Fukushima disaster still reverberates.

• Position: Your Life

Remembering the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster that happened two years ago, Green Cross International, Geneva, Switzerland, is calling for the phasing out of the use of nuclear energy and the movement towards more environmentally-friendly, sustainable power solutions.

On March 11, 2011, Japan experienced a 9.0 magnitude earthquake 130 kilometers offshore from the city of Sendai. Due to that ferocious natural disaster--earthquake triggered a tsunami--three of the Fukushima Daiichi plant's six reactors suffered a meltdown, inflicting structural damage to reactor No. 4. Rated at Level 7, the highest possible rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the Fukushima catastrophe initially was reported to have issued amounts of radioactive caesium into the atmosphere equal to 168 Hiroshima bombs. This number later rose drastically based on new findings issued by the Tepco Electric Power Company.

"Shockingly, this danger of tsunami-caused meltdowns had been publicized since 2008 in documents issued by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, but plant owners effectively ignored this contingency," notes GCI Pres. Alexander Likhotal. "It was the failure of human action to take the proper safety precautions...