Chemical contamination in Tohoku, with Lizzie Grossman and Winnie Bird.

The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 devastated entire swaths of the Japanese coastline and killed thousands of people. Much of the attention following the disaster has focused on radiation exposures from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Now public health officials are beginning to assess another potential source of disaster-related exposures: hazardous chemicals that may have been released when major industrial centers along Japan’s east coast were damaged or destroyed. In this podcast, journalists Lizzie Grossman and Winnie Bird talk with host Ashley Ahearn about their EHP feature story on the potential chemical contamination following the Tohoku disaster.