Summary Of The Fallout By Evan Osnos

The discovery of nuclear energy was one of Japan’s greatest technological advances for renewable energy. Through nuclear fission, Japan was able to provide for its energy needs. However, on March 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, causing a huge meltdown and devastating Japan. In Evan Osnos’s “The Fallout,” the writer offers an anecdote from first-hand accounts of Japanese individuals who reveal the chaos through their experience. Osnos uses imagery to exemplify the cold tone of the article. He manages to instill pity and condolence in the readers by describing the horrors of the fallout, which further supports the tone and purpose. Osnos begins by acknowledging the workers of the nuclear plant and expressing the sense of hopelessness. He pleads with the audience by admitting that “even when there’s no work elsewhere, there is work at the plants.” This allows people to feel pity for the employees by showing that there was not much of a choice to begin with. He joins in order to discredit the Japanese government and admits that “[the workers] all knew that during a quake everything in there could become contaminated with radiation.” This outpouring from the

officials were desperate to find more details on the nuclear meltdown, and possible consequences on the U.S. They scavenged through files, but found that “the information just didn’t exist.” The lack of information shows the audience how little the Japanese government did to provide coverage and how insignificant the people of the plant were. The author further illustrates the effects by providing statistical values. He provides “a poll… that showed more than eighty percent of the population did not believe the government’s information about the nuclear crisis.” By doing so, Osnos discredits the government and proves the incident was not of great importance, which further instills pity and