Widespread effects of Fukushima nuclear radiation: some facts and figures
Fukushima nuclear disaster left 10.7 million 1-ton container bags with radioactive debris http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news.php?id=72359 Five years after a powerful earthquake and tsunami sent the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan into multiple meltdowns, cleaning up the mess both onsite and in surrounding towns remains a work in progress. Here’s a look, by the numbers, at the widespread effects of radiation from the March 11, 2011, disaster:
164,865: Fukushima residents who fled their homes after the disaster.
97,320: Number who still haven’t returned.
49: Municipalities in Fukushima that have completed decontamination work.
45: Number that have not.
30: Percent of electricity generated by nuclear power before the disaster.
1.7: Percent of electricity generated by nuclear power after the disaster.
3: Reactors currently online, out of 43 now workable.
54: Reactors with safety permits before the disaster.
53: Percent of the 1,017 Japanese in a March 5-6 Mainichi Shimbun newspaper survey who opposed restarting nuclear power plants.
30: Percent who supported restarts. The remaining 17 percent were undecided.
760,000: Metric tons of contaminated water currently stored at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
1,000: Tanks at the plant storing radioactive water after treatment.
10.7 million: Number of 1-ton container bags containing radioactive debris and other waste collected in decontamination outside the plant.
7,000: Workers decommissioning the Fukushima plant.
26,000: Laborers on decontamination work offsite.
200: Becquerels of radioactive cesium per cubic meter (264 gallons) in seawater immediately off the plant in 2015.
50 million: Becquerels of cesium per cubic meter in the same water in 2011.
7,400: Maximum number of becquerels of cesium per cubic meter allowed in drinking water by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Sources: Fukushima prefectural government, Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Nuclear Regulation Authority, the Federation of Electric Power Companies and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.—AP
Fukushima radiation beats the robots – they “died” in the search for nuclear fuel
Inside the Fukushima nuclear power plant, five years after the disaster was triggered by an earthquake and tsunami, news.com.au, MARCH 10, 2016 [EXCELLENT PHOTOS] “………Today, the radiation at the Fukushima plant is still so powerful it is impossible to extract and remove deadly melted fuel rods.
And authorities still don’t how to dispose of highly radioactive water stored in tanks around the site.
Humans shouldn’t even be near these reactors. They are the most dangerous part of the plant.
Tepco has developed robots that have been sent in to search for radioactive fuel. But so far, none have been successful. They have all “died”.
“It is extremely difficult to access the inside of the nuclear plant,” Naohiro Masuda, Tepco’s head of decommissioning said in an interview.
“The biggest obstacle is the radiation.”
Mr Masada said the robots were built to swim under water and search for the melted fuel rods.
But as soon as they get close to the reactors, the radiation destroys their wiring and renders them useless, causing long delays, Mr Masuda said.
Each robot has to be custom-built for each building.
“It takes two years to develop a single-function robot,” Mr Masuda said.
Workers on the site are regularly working outside in the exclusion zone to remove contaminated debris, but they can’t keep up with the mounds of mess they’re cleaning up.
They are routinely being scanned for radiation exposure, as more reports emerge of locals being at greater risk of cancer and thyroid disorders……….
More than 8,000 workers are at the plant at any one time.
They are constantly removing debris, building storage tanks, laying piping and preparing to dismantle parts of the plant.
Much of the work involves pumping water into the wrecked and highly radiated reactors to cool them down.
The radiated water is then pumped out of the plant and stored in tanks around the site. Tepco has completed around 10 per cent of the work to clear the site up — the decommissioning process could take 30 to 40 years.
A subterranean “ice wall” is also under construction. Dubbed the world’s biggest ice wall, it will stop groundwater from becoming contaminated, using coolants to create a 30-metre deep wall of ice……http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/inside-the-fukushima-nuclear-power-plant-five-years-after-the-disaster-was-triggered-by-an-earthquake-and-tsunami/news-story/f80b140e5505709a55ab6ee6cc5a9228
LOCALS FEAR MISTAKES NOT LEARNED FROM FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR DISASTER
Inside the Fukushima nuclear power plant, five years after the disaster was triggered by an earthquake and tsunami, news.c om.au, MARCH 10, 2016 [EXCELLENT PHOTOS]
“……..as officials vow to prevent a repeat the disaster, some critics say Tokyo’s push to restart switched-off nuclear reactors is proof that the lessons of the tragedy have not been learned.
And many question whether Japan has done enough to tackle some of the key causes of the accident that unfolded on March 11, 2011 — an ill-fated belief in the nation’s disaster management and clubby ties between politicians, bureaucrats and the nuclear industry.
“These kind of relationships can be seen in other countries but Japan is a standout,” said Muneyuki Shindo, an honorary politics professor at Chiba University.
“Ties between the bureaucracy and industry are still very strong — it’s a legacy of government-led development when the country was underdeveloped” after World War II.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made bringing nuclear power back online a priority for the resource-poor country — a move backed by the business community but strongly opposed by a wary public.
Among those warning over the restarts is Katsunobu Sakurai, the mayor of Minamisoma, a town that lies in the shadow of the crippled plant. He named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2011 by TIME magazine.
Mr Sakurai drew global attention with a YouTube video in which he pleaded for help — and slammed Tokyo’s response — as radiation wafted toward his community………… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6URqs9kb20 http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/inside-the-fukushima-nuclear-power-plant-five-years-after-the-disaster-was-triggered-by-an-earthquake-and-tsunami/news-story/f80b140e5505709a55ab6ee6cc5a9228
WAGYU BEEF FARMERS’ ‘NUCLEAR REBELLION’
Inside the Fukushima nuclear power plant, five years after the disaster was triggered by an earthquake and tsunami, news.c om.au, MARCH 10, 2016 [EXCELLENT PHOTOS] “…….Protesters have staged rallies across the world against the restarting of the reactors.
Since the 2011 meltdowns ended their future as prized black “wagyu” beef, a rancher near the Fukushima nuclear power plant has given his cattle a new mission: They’ve become protesters.
Defying both government evacuation and slaughter orders, 62-year-old Masami Yoshizawa returned to his ranch 14 kilometres from the plant to keep his cattle alive as living proof of the disaster.
He and his cattle are no doubt a nuisance for the government as Japan gears up to showcase Fukushima’s recovery ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“An effort to eliminate a negative reputation is nothing but a cover-up,” he said. “This is a farm that chronicles and tells the story of Fukushima’s radiation contamination disaster. We’ll stay here at the Ranch of Hope, and keep sending our message.”…………….
“I said I was not going to let any more cows die on my ranch,” said Yoshizawa.
His mostly lone resistance hasn’t been easy. Authorities tried to block his feed transport, and kept trying to persuade him to kill his cows.
The location of his ranch, on the border between two towns — Namie and neighbouring Minamisoma — may have worked in his favour. Both towns have looked the other way and virtually given up. A prefabricated hut on a driveway to the Ranch of Hope — which Yoshizawa renamed after the accident with the hope of establishing a nuclear-free society — serves as a tiny office for what he calls his “nuclear rebellion.” Skulls of cattle that died early in the crisis decorate the exterior. His cows keep him company, mooing and grazing.
Radiation levels at the ranch measure about 10 times the safe benchmark………http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/inside-the-fukushima-nuclear-power-plant-five-years-after-the-disaster-was-triggered-by-an-earthquake-and-tsunami/news-story/f80b140e5505709a55ab6ee6cc5a9228
The Takahama injunction – a damaging blow to Japan’s nuclear industry hopes
The Otsu ruling also calls on the national government to take the lead in formulating evacuation plans for residents within 30 km of a nuclear plant, and not just leave such planning to local governments.
That raises the possibility of further lawsuits seeking injunctions against other reactors on the grounds that the central government has not taken the lead in formulating evacuation plans. Nationwide, there are 135 cities, towns, and villages in 21 prefectures within 30 km of nuclear power plants.
Takahama injunction delivers body blow to Japan’s nuclear power industry http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/10/national/takahama-injunction-delivers-body-blow-to-japans-nuclear-power-industry/#.VuHaZ3197Gh
BY ERIC JOHNSTON OSAKA – Wednesday’s decision by an Otsu District Court judge to slap a provisional injunction on the restart of the No. 3 and 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Takahama nuclear plant has sent a shock through the nuclear power industry.
Moreover, pro-nuclear politicians fear that the nation’s push to restart as many reactors as possible as quickly as possible has come to a halt.
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the 2011 disaster, which included the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant and led to the nation suspending its use of nuclear power for an extended period, only two reactors, Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai No. 1 and 2 reactors, were generating electricity.
The Takahama No. 3 reactor was restarted in January. Kepco officials said it would be shut down in accordance with the court order by Thursday evening. Continue reading
Fukushima’s forestry industry cannot be revived, due to radiation
FIVE YEARS AFTER: Radioactive forests prevent logging revival in Fukushima http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201603090060March 09, 2016 By YOSUKE FUKUDOME/ Staff Writer
TAMURA, Fukushima Prefecture–The once-thriving industry of log production for shiitake mushroom farming remains virtually nonexistent in Fukushima Prefecture after the 2011 nuclear disaster contaminated extensive mountain areas.
A year before the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami triggered the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, the prefecture produced logs for cultivating shiitake totaling 47,800 cubic meters, the third largest volume among Japanese prefectures.
But radioactive fallout from the nuclear accident meant that shiitake log production in the prefecture dwindled to about 1 percent of the pre-disaster level in 2014, which is having a serious impact on local industry.
In the Miyakoji district of Tamura, located about 20 kilometers inland from the crippled nuclear power plant, the lumber industry shipped around 200,000 logs annually before the 2011 disaster.
“More than 80 percent of this area’s land is covered by forests, and we cannot think of any other business opportunities that don’t involve forestry,” said Shoichi Yoshida, a 60-year-old executive of the Fukushima Central Forestry Association.
While the evacuation order covering an eastern strip of the district was lifted in 2014, radioactive levels of trees in the district remain above target levels, and the resumption of shipments is still nowhere in sight.
However, local forestry workers still routinely cut down oak and other trees, which are more than 20 years old, to maintain the mountain area’s capability of producing quality logs.
Court injunction stops Takahama nuclear reactors
Court issues surprise injunction to halt http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/09/national/court-issues-surprise-injunction-halt-takahama-nuclear-reactors/ BY ERIC JOHNSTON
STAFF WRITER MAR 9, 2016 OTSU, SHIGA PREF. – In a surprise ruling that is likely to delay efforts to restart nuclear power generation nationwide, the Otsu District Court on Wednesday issued a provisional injunction ordering Kansai Electric Power Co. to shut down its No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at its Takahama facility in Fukui Prefecture.
While Kepco is expected to appeal the ruling, company officials said at a news conference that was hastily called after the decision that they would begin operations to shut down the No. 3 reactor on Thursday morning, and expected to complete the process by the evening.
The No. 3 reactor was restarted in January, and the No. 4, which had been scheduled to restart last month, was delayed due to technical problems.
“There are doubts remaining about both the tsunami response and the evacuation plan,” the ruling said.
The Otsu ruling comes just two days before the fifth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the resulting tsunami and triple meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 plant.
The jubilant plaintiffs expressed surprise and relief following the ruling, which emphasized technical problems regarding the two reactors, including issues concerning an outside power supply source in the event of an emergency. The ruling also raised concerns over the emergency protocol.
“This is a huge victory for the safety of children, people with disabilities, and the society and economy of not only the Fukui-Kansai region of Japan but the entire country,” said Aileen Mioko Smith of Kyoto-based Green Action, an anti-nuclear group. Smith was not a plaintiff in the case.
The lawsuit that sought the injunction was filed by Shiga residents who are fearful that an accident at the Takahama plant, which lies less than 30 kilometers from the northern part of Shiga Prefecture, would impact Lake Biwa, the nation’s largest freshwater body and the source of water for about 14 million people in the Kansai region, including Kyoto and Osaka.
The judgment — the first of its kind affecting reactors that were fired up under strengthened safety regulations following the March 2011 disaster — is a blow to the government’s renewed push for atomic power. The ruling could also cast doubt on the stringency of the new safety regulations.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, however, told reporters following the ruling the government would not change its basic stance of promoting restarts.
In a separate case concerning the two reactors, the Fukui District Court issued an injunction last April banning Kansai Electric from restarting the units, citing safety concerns.
But the same court later lifted the injunction in December, allowing the utility to resume operations at both reactors. Plaintiffs appealed the court decision to the Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court, where the case is pending.
Under the revamped safety regulations, which took effect in 2013, utilities are for the first time obliged to put in place specific countermeasures in the event of severe accidents such as reactor core meltdowns and huge tsunami — which was the initial cause of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
India’s Prime Minister Modi in the grip of the global nuclear salesmen
PM’s recent visits to France, Russia and Japan India Infoline News Service | Mumbai | March 10, 2016
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visits to France, Russia and Japan were aimed to bring in socio-economic and scientific development particularly in the field of atomic energy
Malfunction at Taiwan nuclear power station. Anti nuclear demonstration for March 12
Malfunction triggers nuclear plant closure By John Liu ,The China Post March 11, 2016, TAIPEI, Taiwan — A safety mechanism triggered by a high level of feed water shut down one of the two reactors in the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant — or the First Nuclear Power Plant — on Thursday, the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, 台電) said. The exact cause of the incident is still under investigation, Taipower said, while stressing that there had been no radioactive leak.
At 1:10 p.m., the safety mechanism reportedly caused a steam turbine freeze, and then the boiling water reactor’s automatic shutdown……..
Anti-Nuclear Demonstration to Take Place
Many in Taiwan still oppose the use of nuclear power. An anti-nuclear march has been staged for this coming weekend on March 12. It will mark the sixth large-scale demonstration of such a kind since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
Residents along Taiwan’s north coast, where the First, Second and Fourth Nuclear Power Plants are located, are inviting members of the public to their neighborhoods, not only to understand the natural and human landscapes there, but also to better understand why nuclear abolition would be good for the area.
Due to the facilities’ older parts and components, there have been more malfunctions in the First and Second Nuclear Power Plants, the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance (綠色公民行動聯盟) said, adding that the power plants ought to be retired without delay.
Lin Chuan-neng (林全能), head of the Economics Ministry’s Bureau of Energy (能源局), said that whether the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant will be put into service hinges on the state of power use in the next three years. It may be decided by a public vote, Lin said………http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2016/03/11/460395/Malfunction-triggers.htm
No real fix in sight for Fukushima’s wrecked nuclear power station
A Long Road Ahead For Fukushima’s Crippled Nuclear Plant [Video] http://www.ibtimes.com/long-road-ahead-fukushimas-crippled-nuclear-plant-video-2334077 BY REUTERS ON 03/10/16 Thousands of workers at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi are still working to contain the damage, five years after the country’s worst nuclear disaster. Natasha Howitt reports. Japan’s worst nuclear disaster took place on March 11, 2011: A 10-meter high tsunami, triggered by a magnitude 9 earthquake, crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing multiple meltdowns.
Now, five years on, efforts to contain the damage are still ongoing.Thousands of workers are involved. plant operator Tepco says they still don’t know how bad the situation is at three of the fourcrippled reactors. Akira Ono, the chief of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, said, “It is kind of difficult to say how much we have achieved in terms of percentage, but thinking of the project in mountain climbing terms, If the peak is the 10th station, then, we have probably just passed the first station. ”
Water is needed to keep the clean up going, but the tanks storing the contaminated water are almost full.
There’s a danger that surrounding groundwater may become radioactive too.
Japan is seeking international advice, but decommissioning the reactors is still expected to take 30 to 40 years, and cost tens of billions of dollars.
Japn now has only one nuclear station in operation
Japan Is Down To One Nuclear Power Plant, Gizmodo, BRYAN LUFKIN 10 Mar 16 Japan has closed one of its two remaining operational nuclear plants. The shutdown comes just days before the fifth anniversary of a catastrophic earthquake that triggered a tsunami and the biggest nuclear meltdown since Chernobyl.
On Wednesday, a Japanese court ordered the shutdown of Takahaka Nuclear Plant in western Japan, citing poor safety measures. This same plant was restarted back in January after it was shut down post-Fukushima, along with the rest of Japan’s nuclear reactors. The swift re-shutdown hints at just how divisive and worrying nuclear energy has become in Japan.
The court said Takahaka’s reactors never should have been rebooted in the first place, citing “points of concern in accident prevention, emergency response plans and the formulation of earthquake models”. The reboot was problematic: a mere week afterwards, radioactive water started leaking from a pipe at the facility, while one reactor suddenly shut down with no explanation, the New York Times reports.
Of the 43 nuclear reactors in Japan, only two at that one remaining plant are still operational: they’re at Kyushu Electric Power’s Sendai plant, on the southern tip of the archipelago. It was restarted back in August………
t among widespread public protest, Wednesday’s court ruling might be a welcome development among citizens who fear another megaquake and meltdown. Nuclear is a clean and powerful energy source, sure — but when it comes to power plants, Mother Nature can make this manmade fuel a very dangerous thing. http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/03/japan-is-down-to-one-nuclear-power-plant/
Social workers visit temporary housing in Motomiya, Fukushima Prefecture, to interview disaster victims in December.
By Mari Yamaguchi
The ashes of half a dozen unidentified laborers ended up at a Buddhist temple in this town just north of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. Some of the dead men had no papers, others left no emergency contacts. Their names could not be confirmed and no family members had been tracked down to claim their remains.
They were simply labeled “decontamination troops” — unknown soldiers in Japan’s massive cleanup campaign to make Fukushima livable again five years after radiation poisoned the fertile countryside.
The men were among the 26,000 workers — many in their 50s and 60s from the margins of society with no special skills or close family ties — tasked with removing the contaminated topsoil and stuffing it into tens of thousands of black bags lining the fields and roads. They wipe off roofs, clean out gutters and chop down trees in a seemingly endless routine.
Coming from across Japan to do a dirty, risky and undesirable job, the workers make up the very bottom of the nation’s murky, caste-like subcontractor system long criticized for labor violations. Vulnerable to exploitation and shunned by local residents, they typically work on three-to-six-month contracts with little or no benefits, living in makeshift company barracks. And the government is not even making sure that their radiation levels are individually tested.
“They’re cleaning up radiation in Fukushima, doing sometimes unsafe work, and yet they can’t be proud of what they do or even considered legitimate workers,” said Mitsuo Nakamura, a former day laborer who now heads a citizens’ group supporting decontamination laborers. “They are exploited by the vested interests that have grown in the massive project.”
Residents of still partly deserted towns such as Minamisoma, where 8,000 laborers are based, worry that neighborhoods have turned into workers’ ghettos with deteriorating safety. Police data shows arrests among laborers since 2011 have climbed steadily from just one to 210 last year, including a dozen yakuza, or gangsters, police official Katsuhiko Ishida told a prefectural assembly. Residents are spooked by rumors that some laborers sport tattoos linked with yakuza, and by reports that a suspect in serial killings arrested in Osaka last year had worked in the area.
“Their massive presence has simply intimidated residents,” said Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai. “Frankly, the residents need their help but don’t want any trouble.”
Most of the men work for small subcontractors that are many layers beneath the few giants at the top of the construction food chain. Major projects such as this one are divided up among contractors, which then subcontract jobs to smaller outfits, some of which have dubious records.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare examined more than 300 companies doing Fukushima decontamination work and found that nearly 70 committed violations in the first half of last year, including underpayment of wages and overtime and failure to do compulsory radiation checks. Those companies were randomly chosen among thousands believed to be working in the area.
“Violations are so widespread in this multilayer subcontract system. It’s like a whack-a-mole situation,” said Mitsuaki Karino, a city assemblyman in Iwaki, a Fukushima city where his civil group has helped workers with complaints about employers.
Karino said workers are sometimes charged for meals or housing they were told would be free, he said, and if they lose jobs or contracts aren’t renewed, some go homeless.
“It’s a serious concern, particularly for workers who don’t have families or lost ties with them,” he said.
Government officials say they see no other way than to depend on the contracting system to clean up the radiated zone, a project whose ballooning cost is now estimated at 5 trillion yen ($44 billion).
“That’s how the construction industry has long operated. In order to accomplish decontamination, we need to rely on the practice,” said Tadashi Mouri, a health and labor ministry official in charge of nuclear workers’ health. He said the ministry has instructed top contractors to improve oversight of subcontractors.
Several arrests have been made in recent months over alleged labor violations.
A complaint filed by a worker with labor officials led to the October arrest of a construction company president who had allegedly dispatched workers to Fukushima under misleading circumstances. The investigation found that the worker had been offered pay of 17,000 yen ($150) per day, but after middlemen took a cut he was getting only 8,000 yen ($70).
In another case, a supervisor and a crane operator were arrested in July for alleged illegal dumping of radiated plant debris in Minamisoma. Five companies heading the project were suspended for six weeks.
Most workers keep their mouths shut for fear of losing their jobs. One laborer in a gray jacket and baggy pants, carrying cans of beer on his way home, said he was instructed never to talk to reporters.
A 62-year-old seasonal worker, Munenori Kagaya, said he had trouble finding jobs after he and his fellow workers fought for and won unpaid daily “danger” allowance of 10,000 yen ($88) for work in Tamura city in 2012.
Officials keep close tabs on journalists. Minutes after chatting with some workers in Minamisoma, Associated Press journalists received a call from a city official warning them not to talk to decontamination crews.
Beyond the work’s arduous nature, the men also face radiation exposure risks. Inhaling radioactive particles could trigger lung cancer, said Junji Kato, a doctor who provides health checks for some workers.
Although most laborers working in residential areas use protective gear properly, others in remote areas are not monitored closely, according to workers and Nakamura, the leader of the radiation workers support group. Many are not given compulsory training or education about dealing with radiation, he said.
Though group leaders’ radiation exposure levels are regularly checked, decontamination workers’ individual levels have not been systematically recorded. The government introduced a system in 2013 but only for a fee, and many lower subcontractor workers are likely not covered. Even non-alarmist experts say that workers doses must be kept individually for their own records as well as for studies of low-dose radiation impact.
Mouri, the government official, said decontamination workers’ average annual dose fell to 0.7 millisievert last year, a fraction of the 20-millisievert annual limit for those working at the nuclear plant, and is not a concern.
Though no radiation-induced illness has been detected, workers have developed diabetes, cerebral and respiratory problems, often long untreated due to lack of money, awareness and social ties, local hospital intern Toyoaki Sawano said in a medical magazine last month.
Having trouble making ends meet, a growing number of laborers are seeking welfare assistance, local authorities say. The officials worry that they may end up staying on, like construction laborers did in Osaka and Tokyo after the 1960s building boom, forming Japan’s poorest ghettos.
Police and volunteers have started neighborhood patrols amid concerns about safety. Some big construction companies have taken steps to address concerns. Hazama Ando Corp. imposed an 11 p.m. curfew on workers.
Residents say they avoid convenience stores in the evenings, when many laborers stop by after work to buy snacks, bento boxes or beer on their way home. Some of them used to discard their contaminated gloves and masks in garbage bins there, triggering complaints from the neighborhood and prompting the government to launch a “manner” campaign in December.
At a convenience store in Minamisoma on a recent evening, workers came in waves, waiting quietly in line to pay for food and other items.
“The workers face heartless rumors as if they are all reckless outlaws. They are the same human beings. Like anywhere, there are good guys and bad guys,” said Nakamura, the support group leader.
One resident grateful for the workers is Hideaki Kinoshita, a Buddhist monk who keeps the unidentified laborers’ ashes at his temple, in wooden boxes and wrapped in white cloth.
“We owe a lot to those who clean this town, doing the work that locals don’t even want to,” he said.
Minamisoma city official Tomoyuki Ohwada said the worker population should decline next year, when intensive decontamination efforts are scheduled to end. But Kinoshita believes many will still be needed, given the amount of work left to do.
“There is no end to this job,” Kinoshita said. “Five years from now, the workers will still be around. And more unclaimed ashes may end up here.”
FIVE YEARS AFTER: 1 in 3 Fukushima evacuees giving up hope of ever returning home
Social workers visit temporary housing in Motomiya, Fukushima Prefecture, to interview disaster victims in December.
More than one in three evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear disaster despair of ever returning home, a finding that points to a growing sense of hopelessness five years after the crisis unfolded.
This stark reality emerged in a survey carried out by The Asahi Shimbun and a research team headed by Akira Imai, a professor of local government policy at Fukushima University.
“There are so many people (outside Fukushima) today who are not aware that many people are still forced to live as evacuees,” a 34-year-old woman responded in the survey questionnaire. “No matter how we try to explain our plight, they seem unable to understand, and we feel saddened to realize that people tend to think we live outside our hometowns out of our own choice.”
Many respondents also wrote they were troubled by a perceived envy from other residents in their new communities over the compensation they receive from Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
In the survey, of those who remain evacuated, 22 percent said they think they can return to their old homes within five years, 17 percent believe they can return home within 10 years and 9 percent said it might take up to 20 years.
Fourteen percent said it will take 21 years or longer to return home, while the remaining 38 percent said they believed they would never be able to return permanently.
As of March 9, the number of Fukushima residents living as evacuees within Fukushima Prefecture stood at 54,175. On Feb. 12, prefectural authorities reported that 43,149 evacuees were living outside the prefecture.
It was the fifth such survey by The Asahi Shimbun and Imai’s research team and was undertaken to mark the fifth anniversary of the nuclear accident, triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, on March 11.
Questionnaires were sent to 398 evacuees who had responded to previous polls. Of the 225 respondents in Tokyo and 20 prefectures, 36, or 16 percent, said they had returned to their old homes.
Among those who remain evacuated, 65 people currently live in temporary housing for disaster victims, followed by 52 who have settled in homes they newly purchased.
Forty-one percent of those who remain evacuated said they want to eventually return to their old homes when their hometowns become safe, while 25 percent said they no longer want to return because it is unlikely the areas will ever be safe again.
The survey showed that evacuees are increasingly losing the will to hold on in their current plight, with only 32 percent of respondents saying they are determined to hold on, down from 55 percent in the previous survey in 2013.
Eighteen percent said they are losing the will to hold on. The same percentage said they are tormented by simmering anger. Both figures were up from the previous survey.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201603100059
FIVE YEARS AFTER: Local Fukushima disaster evacuation plans ignore central government instructions
“The central government’s guidelines are simply a desk theory,” said a local government official in Ibaraki Prefecture. “The harder you work on your evacuation plan, the more unrealistic it gets.”
Although the town of Namie is still evacuated five years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, local officials are already at odds with the central government over evacuation plans for any similar crisis.
In its draft emergency plan, the town in Fukushima Prefecture decrees that residents can flee in a future accident even if radiation levels are below those warranting evacuation as dictated by the central government.
The draft was drawn up based on the lesson the disaster-hit town learned from the chaos that erupted in the wake of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in 2011.
Although local governments are legally entitled to issue an order independently, the central government is not happy about Namie’s plan. Minami-Soma, the city adjacent to Namie, takes a similar approach in the evacuation plan it crafted in 2013.
The secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority would not give a nod to the plans by Namie and Minami-Soma, saying such actions could compromise the evacuation of people facing imminent danger.
“In the Fukushima accident, more damage was done partly because people who were not in need of evacuation raced to flee,” said an official with the secretariat’s Emergency Preparedness/ Response and Nuclear Security Division. “The central government’s guidelines are designed to minimize radiation exposure risks.”
All the roads around Namie, located to the northwest of the crippled plant, were clogged with vehicles desperately trying to flee, hampering evacuation. Shelters were so packed that they could not accommodate all who rushed to them.
Namie Mayor Tamotsu Baba said the town, with a population of 18,700, has a responsibility to ensure smooth evacuation of residents by issuing an order on its own, instead of adhering to the central government’s guidelines formulated after the Fukushima accident.
“It is not easy to evacuate in an orderly fashion,” said Baba. “A panic will very likely occur if an accident comparable to the Fukushima nuclear disaster takes place.”
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the central government obliged 135 municipalities situated within a 30-kilometer radius of a nuclear facility to formulate evacuation plans under its new guidelines for responding to a nuclear disaster.
The guidelines call for the immediate evacuation of residents living within a 5-km radius of the site of a severe accident.
Residents within a 5- to 30-km zone, such as Namie and Minami-Soma, which are within 30 km of both the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear plants, are urged to stay indoors. They would be asked to evacuate within a few hours of radiation levels reaching 500 microsieverts an hour.
However, that is such a high radiation level that no municipalities more than 5 km from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant experienced in the 2011 crisis, according to the NRA’s secretariat.
The guidelines also state that residents must evacuate within a week if radiation measuring 20 microsieverts an hour continues for at least 24 hours. These steps are recommended based on the idea that it would do more damage to the elderly to evacuate than to stay indoors. The guidelines are also aimed at preventing traffic gridlock so that residents living near a crippled facility can promptly flee to safety.
A serious situation could unfold again in Fukushima Prefecture if work to cool spent nuclear fuel rods were rendered impossible by a natural disaster or terror attack at the plants.
Before the Fukushima disaster, Namie was not asked by the central government to have an evacuation plan in place, just like the rest of the municipal governments beyond the 5-km range from a nuclear facility.
An evacuation order from either the central government or Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the embattled plant, failed to reach Namie due to the escalating chaos following the nuclear crisis in 2011. So the town government was forced to act alone to evacuate its residents.
Namie officials believe that even if people are only asked to flee within a week after a reading of radiation hit 20 microsieverts an hour under the new guidelines, some will choose anyway to evacuate immediately.
The officials said they would rather ensure smooth evacuation of local residents by acting independently of the central government.
In the case of Minami-Soma, residents were ordered to stay indoors due to the risk of radiation exposure at the time of the Fukushima accident.
But 55,000 of a total of 70,000 people evacuated voluntarily in the face of the scarcity of food in the city after the distribution network was jeopardized.
The NRA secretariat acknowledges that it will have to address the issue of how to distribute food and other relief aid to areas where people are asked to remain indoors as radiation levels rise.
Of the 135 municipalities, only 95 cities, towns and villages came up with evacuation plans.
But some in the prefectures of Ibaraki and Shizuoka are still void of their response measures since they have been unable to find shelters to accommodate all of the would-be evacuees.
The overall population in the 30-km zone in the two prefectures is nearly 1 million each, making the task formidable.
“The central government’s guidelines are simply a desk theory,” said a local government official in Ibaraki Prefecture. “The harder you work on your evacuation plan, the more unrealistic it gets.”
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201603100018
INTERVIEW/ Kazuya Tarukawa: Reality of Fukushima is unrecoverable, uncompensable
Farmer Kazuya Tarukawa at his greenhouse in Sukagawa, Fukushima Prefecture
Kazuya Tarukawa, a farmer in Sukagawa, Fukushima Prefecture, found himself in the media spotlight after his father committed suicide in the early stages of the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Tarukawa recounted how his gratifying life as a farmer drastically changed on March 11, 2011.
He also shared his thoughts on the compensation system, rumors about Fukushima products, and how Tokyo Electric Power Co. sent him a fax instead of a direct apology for his father’s death.
Excerpts of the interview follow:
* * *
Question: What are things like five years after the disaster started?
Tarukawa: Radioactive materials fell on this central strip of Fukushima Prefecture, too. Rice paddies, farm fields and plastic greenhouses were all ruined, so our “workplaces” were contaminated. But Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the crippled nuclear plant, has not compensated us for lost assets or removed the radioactive substances.
Five years have passed, and that’s it. We have only sustained damage and suffering. I keep asking myself, “Why do we have to go through all this?”
We did receive 80,000 yen ($706) in the first year of the disaster and 40,000 yen in the second year for psychological suffering, but that was all. The thinking behind the payments was probably like, “Here’s 120,000 yen, so keep your mouth shut and wait for the radiation levels to go down on their own.”
How can that make up for the damage we sustained?
Q: I have been told that your father was dedicated to organic farming of vegetables. Could you elaborate?
A: He cared a lot about the environment. He began growing winter cabbage because you never get worms, even without a single disinfection, in winter. The cabbage grows under the snow and develops quite a sweet taste. All local schools were using our cabbage in their school lunches.
He was so happy to be feeding children with something really safe and tasty. He was once invited by school officials to give a talk about food education. He was proud of things like that.
He hanged himself on the morning the day after the central government told him to stop shipping his vegetables. Around 7,500 pre-harvest cabbages were ruined. His farmland was contaminated. His heart was probably heavy while he was wondering how he would get on with his life.
Q: You reached a settlement in the case through the intermediary of the Nuclear Damage Compensation Dispute Resolution Center, whereby TEPCO acknowledged a causal relation with the disaster. Could you elaborate on that?
A: I took the case to the center because I wanted to avenge my father so he would not die in vain. I finally won the settlement and received damages. I thought that TEPCO people would finally come to my place to offer incense and apologize. But that never happened. I got a fax instead.
Q: How is the cleanup work going?
A: Our rice paddies were cleaned up. The ground was plowed to about 40 centimeters using a big tractor, sprinkled with zeolite and then plowed again. We were told that the zeolite will absorb radioactive substances in the soil, and that’s the cleanup thing.
But it doesn’t make sense. Rice may stop pulling up radioactive materials, but the absolute amount in the soil remains the same.
We are toiling every day from morning until evening on contaminated soil. We are filled with anxiety about what will become of us in the future, and whether we might suffer the impact someday.
When we were negotiating with the central government, I repeatedly asked farm ministry officials on the podium: “Do you know the first kanji in the Japanese word for ‘cleanup?’ (The kanji means “remove.”) You are just stirring things up. How can that amount to a ‘cleanup?’”
Everyone then cast their eyes low at their documents. They must have thought I was right.
Q: Isn’t there a way to strip away the contaminated surface soil?
A: We would be luckier if only there was a way to strip it off in thin slices. But in the month after the disaster started, the prefectural government gave us directions, saying it was OK to plow the ground. I didn’t quite believe in that stuff, but everybody did plow the ground.
We shouldn’t have done the plowing thing back then. They could have told us to stop growing crops for a year, and you will be compensated for that. That was a big moment when the sides parted.
It’s easy to strip off soil with a machine. But if you remove 40 cm of soil, you wouldn’t get decent crops. It takes tens of years to make just 1 cm of fine, fluffy soil.
I stick to what I am doing because I don’t want to let my rice paddies go to ruin during my time, the time of the eighth generation.
The paddies would quickly go to ruin if you didn’t do anything about them and just let them lie around. That would also cause trouble with your neighbors. Come to think of it, if you didn’t grow anything, you also wouldn’t be getting compensation money, and you would be left without income. You couldn’t maintain your living.
Q: What compensation are you getting for the farm products you grow?
A: We are only being compensated for crops with records of sale and proof that we suffered damage. For example, if you sold something at 2,000 yen before the disaster but now are making only 1,500 yen from it, TEPCO will compensate you for the difference.
But we have not been compensated for cucumbers for the past two years because their prices soared due to the unseasonable weather. People are saying stuff like, “We are not paying you because you are selling them at higher prices than you did before the disaster.”
It’s funny, huh? We would be making more money if it were not for the disaster. We are getting less than in other prefectures. You know, TEPCO is loath to shell out money.
And there are so many things that we have no way to seek damages for. Things that will never be with us again. We used to grow shiitake mushrooms at our homestead every year for consumption. Butterbur sprouts and Japanese angelica tree shoots from the mountains–they have all been spoiled. But we are getting nothing for that.
Q: What about the impact of negative publicity?
A: The 2011 harvest of rice from our paddies measured up to 30 becquerels or so in radioactive content. That was a safe enough level because the regulation standard was 500 becquerels (per kilogram; 100 becquerels from fiscal 2012) or less. But it’s something that you are putting in your mouth, after all.
Frankly, I didn’t want to eat it myself. Well, I did eat it because I couldn’t have gone shopping elsewhere.
But I do have a sense of guilt about making shipments. So I know very well why Tokyoites don’t feel like eating things from Fukushima. Who would want to buy stuff to eat from a place with such a stupid old nuclear plant?
It’s not about “negative publicity.” You suffer from “negative publicity” when your sales have dropped because groundless rumors have spread. But our case is not like that. Everything is well-grounded. The radioactive materials actually fell.
Q: Do they still continue to be detected?
A: No radioactive materials were detected in rice last year and the year before last. In fact, we have done everything we can. We are spraying potassium chloride, which suppresses the absorption of radioactive substances, every year.
All bags of rice are being screened, and when you get measurement figures, you are not allowed to ship them. I believe that rice from Fukushima is now much safer than rice from other prefectures.
And our rice is selling well, in fact, in the restaurant industry and in hospitals because you may never know that the product is from Fukushima Prefecture. You may not see a lot on the surface, but vast quantities are on the move. Because Fukushima rice tastes good. It’s sticky and sweet. So restaurant industry people seem to be happy because they can buy tasty rice at cheap prices.
Q: What about vegetables?
A: Greenhouses were under plastic covers at the time of the disaster, so the soil in there was never contaminated. I decided to grow everything in greenhouses, so I have almost stopped growing things outdoors, including cabbage, because I don’t want to see measurement figures in my crops again.
I am now growing broccoli, but the prices are so cheap, beaten down. Urbanites don’t bother to differentiate between broccoli grown in greenhouses and those grown in open fields as long as they are from Fukushima Prefecture.
Q: Nuclear reactors are being brought back online these days. Your thoughts?
A: Japan remained free of nuclear power for some time. But look, was there any part of Japan where everything was pitch-dark at night during that time? We certainly had enough electricity.
We may have paid more for crude oil, and nuclear power may be cheaper in fuel costs. But think about it: How much do you have to pay to clean up after a disaster when one happens? It’s really a burden. What would become of this country if another nuclear plant were to fail somewhere? You could raise taxes, but would that be the end of it?
Q: With whom do you want to share your feelings now?
A: I could be better off if I didn’t raise my voice and kept silent. But I am somebody in the media spotlight because of my father. There are hosts of other farmers who feel like I do, that something is wrong. It’s not in my power, after all, to hold my voice about such feelings. Doing that is dishonest.
That’s why I decided to appear in the movie (“Daichi wo Uketsugu” (Taking over Mother Earth), a 2015 documentary directed by Junichi Inoue). I particularly want farmers in areas hosting nuclear plants to watch this film. I want them to know what will happen when there is a disaster.
My father used to say: “Human-made things will certainly fail someday. Nothing can stand the forces of nature.” And things have turned out exactly like that. And after five years, nobody has taken responsibility.
* * *
Born in 1975, Kazuya Tarukawa worked for a company in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, after graduating from a university. He returned to his family home in Sukagawa, 65 kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, 10 years ago to engage in farming.
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