The Fukushima reactors hold a secret after the disaster: life where there shouldn’t be any
A group of scientists has published findings on bacteria which survived extreme conditions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.
A team of Japanese researchers has discovered bacteria capable of withstanding the radioactive contamination inside the damaged reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was shut down after the 2011 tsunami. In the aftermath of the disaster, water seeped into the radioactive waste - and, to everyone’s surprise, life emerged in an environment once thought completely uninhabitable.
Biologists Tomoro Warashina and Akio Kanai of Keio University in Tokyo analyzed a series of microbial samples taken from radioactive water in the plant’s torus room and identified bacteria that, remarkably, do not possess any special genetic traits that would allow them to resist harmful levels of radiation. Their findings were published by the American Society for Microbiology.
The bacteria belonged to the genera Limnobacter and Brevirhabdus, neither of which are known for exceptional radiation resistance. This has led the researchers to question how these microbes have managed to survive such extreme conditions.
These organisms are chemolithotrophs, meaning they draw energy by oxidizing inorganic substances such as manganese, sulfides, or iron rather than relying on conventional organic material. The team also found biofilms forming on the facility’s metal surfaces. Together, these factors may be creating microenvironments that allow the bacteria to endure - and even thrive - amid high radiation levels.
“The proportions of bacterial genera known to be radiation resistant were extremely low, suggesting that the impact of radioactivity on [the] selection within the torus room water was minimal,” the researchers said. “In contrast, ~70% of the bacterial genera in the torus room water were associated with metal corrosion, indicating that the impact of bacteria on metal corrosion must be considered in long-term decommissioning work.”
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