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The mental scars for Fukushima radiation evacuees

Japan Earthquake Anniversary: Nuclear Evacuees Scarred By Disaster One Year Later Huffington Post: 2/13/12 “….Nearly a year has passed since a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan, Okuma town, but the site of the reactors at the centre of the Fukushima nuclear crisis remains off limits for residents, save for short trips to hastily abandoned homes.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant, on the coast 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, triggering reactor meltdowns and radiation leaks that caused mass evacuations and widespread contamination.

For the about 11,000 residents of Okuma, and the nearly 80,000 people across the prefecture who have been unable to return to their homes due to high radiation, the mental scars run deep even though many of their homes are physically intact.

Many do not know when, if ever, they can return to land that has been in their families for generations…….

“If it’s a normal disaster you recover from it, and you go forward a bit every day. But this time you don’t,” said Tomiko Ikinobu, 47. “All that’s left is uncertainty.”

The Japanese government declared the Daiichi nuclear plant to be in a state of “cold shutdown” late last year but the Environment Ministry has said about 2,400 square km (930 square miles) of land around the plant may need to be decontaminated — an area roughly the size of Luxembourg…. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/japan-earthquake-anniversary_n_1272447.html#254326

February 14, 2012 - Posted by | general

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