Mental health and disaster related attitudes among Japanese after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster

On March 11, 2011 Japan was struck by a magnitude 9.0 Mw earthquake. The results were severe with more than 15,000 people being killed by the earthquake and the following tsunami (Normile, 2011). The aftermath of the disaster was a level 7 nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, matching only the Chernobyl disaster (Weissmann, 2011). The literature of behavioural reactions after nuclear disasters is scarce (Anspaugh et al., 1988; Havenaar et al., 1997; Baum et al., 1983), mainly addressing anxiety. Moreover, in the case of Japan, the nuclear disaster has awakened the memories of the WWII atomic bombs and as such, might have raised historically-based panic among the Japanese (McCartney, 2011).