nuclear-news

My name is A. I am a plaintiff. I would like to talk about a basic misconception about the nuclear accident.
There is a common misconception that an unprecedented earthquake and unexpected tsunami caused an unexpected nuclear accident. But this is a big misunderstanding. Accidents at nuclear power plants caused by earthquakes and tsunamis were predicted, and because of this, seismic reinforcement and work to raise the seawalls were carried out, and accidents at some plants were avoided (Tokai Daini Nuclear Power Plant, for example).
Because nuclear accidents were anticipated, the measures to be taken in the event of an accident were also determined in detail. After the JCO accident in 1999, these measures were compiled into a series of laws called "nuclear disaster prevention," which culminated in the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness.
What I would like to argue is the fact that the government and Fukushima Prefecture did not follow these procedures and forced us, the residents, to be exposed to radiation. The SPEEDI (System for Prediction of the Effects of Emergency Radioactivity) data, which was up and running less than two hours after the earthquake and should have been used for emergency evacuation, was not made public until March 23, 2011, more than 10 days after the nuclear accident. The Nuclear Safety Technology Center (NSTC), which was managing SPEEDI at the time, sent more than 30 faxes to the Fukushima prefectural government in the morning of March 13, 2011, as well as email attachments from late at night on March 11, but the prefecture still did not release this data either. Fukushima Prefecture explained that they could not release the data because they did not have information on the source of the emissions, but this explanation is completely unreasonable. This is because the guidelines for dealing with the accident ("Guidelines for Environmental Radiation Monitoring in Emergencies") included a response plan for cases where there was no source information.
It is not only about predicting the diffusion of radioactive materials. In terms of actual measurements, information was concealed and data acquisition was obstructed. From the morning of the day after the earthquake, the staff of the Fukushima Nuclear Energy Center went to the vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant to take actual measurements of radioactive materials released into the environment, following the "guidelines" mentioned above. On March 12, five monitoring sites were monitored, and on March 13, ten sites were monitored, but then the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology stopped the monitoring, according to a person who was involved in the monitoring at the time. As a result, the actual measurements from March 14 to 17, when the contamination caused by the nuclear accident was most serious, are missing.
As a result, the residents of the affected areas were left without being informed of the massive spread of radioactive materials, the fact that the plant had melted down, or how to evacuate. In other words, the purpose of nuclear disaster prevention, which is to protect the residents from radiation exposure, could not be achieved due to the inaction and interference of the government. This is why we claim that we were forced to suffer unnecessary radiation exposure.
At the end of March 2011, the Fukushima Prefectural Board of Education decided to start classes at schools in the prefecture from April 6 to 8 without measuring radiation levels, and in early April, the Nuclear Safety Commission began to consider whether the exposure limit for residents in areas with high radiation levels should be raised from 1 millisievert to 20 millisievert per year. On April 10, it was reported that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) is planning to set the annual exposure limit for students at 20 millisieverts. On April 10, it was reported that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is planning to set an annual exposure limit of 20 millisieverts for children, which means that this standard will be applied even to children in order to prevent the expansion of the evacuation zone.
In this way, the government and Fukushima Prefecture hid information and prevented residents from evacuating at the beginning of the nuclear accident, and later, when it became clear how serious the contamination was, they raised the radiation dose limits for residents (instead of expanding the evacuation zone). Needless to say, all of these actions were against the law, against justice, against international common sense, and against humanism.
As a result, everyone in the disaster area, myself included, did not know how much radiation we had been exposed to, and thus we spent the first ten years of the accident with health concerns. Whenever I had a prolonged cold, a sore throat, or a lumpy feeling, I would think, "What if this is ......? You can imagine how unbearable these days are. In the affected areas, there are many people who are sincerely worried about the health and future of their children, but are unable to speak out about it. Who has created such a society? Wasn't it created by those who turn a blind eye to acts that are against the law, against justice, against international common sense, and against humanism?
In response to this situation, isn't it time to remove the unreasonable things that have been imposed on the disaster area and change the injustice? I sincerely and earnestly hope that the court will make an appropriate decision.
Plaintiff A's statement of opinion

On January 27th, six young men between the ages of 17 and 27 who were living in Fukushima Prefecture at the time of the accident filed a lawsuit against TEPCO, claiming damages. The reason for their claim is that their thyroid cancer was caused by radiation exposure. They were between 6 and 16 years old at the time of the accident. All of them have undergone surgery. Four of them had recurrences and had to have surgery again. Four of them have had their thyroid glands completely removed and have been forced to take hormones for the rest of their lives. Four of them have had total thyroidectomies and will have to take hormones for the rest of their lives. One of them has also been diagnosed with metastasis to the lungs, and we don't know what will happen to him. This is the situation. Since nearly 300 cases of thyroid cancer have already been found in Fukushima Prefecture, which should have been one or two cases per one million people per year, we will fight the case on the grounds that the only possible cause is radiation exposure.

The theory of over-diagnosis and various other arguments have been used to say that there is no causal relationship between cancer and exposure. （The prefectural residents' health survey review committee and UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) have issued such opinions. In response to this, there has already been a bashing movement, saying, "Don't file a lawsuit if exposure is not the cause. However, if the causal relationship is denied here, all of the various cancers and health hazards that are actually occurring will be denied. The fiction that the government is trying to create, that "there was no health damage at all" despite the fact that so much radiation was released by the nuclear accident, will be accepted. I believe that this is a trial that we cannot lose.

It takes a lot of courage to go to court now, and the six young people took their time and consulted with their families before making their decision. The reason for their decision is partly because they are worried about their own future, but also because nearly 300 young people are living with the same kind of suffering and anxiety. These people are being torn apart, so they have a strong desire to give courage and encouragement to these people. I think that's where he made his decision in the end.
Attorney Ido

In a letter to the European Commission, he wrote, "Many children are suffering from thyroid cancer (due to the nuclear accident). It is not appropriate."
Reconstruction Minister Nishimei

The prefectural government and Fukushima Prefecture are fiercely protesting against the report. We have written to you to request that you provide us with objective information based on scientific findings."
Governor Uchibori

It reminded me of the attack on "Yummy Shinbo". In the end, by bashing the "nosebleeds" in "Yummy Shinbo," people couldn't talk about the fact that many children had nosebleeds. Such a social atmosphere was created to erase the nosebleeds as a fact. I think that the powers that be want to make the thyroid cancer case a success story like the one they had at that time. However, it is inconceivable that there is no health hazard after such a huge accident. We need to appeal this fact at every opportunity. We must not allow the facts to disappear.

When we filed the lawsuit in August 2014, my second son said, "Mom, I want to take a day off from school to say something," and spoke at the meeting. The son who spoke at that time is now 15 years old. He has been sick since he was in the fifth grade and is now in the third grade. He will take the entrance exam this year, but he only went to junior high school for the first semester. I don't know if it was because of the radiation. I don't know if it is because of the radiation or not, but he used to be fine, but now he is like that. As I mentioned earlier about the nosebleeds, both my first and second sons had many nosebleeds at that time, and I had to move left and right. I was really scared and didn't know what to do. I was really frustrated when we lost the case in Fukushima, and I am determined not to lose in Sendai. It's okay to be scared, to cry, to be angry. So that one day we can laugh at the end. I would like to make this happen.
One of the plaintiffs