Originally published in: 20260908 Taipei Times
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
Mandarin version: https://www.wildatheart.org.tw/posts/2617
News reports indicate that an underground nuclear shelter has been installed at a facility associated with the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association’s Taipei office, which some have interpreted as a move to prepare for a potential “Taiwan contingency.”
Even without considering the risk of a nuclear attack, following the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster, Japan revised its nuclear-emergency planning guidelines with a recommendation that people with 30km of a disaster at a nuclear reactor prepare for indoor sheltering or evacuation. During the 2011 disaster, the US advised its citizens within 80km of the plant to evacuate the area.
The Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association’s Taipei office is about 21km from the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里). If the plant were restarted and a major accident were to occur, the association’s office would fall within the evacuation zone.
In the event of a major nuclear accident at the Guosheng plant, employees of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association have, if the reports are true, an underground nuclear shelter to take refuge in.
However, what about the nearly 6 million people who live within 30km of the plant, or the nearly 9 million within 80km? Where would they take refuge? About 100,000 people are within a 30km radius of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) and about 3.5 million are within 80km.
If a nuclear accident were to occur, would it be possible to evacuate and accommodate that many people?
Nuclear accidents can also release radioactive contamination over an extended area for many years. Fifteen years after the Fukushima disaster, radioactive contamination continues.
If a disaster were to occur at the Guosheng plant, employees of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association could return to Japan, but many Taiwanese would be forced to live under the shadow of radioactive contamination for years to come.
It is not possible for the government to build enormous nuclear shelters capable of accommodating all those who could potentially be affected, but, at the very least, it should properly decommission aging nuclear power plants that have been shut down for years, rather than create further risks of a nuclear disaster.