Nuclear Reactors Around the World, Mapped

Five years ago, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit japan, triggering a Tsunami and causing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The 30-foot-high waves that hit the country’s eastern seaboard knocked out the electricity at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, setting off a chain of events that caused radioactive materials to leak out. As a direct result of this incident, thousands of families lost their homes and livelihoods, children got sick with cancer, and the flora and fauna in the vicinity of the the plant became radioactive. Even today—five years after—the plant continues to contaminate the water around it.

Fukushima and other, similarly tragic nuclear disasters have significantly affected the landscape of nuclear energy, according to a new interactive map (above) and accompanying blog post by Carbon Brief, a U.K.-based climate change and energy policy website. The map lays out the location, capacity, and operating status of all 667 nuclear plants built since 1954, including those that are still under construction, per International Atomic Energy Agency data.