Transportation Around Evacuation Areas of Fukushima Nuclear Plants

I have participated in over a dozen evacuation studies over the last several years, many of them focused on nuclear plants, so I have been closely following the protective actions being taken around the Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan. I wanted an easy way to look at the towns affected and the road network therein but I had not yet seen an interactive map that showed the locations of the plants and the areas covered by the evacuation and shelter orders. So I used the Google Maps API to create one.

The map shows the locations of the two nuclear plants, the Fukushima Daiichi (sometimes called “Fukushima I”) and Fukushima Daini (sometimes called “Fukushima II”), as well as the evacuation areas around each (in red) and the Daiichi shelter area (in blue). Clicking each of those features will show some additional information about it. The controls at the top right also the user to switch between satellite imagery, a standard road map, and terrain.

Author: Justin Krometis, Transportation Analyst