Today’s Fukushima Nuclear Evacuees Real Situation
For your information, as Abe’s government has tightened its grip on most of Japanese the media, the Fukushima nuclear evacuees situation is presented quite differently in the various Japanese media.
Abe’s regime has more or less gagged Asahi, has put more control on Japan Times, while Yomiuri is the Japanese equivalent of the Soviet era Pravda. The only major media who has managed somehow to keep some degree of independance and impartiality is the Mainichi.
As you may see the Japan Times article while having an added positive spin, leaves out many things untold:
Fukushima nuclear evacuees fall below 100,000. As the fifth anniversary of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis approaches, the number of residents of the northeastern prefecture who are still living as evacuees has fallen below 100,000, a survey by the prefectural government revealed Friday.
According to the survey, 56,463 evacuees were staying within Fukushima Prefecture as of the end of December, while 43,497 were outside the prefecture as of Dec. 10. The whereabouts of 31 were unknown.
The total came to 99,991 in the December survey, down from 121,585 last January.
The total peaked at 164,865 in May 2011, two months after Japan’s worst nuclear accident occurred at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s tsunami-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station.
The survey covered those staying in temporary housing facilities or taking shelter at relatives’ houses and other places. It excluded those who have bought houses in the areas they fled to or settled in public housing for disaster victims.
“Many people have started new lives where they were evacuated to, while others have returned to their homes,” a prefectural official said.
Source: Japan Times http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/09/national/fukushima-nuclear-evacuees-fall-100000/#.VpDnE1LzN_l
Whereas the Mainichi’s article has a much better in depth look at the evolving problems for evacuees.
Fukushima evacuees are Denied housing, and pushed back to the Contaminated zone
Nuclear evacuees surveyed about living in public housing later became non-eligible
Fukushima Prefecture included more people in surveys for 2013 estimates on demand for new public housing after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant meltdowns than it ended up allowing into the housing, and the estimates based on those surveys were never publically released, it has been learned.
The estimates were reported in a document obtained by the Mainichi Shimbun. This document was created in May 2013 by a Tokyo consulting company paid around 30 million yen by the Fukushima Prefectural Government for the work. The estimates were based on fiscal 2012 surveys by the Reconstruction Agency and the Fukushima Prefectural Government of evacuees from 11 municipalities near the crippled plant.
The estimates were made based on three types of evacuees seeking a place in the housing: people wanting to live there until evacuation orders for their home municipalities were lifted; people wanting to live there after evacuation orders for their home municipalities were lifted but until a livable environment had been established; and people wanting to live in the housing permanently.
The estimated numbers of residences required for the three types of evacuees were between 3,136 and 5,663 for the first group; between 2,743 and 4,172 for the second group; and between 3,366 and 4,837 for the third group. Only the first category, however, matches up with the standards for “long-term evacuees” — the only type of evacuee allowed to apply for the residences. Additionally, two of the 11 municipalities covered by the estimates, the city of Tamura and the town of Naraha, had their evacuation orders lifted in April 2014 and September 2015, respectively, making their residents ineligible for the housing.
The units were first proposed during the Democratic Party of Japan administration, and in September 2012 the Fukushima Prefectural Government announced preparations to build the first 500 residences. At this point, the project was being funded from reconstruction funds, and which evacuees would be eligible for a place had not yet been decided. At the end of that year, however, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito took over the government, and at a January 2013 meeting on disaster recovery, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the creation of a plan to allow evacuees to return home quickly, and to secure homes for long-term evacuees. The Act on Special Measures for the Reconstruction and Revitalization of Fukushima was revised in April 2013 to allow special government funding for the new housing, and to restrict eligibility to long-term evacuees.
The unreleased documents obtained by the Mainichi state explicitly that “under the current system to restrict entry into publically-managed housing to long-term evacuees,” others hoping to keep living in the units after their evacuation orders have been lifted “may not be included.”
A representative for the Fukushima Prefectural Government said, “It’s not good to say that the national government ‘toyed with us’ by its policy shift, but the survey on evacuees’ wishes and the establishment of the new fund (with its eligibility restrictions) happened in parallel.” The official added that prefectural staff had to start applying the restrictions “in a hurry” to keep in line with national government policy.
The Fukushima Prefectural Government has announced 4,890 planned public housing units for nuclear disaster evacuees, but even when combined with around 2,800 such residences for tsunami survivors, the number of residences covers only 17 percent of the around 43,700 Fukushima households that remained without a permanent home as of the end of last year.
Source: Mainichi http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20151205/p2a/00m/0na/013000c
While the Yomiuri Shimbun is currently promoting the government plan to use the evacuation zone as a nuclear waste cite as part of “reconstruction”. There is pressure on evacuated communities to accept waste storage and also for communities outside Fukushima to allow radioactive waste to be stored in their communities.
While the government has claimed it would treat all evacuees fairly, the actions behind the scenes show they never intended to do so.
The government collected surveys from evacuees to estimate how many people needed public housing in order to build enough units. Mainichi’s investigation and leaked documents show the government only allowed those from “difficult to return” areas to apply for the public housing. They built the number of units based on this decision. Now anyone from an area that has been reopened or that was a voluntary evacuees has been shut out of the housing availability.
This was the doing of the LDP and Shinzo Abe. When they took power in 2013 they rewrote the current laws dealing with the disaster to bar anyone but long term evacuees from accessing this housing.
“The unreleased documents obtained by the Mainichi state explicitly that “under the current system to restrict entry into publically-managed housing to long-term evacuees,” others hoping to keep living in the units after their evacuation orders have been lifted “may not be included.”
The prefectural government feels duped and there is now a drastic housing shortage five years after the disaster. 2016 also includes looming deadlines for people’s evacuee aid to run out.
Living restrictions for nearly 55,000 mandated evacuees will be lifted by March, 2017. This will affect nearly 75% of those currently subject to the Tokyo evacuation order of 2011. The plan also calls for continuing the ~$1,000 per month (per person) mental anguish stipend until March 2017, regardless of whether or not restrictions are lifted and/or residents return home before that date. In addition, the goverment”s free rent stipend for voluntary evacuees living outside Fukushima Prefecture will end in March 2017. Tokyo and Fukushima Prefecture say there will be some support for the voluntary evacuees living in a state of poverty, to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Japan’s nuclear safety watchdog not happy with safety of dry spent fuel casks at Fukushima
NRA announced the dry cask for spent fuel of Fukushima plant might be overly vulnerable http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/12/nra-announced-the-dry-cask-for-spent-fuel-of-fukushima-plant-might-be-overly-vulnerable/ by Mochizuki , December 8, 2015 On 12/4/2015, NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) announced that the dry cask to store the spent fuel assemblies can be excessively vulnerable.
In order to stock the fuel assemblies of SFP 4 (Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 4) in the common pool, Tepco transferred the fuel assemblies from the common pool to the dry cask.
By the end of October 2014, Tepco had stocked 28 dry casks to contain 1,412 fuel assemblies. They were planning to transfer additional 1,600 fuel assemblies to more 23 dry casks. NRA reports that only 11 casks of this issued type are in actual use in Fukushima plant.
According to NRA, there is a possibility that an internal part of dry cask doesn’t have enough strength. It was designed based on the standard of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, however the standard was abolished this October, just before this scandal became public, because it did not have enough basis and overrated the strength.
https://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000131890.pdf
https://www.nsr.go.jp/disclosure/committee/roanshin_kakunen/00000003.html
Estimating Airborne Radionuclides from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Site
Post-Accident Sporadic Releases of Airborne Radionuclides from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Site , Environmental Science and Technology
| Steinhauser, G., Niisoe, T., Harada, K. H., Shozugawa, K., Schneider, S., Synal, H. A., Walther, C., Christl, M., Nanba, K.,Ishikawa, H., Koizumi, A. | |||
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Journal Items, |
Xenon 133 peaks detected in Takasaki Station
While speaking of the atomic testing in North Korea, CTBTO has inadvertently disclosed information on Fukushima.
One slide shows Xenon 133 peaks in Takasaki Station. Or xenon 133 is a fission product. The corium of Fukushima seems to know criticality phases in 2014 and 2015 (detection beyond normal = red triangles)
Which also explain why traces of Iodine-131 have been repeatedly found at various locations in Japan every year since 2011. Iodine-131 being a very short life radionuclide, it should not be present anymore after March 2011.
The highest peaks of xenon 133 were in May, June July 2015, corresponding to the Iodine-131 detections in sewage sludge in May 2015
Source: Fukushima Diary
Significant level of I-131 detected from dry sludge of Fukushima sewage plant after rain in May
Source : CTBO
Click to access Briefing_PrepCom_7_Jan_2016.pdf
Credits to Pierre Fetet & Paolo Scampa for these informations.
Fire at Japan’s Hamaoka nuclear power plant
Fire at Japan nuclear plant put out; no danger to public – operator http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/fire-at-japan-nuclear-pla/2406296.html
Posted 07 Jan 2016 TOKYO: A fire broke out at Chubu Electric Power Co’s (9502.T) Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan on Thursday, but was quickly put out and there had been no danger to the public, the company said.
The fire started at about 11 a.m. (0200 GMT) in the exhaust fan of the turbine building of the plant’s No.2 reactor, which is currently under being decommissioned, a company spokesman said.
The fan was shut down and the fire was confirmed as put out an hour later, he said. An investigation into the cause of the fire was under way.
The plant’s No.1 and No.2 reactors are being decommissioned, while its No.3, No.4 and No.5 reactors remain shut pending stringent safety checks imposed following the Fukushima nuclear disaster nearly five years ago.
(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Richard Pullin) Reuters
28 years later Japan’s costly nuclear recycling complex is still not working
Japan’s $25 Billion Nuclear Recycling Quest Enters 28th Year, Bloomberg Stephen Stapczynski sstapczynski Emi Urabe January 5, 2016 It’s designed to recycle spent uranium from Japan’s nuclear power plants, consists of more than three dozen buildings spread over 740 hectares (1,829 acres), costs almost $25 billion and has been under construction for nearly three decades. Amount of fuel successfully reprocessed for commercial use: zero.
Under construction since the late 1980s, the complex is designed to turn nuclear waste into fuel by separating out plutonium and usable uranium. The start date of the project has now been pushed back for the 23rd time, with operations set to commence in 2018.
The money continuing to pour into the Rokkasho reprocessing complex in a northeast corner of Japan’s main island of Honshu is raising speculation that attention is being diverted from more-promising avenues of energy development, including renewables.
Construction on Rokkasho, the heart of the endeavor, was supposed to be completed by 1997. Delays due to technical and safety issues have kept it from operating commercially while costs ballooned to an estimated 2.94 trillion yen ($24.6 billion), according to Japan Nuclear Fuel. The Japanese government and the country’s power industry view fuel reprocessing generally, and Rokkasho specifically, as one of the only ways to lower import dependence and find a home for thousands of tons of highly radioactive spent fuel. Japan has about 17,000 metric tons of spent fuel, almost 3,000 tons of which are stored at Rokkasho.
The facility was originally intended to separate plutonium from spent fuel for use in so-called fast-breeder reactors — plants that produce more fuel than they consume.
While the nation’s first prototype fast-breeder reactor has remained closed due to its own technical issues, Rokkasho expanded construction to include a facility that processes plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide fuel, known as MOX, that can be used in some of Japan’s existing reactors…… http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-04/japan-s-25-billion-nuclear-recycling-quest-enters-28th-year
Large shipment of plutonium to travel from Japan to South Carolina
Japan to send huge cache of plutonium to South Carolina under nuclear deal: report RAW STORY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE 05 JAN 2016 Japan will send a huge cache of plutonium — enough to produce 50 nuclear bombs — to the United States as part of a deal to return the material that was used for research, reports and officials said Tuesday.
The plutonium stockpile, provided by the US, Britain and France decades ago, has caused some disquiet given that Japan has said it has the ability to produce a nuclear weapon even if it chooses not to.
The shipment, which comes ahead of a nuclear security summit in Washington in March, is meant to underscore both countries’ commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and is part of a deal they made in 2014.
It will be one of Japan’s most significant overseas movements of plutonium since it transported one tonne from France in 1993 to be used in nuclear reactor experiments.
That shipment triggered an outcry at the time from countries citing environmental and security concerns.
A Japanese official confirmed the amount of plutonium to be sent to the US and said that preparations for the shipment are under way. “But we can’t comment on further details, including the departure date and route, for security reasons,” the official in the nuclear technology section at the education ministry told AFP Tuesday.
The material has been stored at the Nuclear Science Research Institute northeast of Tokyo, he added…….https://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/japan-to-send-huge-cache-of-plutonium-to-south-carolina-under-nuclear-deal-report/
Fukushima Diary. Prime Minister Abe says that Fukushima nuclear station is ‘not settled’
JP PM Abe “It is not proper to say Fukushima is settled” http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/02/jp-pm-abe-proper-say-fukushima-settled/ Iori Mochizuki The Prime Minister of Japan, Abe commented Fukushima is not settled.
This is the statement made in the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives on 1/30/2015.
Abe stated variety of problems are remaining unresolved in Fukushima plant, such as decommissioning, compensation, contaminated water etc.. Problems are piled up. Numbers of people are still forced to live outside of the hometown. It is not proper to say Fukushima is settled.
Related to this article.. Tepco inquired JP Gov about PM Abe’s statement to IOC “Contaminated water is entirely blocked” [URL]
http://www.shugiin.go.jp/internet/itdb_kaigiroku.nsf/html/kaigiroku/001818920150130003.htm
http://search.shugiin.go.jp/ja/search.x?q=%97%5C%8EZ%88%CF%88%F5%89%EF&ie=Shift_JIS
Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant: radioactive water is rising
Radiation-contaminated water at Fukushima plant on the rise http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20151231/p2a/00m/0na/022000c (Mainichi Japan) FUKUSHIMA — Efforts to reduce the amount of radiation-contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant have proven helpless, and the overall amount of such water has actually increased, it has been learned.
TEPCO started pumping up groundwater from the ocean-side drains in October, but gave up on releasing the water into the ocean after detecting a high concentration of radioactive materials and salt content in the water pumped from four of the five wells on the plant premises. Meanwhile, the amount of groundwater increased after its flow was stemmed by the 780-meter-long seaside impermeable wall, which is designed to prevent tainted groundwater from flowing out into the ocean. The resultant high water pressure warped the impermeable wall by about 20 centimeters, prompting TEPCO to reinforce the wall.
While TEPCO had boasted that it was able to significantly reduce risks at the plant thanks to the completion of the impermeable wall, the situation still remains unstable
“We ended up building extra tanks (due to the increase of overall contaminated water), but we will never leak such water to the outside,” Naohiro Masuda, president of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Co., told a press conference.
TEPCO aims to cut the influx of groundwater into reactor buildings to somewhere under 100 tons a day by the end of fiscal 2016, and ultimately make the daily increase of tainted water close to zero by the end of 2020 — the year of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics — by putting the multi-nuclide removal equipment called ALPS into operation. TEPCO is planning to complete the entire decommissioning process by 2041-2051.
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority is by no means confident of nuclear energy safety
No endorsement of nuclear safety, Japan Times, DEC 30, 2015 Power companies and the government should not be under the illusion that the safety of nuclear power plants under the new standards of the Nuclear Regulation Authority has been endorsed by the judiciary. While last week’s decision by the Fukui District Court paves the way for Kansai Electric Power Co. to restart reactors No. 3 and 4 at its Takahama Nuclear Power Plant as early as next month, the court urged the utility and the NRA to make constant efforts to aim higher for safety in the operation of nuclear plants.
The Fukui court reversed the decision given by the same court eight months ago under a different judge, who has since been transferred to another court. In April, the court ordered an injunction banning the restart of the Takahama plant on the Sea of Japan coast in Fukui Prefecture on the grounds that the NRA’s plant safety regulations, tightened after the Tepco plant meltdowns to make nuclear power plants resilient against bigger quakes and tsunami as well as severe accidents, were too lax to secure the plant’s safety. If the logic behind the decision was to be upheld, it would have dealt a crushing blow to the restart bid by the power industry and the administration because it negates the validity of the NRA regulation itself.
In its Dec. 24 decision on a complaint filed by Kepco against the April decision, the Fukui court said the NRA’s regulations are based on the latest scientific and technological knowledge and therefore rational. There’s nothing irrational in the NRA’s approval of Kepco’s plans to restart the Takahama plant, the court said in lifting the ban on reactivating the reactors that have cleared the NRA’s safety screening.
The two opposite decisions by the same court appear to symbolize the shakiness of legal judgments on the safety of nuclear power plant operation just four years after the nation experienced the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Residents in areas around the Takahama plant who sought the injunction banning its restart plan to take the case to a higher court, but Kepco, which started loading nuclear fuel to the No. 3 Takahama reactor the day after the court decision, is ready to reactivate it as early as next month……..
public concern over the safety of nuclear power remains strong. ………In lifting the ban on the Takahama plant’s restart, the Fukui court urged the utility, the national and local governments involved to take multi-layered measures to protect against severe accidents at nuclear power plants, including more effective evacuation plans. The court decision should serve as a reminder that merely clearing the NRA standard does not vouch for the safety of a nuclear power plant. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/12/30/editorials/no-endorsement-nuclear-safety/#.VoWP0LZ97Gh
The facts: Fukushima today
The herculean cleanup of Fukushima Prefecture involves 105 cities, towns, and villages. Unlike Chernobyl where authorities declared a 1,000 square mile no-habitation zone and resettlement of 350,000 people, thus allowing radiation to dissipate over decades-to-centuries, Japan is attempting to remake Fukushima back into its old self. But, radioactive material collected in millions of black bags is a vexing problem for the ages.
Adding to the lingering problem of transporting and storing radioactive waste, over time, the bags will likely deteriorate and need to be replaced with fresh bags. It is an endless cycle.
Handling radioactive waste in Japan may become generational employment, similar to how second and third generation workers eventually completed the grand cathedrals of Europe, like Notre Dame de Paris with a cornerstone laid in 1163 resulting in major construction completed circa 1250.
Fukushima Today, Dissident Voice by Robert Hunziker / December 29th, 2015 Throughout the world, the name Fukushima has become synonymous with nuclear disaster and running for the hills. Yet, Fukushima may be one of the least understood disasters in modern times, as nobody knows how to fix either the problem nor the true dimension of the damage. Thus, Fukushima is in uncharted territory, a total nuclear meltdown that dances to its own rhythm. Similar to an overly concerned parent, TEPCO merely monitors but makes big mistakes along the way.
Over time, bits and pieces of information about Fukushima Prefecture come to surface. For example, Arkadiusz Podniesinski, the noted documentary photographer of Chernobyl, recently visited Fukushima. His photos and commentary depict a scenario of ruination and anxiety, a sense of hopelessness for the future.
Ominously, the broken down Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant looms in the background of everybody’s life, like the seemingly indestructible iconic image of destruction itself, Godzilla with its signature “atomic breath.”
Podniesinski’s commentary clearly identifies the blame for the nuclear accident, namely:………
Within Fukushima, Orange Zones are designated as less contaminated but still uninhabitable because radiation levels run 20-50 mSv/y, but decontamination work is underway. Residents are allowed to visit homes for short duration only during the daytime. However, as it happens, very few people are seen. Most of the former residents do not want to go back and the wooden houses in many of the towns and villages are severely dilapidated.
The lowest radiation areas are designated the Green Zone (< 20 mSv/y), where decontamination work is complete and evacuation orders are to be lifted.
Enormous black sealed bags filled with radioactive soil and all kinds of sizzling waste are stacked across the countryside, as approximately 20,000 workers thoroughly cleanse soil, rooftops, streets, and gutters. House-by-house, workers scrub rooftops and walls by hand.
The radioactive-contained black bags are trucked outside of towns to the far outskirts where thousands upon thousands upon thousands of big black bags are stacked. An aerial view of these temporary storage sites appears like gigantic quilts of rectangular shapes neatly, geometrically spread across the landscape for as far as the eye can see. The government claims the radioactive-contained black bags will be gone from the countryside within 30 years, but where to?………
The herculean cleanup of Fukushima Prefecture involves 105 cities, towns, and villages. Unlike Chernobyl where authorities declared a 1,000 square mile no-habitation zone and resettlement of 350,000 people, thus allowing radiation to dissipate over decades-to-centuries, Japan is attempting to remake Fukushima back into its old self. But, radioactive material collected in millions of black bags is a vexing problem for the ages.
In that regard, Japanese authorities have commissioned construction of a massive landfill just outside of the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, expected to contain 16-to-22 million bags of debris, enough to fill 15 baseball stadiums. Unfortunately, bags filled with radioactivity are more than a mere headache; they are more like a severe migraine. A truck can carry 6-8 of the huge bags at a time, and with so many, it could take decades to move the material. Adding to the lingering problem of transporting and storing radioactive waste, over time, the bags will likely deteriorate and need to be replaced with fresh bags. It is an endless cycle.
Handling radioactive waste in Japan may become generational employment, similar to how second and third generation workers eventually completed the grand cathedrals of Europe, like Notre Dame de Paris with a cornerstone laid in 1163 resulting in major construction completed circa 1250. http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/12/fukushima-today/
Radioactive groundwater accumulating at Fukushima Daiichi No 1 nuclear power station
FUKUSHIMA NIGHTMARE CONTINUES UNABATED: TEPCO confronts new problem of radioactive water at Fukushima plant http://sgtreport.com/2015/12/fukushima-nightmare-continues-unabated-tepco-confronts-new-problem-of-radioactive-water-at-fukushima-plant/ by Hiromi Kumagai, The Asahi Shimbun: Tokyo Electric Power Co. has unexpectedly been forced to deal with an increasingly large amount radioactive water accumulating at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant after seaside walls to block the flow of groundwater were constructed in October.
TEPCO completed the walls on Oct. 26 to block contaminated groundwater from flowing into sea. The utility began pumping up groundwater from five wells dug between the walls and the plant’s reactor buildings. The plan called for releasing the less contaminated water into the sea after a purification process, but TEPCO discovered that the water had larger amounts of radiation than it had expected.
TEPCO officials said the situation has left the utility with no option but to transfer 200 to 300 tons of groundwater each day into highly contaminated reactor buildings since November, a move that could further contaminate the water.
Comprised of numerous cylindrical steel pipes measuring 30 meters tall, the seaside walls were installed on the coastal side of the No. 1 to No. 4 reactor buildings to block contaminated groundwater flowing out of the highly contaminated buildings from reaching the ocean.
To control groundwater levels, TEPCO planned to release the less contaminated groundwater from the five wells into sea after a purification process.
However, the water from four of the wells was discovered to have high levels of tritium–a radioactive substance that is hard to remove–at levels higher than 1,500 becquerels per liter, which means the water cannot be released into sea.
To compound the problem, the seaside walls have also significantly raised groundwater levels, forcing the utility to pump a lot more groundwater than it originally planned. Read More @ ajw.asahi.com
Fukushima evacuees stay away: population at lowest level since 1945
Fukushima population at postwar low, down 5.7%, as nuclear disaster evacuees steer clear: census http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/12/28/national/fukushima-population-postwar-low-5-7-nuclear-disaster-evacuees-steer-clear-census/#.VoL85rZ97Gg FUKUSHIMA 29 DEC 15 – The population of Fukushima Prefecture fell by 115,458, or 5.7 percent, from 2010 to stand at 1,913,606 as of Oct. 1, marking the lowest level since the end of World War II, the prefecture has said.
The size of the drop, shown in a preliminary report on the census for 2015 released Friday, was the largest on record, due mainly to the evacuation of residents after the nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant in March 2011.
The population was zero in the towns of Okuma, Futaba, Tomioka and Namie, all of which were evacuated.
The prefecture’s population fell for the fourth consecutive time in the census, which is conducted every five years.
By municipality, the population plunged 87.3 percent to 976 in the town of Naraha, where the government’s evacuation advisory was mostly lifted in September.
The population dropped 28.3 percent to 2,021 in the village of Kawauchi, where the evacuation advisory for its eastern part was removed in October 2014.
The figures indicate a lack of progress in the return of residents to the two municipalities.
By contrast, the population grew 0.6 to 2.1 percent in the cities of Fukushima, Iwaki and Soma, as well as the town of Miharu, as they accepted evacuees from areas close to the Tepco plant and workers involved in reconstruction-related projects, such as the decontamination of areas tainted by radioactive materials from the plant.
The number of households in Fukushima Prefecture rose 2.2 percent to 736,616, up for the 19th time in a row since the first census.
JIJI
32 Million Japanese Affected by Fukushima nuclear catastrophe
Fukushima Today, Dissident Voice by Robert Hunziker / December 29th, 2015 32 Million Japanese Affected by Fukushima “……..According to 2015 Fukushima Report released March 11, 2015 by Green Cross/Geneva founded by former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, thirty-two million people in Japan are negatively affected by the nuclear disaster.
The Green Cross criteria is based upon direct exposure to radiation as well as people influenced by stress factors due to the disaster, all of whom are at risk of long-term and short-term consequences, including neuropsychological and/or cancer disorders.
According to estimates, 80 percent of the released radiation was deposited in the ocean and the other 20 percent was mostly dispersed within a 50 km radius to the northwest of the power plant in the Fukushima Prefecture. While the expected cancer risks to humans caused by the radiation released over the Pacific Ocean are small, trace amounts of radiation have already reached the North American continent and, in particular, parts of the northern West Coast of the United States. The risk of cancer overall will increase, especially for those individuals who were still children at the time of the accident. Their health will be at risk over their entire lifetime as a result of the radiation released by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.3
The 2015 Fukushima Report was prepared under the direction of Prof. Jonathan M. Samet, Director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of Southern California (USC), at the initiative of Green Cross Switzerland.
Yet, proponents of nuclear power, including several distinguished climate scientists, promote more nuclear to solve the world’s greenhouse gas problems, claiming nuclear accidents are so rare as to be low risk. But, that logic misses an important point. When nuclear disaster does strike, it lasts a lifetime, affecting millions upon millions. It only takes one disaster like a Chernobyl or a Fukushima to be equivalent to untold thousands of disasters by renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
As for a lifetime of radiation misery, one only need visit one of a couple hundred homes for Chernobyl children hidden in the back woods of Belarus. They all have physical if not mental defects or both. Because of one nuclear accident, 6,000 children are born every year in Ukraine with genetic heart defects; the country experiences a 250% increase in congenital birth deformities; 85% of Belarusian children carry “genetic markers” that could affect health at any time; UNICEF found children’s disease rates off the map, for example, a 63% increase in disorders of the bone, muscle and connective tissue; more than one million children still live in contaminated zones. Belarusian doctors have seen a dramatic increase in cancers, including a 200% increase in breast cancer, a 100% increase in leukemia, and a 2,400% increase in incidence of thyroid cancer. All from only one nuclear disaster!4
Meanwhile, China plans on building 400 nuclear power plants along waterways and coastlines where water is plentiful, thus cooling radioactive power. Imagine the fateful range of possibilities!
Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at:rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert. http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/12/fukushima-today/
Japan’s controversial Takahama nuclear reactor loaded with problematic MOX fuel
The Problems With Takahama, Simply Info, December 29th, 2015
Takahama unit 3 is the most recent nuclear reactor to attempt a restart in Japan. It is also one of the more controversial. The reactor restart had been blocked by the courts for being unsafe until another judge overturned that decision. On December 25th 157 fuel assemblies including 24 MOX assemblies were loaded into the reactor. The power company plans to restart the reactor by the end of January.
The impact of MOX on the meltdown and explosion of unit 3 at Fukushima Daiichi is still not understood yet Japanese authorities allowed this unit to be loaded with this controversial plutonium fuel.
The plan to restart reactors in this area of Fukui prefecture has raised concerns about the ability to evacuate and respond to a nuclear disaster……..http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=15253
1 This Month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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