Emergency preparedness

Westerners lack education on nuclear disaster risks, expert warns

Western societies would not respond well to a Fukushima-style nuclear disaster due to a lack of public information, a leading disaster expert has warned.

Christopher Abbott said he firmly believed that the public ought to be better educated over the hazards and risks they may face.

Illustrating his point, he referred to the Fukushima disaster of 2011 in which 160,000 people were evacuated from the vicinity of the plant as experts attempted to tackle the emergency. The evacuation worked, said Abbott, because “the Japanese educate the public”.

“I just don’t see that it would have worked as successfully in western society,” he added. “[It’s] a very personal opinion but one that is backed up by Japanese colleagues.”