain reaction.

One reactor would set off another,

then another, and then another.

It could just get worse, and worse, and worse out there.

So he had immense pressure on him.

He wanted everything, as you might imagine,

wanted everything faster, stronger, bigger.

I was sent there to help.

They didn't want to listen to an American,

which is understandable given our history.

I arrived at TEPCO headquarters

a little after 5:30 a.m.

A number of monitors were lined up

in the operations room.

One of them was connected to Fukushima Daiichi.

I addressed everyone.

Good evening. The situation at Japan's

Fukushima nuclear plant has gotten worse.

While a Tokyo Electric official said in a press conference

that he does not believe

a critical event is imminent,

a senior nuclear industry executive

told the New York Times

that Japanese nuclear managers are, quote,

"Basically in a full-scale panic."

After the Unit 4 explosion,

TEPCO did evacuate the plant.

Kan agreed to the evacuation

of most people from the plant

if a small number would stay

to-to... basically, to man the fire trucks.

They had three fire trucks

that were pumping water into the reactors.

That was it. That was the entire response at that point,

was three fire trucks.

Kan wanted enough people to stay

to man those fire trucks

and to monitor the reactors,

and a total of 69 people stayed.

They're known as the Fukushima Fifty,

but there were actually 69 of them.

They were staying so the others could leave.

Uh, and... they stayed knowing

that they may not come back.

Japanese engineers

marshalled all their remaining tools today

in the week-long struggle

to prevent a full-blown nuclear disaster.

Filmed just yesterday

from a military helicopter,

this shaky footage is the best image we have yet

of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

No workers can be seen outside.

With radiation at such high levels,

it's simply too dangerous.

The dense steam is believed to be rising

from a storage pool holding 100 tons of nuclear fuel.

And alarmingly, two more pools nearby are also heating up.

Normally, at least five meters of cooling water

cover the rods, stopping them from overheating

and protecting workers from a deadly radiation.

But reports now indicate

the pool has run completely dry,

a potentially catastrophic development.

Radiation levels there are believed to be lethal.

No one can go near.

Seven days into this crisis,

no one is any clearer

on how this nuclear emergency will end.

At this moment, 70 brave souls are still working

at the stricken Fukushima plant in Japan.

They are trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown

and apparently suffering great radiation.

We've obtained a statement

from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Peter,

that says the levels at the plant,

and I want to make that very clear,

at the plant itself,

are enough to kill a man

within five hours.

A few dozen workers

at the Fukushima nuclear plant

finally were able to restart the reactor's cooling systems.

Workers have entered a reactor building

at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant

for the first time since it was damaged

by March's earthquake and tsunami.

After the Hyper Rescue Team came,

more and more people arrived to help.

And they finally start to get a handle on the disaster.

What follows is civil suits, inquests,

and TEPCO executives making public apologies.

It's also revealed that TEPCO received a report

warning that a tsunami of 15 meters

was possible at the Fukushima plant.

But instead of acting on it,

TEPCO sat on the report

and only gave it to nuclear authorities

on March 7th, 2011,

four days before the disaster struck.

Japan is the nation that invented the word "tsunami."

So the idea that a Japanese plant

wouldn't be ready for a tsunami looks ludicrous.

And yet they weren't.

When-when the waves hit,

the plant was literally caught with its pants down.

You don't even... even need a wave wall.

All you need is a waterproof power system.

Like you have in a ship, or a submarine, or something.

It-it wouldn't have taken a whole lot.

And they just didn't do it

because to raise the risk of a tsunami,

to raise the risk of something like that happening,

would go against the orthodoxy of the "safety myth."

If you questioned the safety of a plant,

even something like, "Hey,

let's have a few more backup systems,"

it could possibly cost you your career.

And so people didn't do it.

They-they... They had to toe the line.

And the plant was... was... was left vulnerable

to something that in Japan, frankly,

should have been... foreseeable.

The aftermath of the accident

is still going on today.

And we are still decades from cleaning up

the radioactive material in the reactors.

Uh, it'll be my grandchildren who see that cleaned up.

And after years of mothballing

the nuclear program in Japan,

it's firmly back on the agenda.

They've restarted 14 reactors,

and there are plans to build many, many more.

It's not just Japan.

Much of the world, faced with climate change

and energy insecurity,

is now turning back to nuclear power.

If... You know, if there was a big lesson

from the accident,

it would be the necessity

of transparency and-and coming...

being frank with people, right?

You would hope that lesson has been learned.

But the government has never been fully transparent

about what happened in Fukushima.

TEPCO has never revealed fully what happened.

We have very few records of what was being said

or done at that time.

It feels like any question of risk,

any question of what can go wrong is gone,

and people just don't want to talk about that.

We're back to, you know, "Don't worry about it,

we'll take care of it, everything's okay."

And their messaging leaves us wondering,

has anything really changed?

...those brave emergency workers

who are walking into a wall of radiation.

The operators there do not see themselves as heroes.

You know, they felt they were culprits

more than heroes,

that they caused the accident, which they didn't.

Some told me that, you know, we feel like Vietnam veterans.

You know, that in America where...

You know, we think we fought a noble battle

but our people don't think this is a noble war.

So we're not heroes.

But for me, unlike the military,

none of those who stayed behind at that plant

expected they would have to give up their life.

They, like anyone else with a nine-to-five job,

turned up on the 11th with their lunchboxes

to work their shifts.

Then they were faced with all of this.

And they chose to stay.

And I think understanding that,

anyone would have to agree

that they are absolutely heroic.