Mental Health Consequences of the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Are the Grandchildren of People Living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki During the Drop of the Atomic Bomb More Vulnerable?

Mental Health Consequences of the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Are the Grandchildren of People Living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki During the Drop of the Atomic Bomb More Vulnerable?

Psychiatry

Amit Shrira, Menachem Ben‐Ezra, Yechiel Soffer, Yuval Palgi

World Psychiatry

Vol. 11

No. 2

2012

Journal article

English

Japan

Open Access

On March 11, 2011 Japan was struck by a magnitude 9.0Mw earthquake. The results were severe, as more than 15,000 people were killed by the earthquake and the following tsunami 1. The aftermath of the disaster was a level 7 nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, matching only the Chernobyl disaster 1,2. The literature on behavioural reactions after nuclear disasters is scarce 3,4,5, mainly addressing anxiety. In the case of Japan, the nuclear disaster has awakened the memories of the World War II atomic bombs and as such, might have raised a historically based fear among Japanese 6. Our aim was to examine the differences between people whose grandparents were living in the greater area of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the dropping of the atomic bombs and those whose grandparents were not.

Kristen Walker