The Days (2023) - Nuclear Disaster Documentary

The Days (2023) , a film with eight episodes, depicts the crucial seven days following a nuclear disaster in Japan and explores viewpoints from government, corporate entities, and emergency responders. It meticulously collects evidence to recreate the incident’s progression and seeks to answer: “What actually happened that day?”

On March 11, 2011, at 14:46 local time (12:46 PM GMT), a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck Minamata City, , damaging the coast of Nanshan Island ( ) to the west for 130 kilometers. Within hours, a 15-meter-high tsunami destroyed nuclear power plants in the sea off Nanshan Island, including the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The earthquake disabled cooling systems and exposed dangerous materials, leading to an uncontrollable disaster.

The film is a well-made production that blends documentary-style interviews with drama, offering insights into what happened at the site during the accident as well as how ordinary people handled it. However, it does not delve deeply into post-accident investigations and reportshighly recommended for both viewing on its own and in conjunction with these reports.

The film avoids the overly dramatic storytelling seen in Chernobyl (1985), instead opting for a grounded, realistic approach with a cold, deliberate rhythm. This is partly due to the 30-year gap between the Chernobyl disaster and this one, allowing modern nuclear safety knowledge, technology, and protocols to inform the film’s depiction of Japan’s efforts during the accident. It also avoids the confusion and overexposure to radiation that characterized early days at the Fukushima Daiichi plant for many workers.

The film focuses on first-line operators’ perspectives, offering a stark contrast to political machinations and governmentposturing seen in Chernobyl. While it briefly mentions Prime Minister Naoto arrives in charge of the disaster response following an earthquake (a moment of chaos), there is no significant coverage of public outbursts or political posturing.

The film’s focus on lessons learned from the accident resonates most strongly with those who have experienced similar crises, leaving little for viewers looking for personal heroism or dramatic epics. It does not include a major turning point moment like “The Downfall of Chernobyl,” but it provides an intense narrative filled with tension and drama as operators confront their own mortality while attempting to mitigate the disaster’s fallout.

The film ends with a poignant, almost Japanese sentiment: After years following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, natural forces have reclaimed the land around the plant, restoring life to defunct farmland. The area has also become less polluted, and the sky is brighter. However, decommissioned reactors built over decades remain an eyesore, needing to be dismantled for safe operation.

Some key ideas: While the operators displayed extreme caution during the accident, many were caught off guard by the scale of the disaster, which could have been mitigated if the government had acted more decisively earlier in the crisis (as suggested by interviews with nuclear engineers). The film highlights how international safety standards and protocols failed to anticipate the full scope of potential risks.

For instance, the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), designed for measuring the severity of nuclear emergencies, underperformed during this disaster because it was not intended to handle such extreme conditions. Instead of providing a warning about the scale of the accident immediately after the event, authorities delayed reporting until one month later due to protocol limitations.

The film reveals how many potential mistakes could have been avoided had Japanese authorities acted more decisively early in the crisis and taken proper measures during recovery operations. For example, adding ten meters to the height of the sea walls (levies) would have provided an additional safety buffer for this disaster. Additionally, the film emphasizes the importance of having specific operating procedures prepared for extreme scenariossuch as when communication, electricity, and transportation systems are all out of commissionand highlights how crucial it was that no operators were allowed to leave their stations during the accident.

The film also serves as a reminder of what happened at Fukushima. While Japanese officials have taken steps to learn from past mistakes and improve safety standards, many of those measures remain unimplemented due to budget constraints or political uncertainty.

The final scene offers some criticism toward the U.S. involvement in the disaster response (a rare occurrence), but it ultimately falls short of being as meaningful as the film’s earlier lessons learned segments.