nuclear-news

Fukushima Now (29) – Part 1: What Constitutes Responsibility?

by Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center · December 21, 2025, By Yamaguchi Yukio, https://cnic.jp/english/?p=8747

n the 14 and a half years that have passed since March 2011, the cesium-137 that was released has finally made it to the halfway point of its half-life. After 90 years, its radioactive concentration will have diminished to one-eighth its initial level, and after 300 years, one-thousandth. According to the current medium-to-long-term roadmap, decommissioning measures should be completed around 2041 to 2051. Even by then, however, the radioactivity will have decreased only by a little more than half. Not even what these “decommissioning measures” are supposed to include has been decided on yet.

In places with serious radioactive contamination, nobody will be able to live there for another century. The area thus affected is said to exceed 300 square kilometers. The first sample of fuel debris taken from the Unit 2 reactor weighed 0.7 grams, and the second, 0.2 grams. The information gained from their analysis is just as miniscule. Meanwhile, the total amount of fuel debris in the Unit 1-3 reactors is estimated at 880 tons. Whether it will be necessary to retrieve all of it to begin with is a matter of great contention.

 Idogawa Katsutaka, who was mayor of Futaba Town at the time of the accident, evacuated the entire town to protect everyone there from radioactive exposure, leading many of them as far as 250 kilometers away to Kazo City, Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo, where they took refuge in a gymnasium that had belonged to the town’s former Kisai High School. This was just one of the municipalities that evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture to escape radioactivity. The town’s population totaled 6,971 people overall, of whom 187 took refuge at the former Kisai High School (as of September 18, 2012). Details of their evacuation were relayed widely around the world by the 2012 film “Nuclear Nation” (Japanese: “Futaba kara Toku Hanarete,” directed by Funahashi Atsushi, music by Sakamoto Ryuichi).

As of 1 August 2025, the registered population of Futaba Town had dwindled to 5,157 in all, of whom 59 percent were living within Fukushima Prefecture and 41 percent were still evacuees elsewhere among 43 of Japan’s 47 prefectures. Idogawa’s hope is, “We want somehow to go home, all of us, together, to a safe hometown.” The number of returnees so far, however, is a mere 87 people (as of August 2025).

■ Idogawa filed suit in May 2015 against the government of Japan and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), seeking 755 million yen in damages. A decision on the case was rendered on 30 July 2025 in Tokyo District Court, finding no responsibility on the part of the government, but ordering TEPCO to pay compensation of about 100 million yen for damages to real estate and compensation for the evacuations.

The reasoning behind this decision was that even if the government had required TEPCO to take measures against a possible tsunami, there was a good likelihood that a similar accident could have occurred anyway, so the government bore no responsibility for it. This followed the precedent of a Supreme Court’s ruling on 17 June 2022 denying the government’s responsibility.

Nor did they recognize Idogawa’s claim that his health had been damaged by his exposure in the course of evacuating. This angered Idogawa, who called it a terrible decision against a person who had faithfully fallen in line with Japan’s atomic energy administration.

I think what caused this tragic nuclear accident, unprecedented in scale, was Japan’s fundamentally flawed nuclear power system, adopted by the government in the name of “peaceful use of the atom.” It can only be called a huge transgression by the politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, and business leaders of that time on account of their lackadaisical inattention to safety.

The theory of plate tectonics teaches us not to expect to see broad regions of stability, free from concerns about earthquakes, tsunamis or volcanic activity in the Japanese archipelago. We are only part way toward clarifying the causes and circumstances of the Fukushima nuclear accident. Despite this, the government is ignoring the lessons of history and clearly announcing a “nuclear renaissance” in its 7^th Strategic Energy Plan. Even if it intends to “put safety first” as a condition, it cannot create safety measures if it has yet to elucidate the causes of the accident. This is no way to ensure “safety first.” It’s a contradiction.

Establishing nuclear power plants in the Japanese archipelago in itself is a mistake. The first chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority publicly stated that even if the new safety standards created in 2012 were fulfilled, it would not guarantee safety. Even now, the phrase “safety first” commonly uttered by nuclear proponents is a fiction and can only be called irresponsible.

December 23, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Japan, Legal