Japan Political Pulse: The truth about Fukushima nuclear disaster compensation
Of the unknown number of children who have been bullied for being from Fukushima Prefecture, where a nuclear disaster is still ongoing at a power station six years since its outbreak, one boy who evacuated to Yokohama was bullied and extorted by his classmates of 1.5 million yen in total.
Now in his first year of junior high school, the boy wrote when he was in sixth grade, “My classmates said, ‘You get compensation, right?’ That annoyed me, but I was frustrated with myself for not standing up against them.”
Ironically, news reports say that because the family voluntarily evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture, they are not eligible for the high levels of compensation from the operator of the stricken nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), that some victims are entitled to receive.
Those who evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture due to the nuclear crisis can be largely categorized into two groups. The first are those who were forced to leave their homes under evacuation orders from the central government, because they lived in areas where annual cumulative radiation levels exceeded 20 millisieverts, or otherwise faced extenuating circumstances as determined by the state. Such people receive a certain lump sum from TEPCO as compensation.
The second group comprises people who lived in areas with radiation levels that did not prompt government evacuation orders, but who evacuated voluntarily out of concern for the health of themselves and their children. As a general rule, these people are not eligible for compensation from TEPCO.
In the case of forced evacuations, TEPCO conducts individual interviews with evacuees to assess the value of their property and homes. But this is strictly to compensate for the assets that people have lost.
What has often attracted attention but remains commonly misunderstood, is the monthly 100,000 yen per person that evacuees are said to be receiving as compensation for emotional suffering. Those who evacuated without orders to do so from the government are not eligible for this, either.
Meanwhile, the provision of compensation for emotional suffering to state-ordered evacuees whose homes are in areas where evacuation orders are set to be lifted will be stopped in March 2018. Whether or not such evacuees will return to their homes in Fukushima Prefecture once the no-go orders are lifted, they face the harsh reality that they will be cut off from government assistance. The government is rushing to rebuild infrastructure, and appeal to the world that they are lifting evacuation orders. But whether to return or to relocate is a difficult decision, especially for families with children.
People who evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture have not only been exposed to radiation, but to prejudice and misunderstanding regarding compensation that they may or may not have received.
The false rumor that compensation recipients are enjoying the high life from compensation payments has spread. We can’t deny that some probably indulged in the momentary influx of money and bought property or a fancy car. But because of that, the internet has been teeming with rumors that compensation recipients are tax thieves or calls for them to go back where they came from. And there’s no doubt that such a backdrop of online defamation and scandalmongering emboldened the children who bullied the boy in Yokohama.
The truth is, the family of the boy in Yokohama had evacuated Fukushima Prefecture voluntarily. They received a little over 1 million yen from TEPCO, but the parents said in an interview with an NHK new program, Close Up Gendai, that the money was put toward rebuilding their lives. Voluntary evacuees are exempt from paying rent due to the Disaster Relief Act, but many must restart new lives amid unstable finances.
The abovementioned boy moved to Yokohama with his family when he was in second grade. Shortly thereafter, classmates called him by his name, with the word for “germs” added on to the end. He soon found himself the victim of physical abuse such as hitting and kicking, and once he reached fifth grade, classmates demanded he give them money.
“I was so scared I didn’t know what to do,” the boy wrote. He stole from his parents and gave away a total of 1.5 million yen.
His parents, and other parents of children at the school who realized that something was going on, alerted the school. The school conducted an investigation, but took the bullies’ claims that the boy had given them money willingly at face value, and did nothing to remedy the situation for two years.
I, too, only learned the truth about the case just recently, but I believe the school’s misguided judgment was likely based on ignorance and prejudice toward compensation given to Fukushima Prefecture evacuees.
The boy’s mother had been traveling back and forth between Yokohama and Fukushima. He knew how much his parents were struggling, so he remained silent about the bullying.
What moved the case into a new direction were notes the victim had written in the summer of sixth grade. A message calling on bullying victims not to kill themselves also written by the now first-year junior high school student who attends an alternative school, was also released to the public.
Compensation is given to some victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. But there is still too little compassion toward and understanding of the various misunderstandings, discrimination and divisions that disaster victims face.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170326/p2a/00m/0na/003000c
TEPCO to delay seeking end to state control by 2 years to FY 2019
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. will delay a decision on whether to seek an end to its state control by about two years to fiscal 2019 amid ballooning costs stemming from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, an outline of its new business plan showed Wednesday.
The move is another sign the utility is struggling to revive its business even after receiving a capital injection of 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) from the government in 2012 to bolster its financial standing. But disaster cleanup costs have continued to rise, with the latest estimate reaching 22 trillion yen.
Under its latest business turnaround plan, which will be the third major revision since the first one was formulated in 2011, TEPCO aims to realign or integrate its nuclear and power transmission and distribution businesses with other utilities to improve its profitability. But it is uncertain whether business will get back on track as planned, with other utilities cautious about such tie-ups.
Radiation brings fear, and kids let it all out
Kids say the cruellest things: A girl bullied at school with the taunt ‘You’ve got the radiation!’ (right) sits at her home in Chiba Prefecture, where she moved after fleeing Fukushima Prefecture in the wake of the March 2011 nuclear disaster
Radiation is a fearful thing. Colorless, odorless, undetectable except by special instruments, it’s one of those evils you can dismiss from your mind altogether, until the special instruments start registering. Then suddenly it’s everywhere, or seems to be — a ubiquitous and ineradicable contaminant.
Children, as we all know, say and do the damnedest things. They mean no harm, they just know not what they do, sometimes. Their innocence is terrifying. Sometimes innocence looks anything but innocent. But all societies recognize it.
Children are not legally responsible for their actions. Parents and teachers may punish them in order to teach them responsibility. But it’s a long process. Until it’s complete, the evil they do, when they do evil, gets filed under “mischief,” in recognition of the spirit in which it was — probably — committed.
When Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant cracked under the strain of a tsunami six years ago and irradiated large swaths of Fukushima Prefecture, refugees streamed out of the stricken area, settling where they could. Forty thousand of them remain out-of-prefecture, 5,100 in Tokyo. Most of them will never go home again. Will they ever be at home where they are?
Josei Seven magazine raises the issue of “nuclear bullying.” Children too young, one might think, to even know the word “radiation” picked it up under the circumstances, and flung it with what seems like gleeful malice at disoriented new classmates who had enough to cope with already. Six years on, says Josei Seven, they’re still flinging it.
“It started immediately,” says one refugee, recalling her son’s transfer to a Tokyo elementary school in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. “‘Fukushima kids are weird,’ they’d shout at him. Kids would crawl under his desk and jab his feet with pencils. In the mornings he began saying he wasn’t feeling well. At the time, frankly, I was too traumatized myself to take much notice.”
Lawyer Yukio Yamakawa, director-general of the Tokyo Disaster Support Network, takes up the story with an account of other children he’s spoken to. What starts with name-calling (“Hey, Radioactive!” “Hey, Bacteria!”) easily escalates into what’s hard not to call torture. One kid is forced to drink a bottle of ink. Another has his shoes tossed into the toilet. A third is met in the corridor by classmates poised as if brandishing guns: “Radiation! Bang! Bang!” A fourth suffers extortion of what adds up over time to ¥1.5 million: “You can afford it, your family gets (disaster victim) compensation payments!”
Yamakawa reports this taunt making the rounds: “Fukushima kids won’t live past junior high school anyway, so you may as well die now.”
“Tanaka-san,” as we’ll call the mother cited above, began to fear her son might commit suicide. A poem he wrote contained the line, “Oh, to be able to go to heaven.” Fully focused now, she transferred the boy to another school. The peace that followed was short-lived. Name-calling, exclusion — it started all over again. The homeroom teacher was well-intentioned and put a stop to it — what she could see of it. What went on behind her back was beyond her control. A lot did, its viciousness increasing.
“I’d been bullied myself as a child,” Tanaka says, incidentally reminding us that the problem is neither new nor necessarily nuclear-related. “I understood what he was going through.”
She transferred him again. That seems to have ended the ugliest persecution, but, once a victim, you don’t simply get over it. The boy as a small child had dreamed of being a botanist when he grew up. Now he simply says, “I have no dreams.” Fukushima No. 1 destroyed much that is quantifiable — lives, property, livelihoods — and much that isn’t.
What to make of little kids who inflict this torment on other little kids? Can innocence itself be evil? Or fictitious? One hypothesis Josei Seven raises is that children merely absorb what they hear from their parents. Lacking critical faculties and adult inhibitions, they act where grown-ups merely talk.
The energy and imagination they put into it make it hard not to suspect they enjoy it. Enjoyment of other people’s sufferings is a well-attested human trait, exploited for mass entertainment at least as far back as the Roman circuses. Nothing has happened since to root it out of us, and if radiation stimulates it today, in that respect at least it breaks no new ground.
Naked fear is a factor too. Radiation, unseen, unheard, is the most fearful of stalkers. Might school kids seriously believe their Fukushima classmates are contagious? If so, the rational response would be to stay away from them, but fear and hatred merge, short-circuiting rationality and generating “Radiation, bang, bang!”
Radiation today, tuberculosis a century ago, different causes producing similar effects. Novelist Ayako Miura (1922-1999), herself a sufferer, made what might be called “tuberculosis bullying” a sub-theme of her novel “Shiokari Toge” (Shiokari Pass), set in late-19th-century Hokkaido: “It was an age when sufferers of tuberculosis were so hated and feared that they were even forced to leave the neighborhood.” A character who innocently brings up the subject arouses horror in his listener: “Mr. Nagano, even if you only mention the name of that dreadful disease it makes your lungs rot!”
“Radiation, bang, bang!” Last July a 26-year-old man slipped into a facility for disabled patients in Kanagawa Prefecture and slaughtered 19 of them, his apparent intention being to free the world from the scourge of disability. Disability, bang, bang. In February Satoshi Uematsu was declared fit to stand trial. A psychiatric evaluation found in him symptoms of a personality disorder but not of incapacity to distinguish right from wrong.
The disorder in question, writes psychiatrist Rika Kayama in the weekly Spa!, amounts to an extreme form of self-love. “Of course,” she writes, “we all love ourselves; we all at one time or another fantasize about being king or queen of the world …” We’d all, in short, be insane, more or less, if we let our fantasies rule our actions. Most of us know when to stop.
Uematsu’s self-love, Kayama hypothesizes, took the form of a conviction of having a mission, a destiny to fulfill. Maybe we all have that too, to some degree. Adults usually stifle it. Children often don’t.
SYMPOSIUM: Locals, experts discuss radiation risks, solutions, future in Iitate
FUKUSHIMA–Even after six years, lingering concerns over radiation loom large over the lives of evacuees from a village in northeastern Tohoku ravaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disaster in 2011.
Residents have agonized over whether to return to their homes in the village of Iitate, one of the most heavily contaminated areas, since evacuation orders are to be lifted on March 31.
Masanobu Akaishizawa, 67, head of an administrative district of Iitate, expressed his concerns at a recent symposium held here in mid-February.
“Experts say radiation doses don’t affect us as long as we stay home,” he said. “But I wonder about the quality of my life if I can neither go to the mountains nor the river.”
Iitate was in the direct path of radioactive materials that spewed from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co., following the triple meltdown due to the earthquake, tsunami as well as the government and TEPCO’s shortcomings on March 11, 2011.
Ahead of the lifting of the evacuation order for most of the village of Iitate on March 31, researchers and journalists, who have conducted field surveys since immediately after the accident, shared their views on radiation effects on health and avoiding health risks with villagers at the symposium.
The symposium, titled “Think about the future of Iitate villagers,” was hosted by the Iitate-mura Society for Radioecology, which comprises academics and citizens who committed themselves to continue their support for residents through their expertise.
During the session, Tetsuji Imanaka, a researcher at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, estimated the annual average radiation exposure to residents if they immediately return to the area after the evacuation orders are lifted. He put the figure at approximately 5 millisieverts of radiation.
“How can residents come to terms with the health risks caused by radiation exposure? That’s the issue,” Imanaka said.
Katsumi Furitsu, a doctor at the Hyogo College of Medicine, highlighted the government’s responsibility.
Furitsu has conducted research in the areas devastated by the crippled Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.
“Low-dose radiation exposure also has health risks in accordance with the amount,” Furitsu said.
“Offering appropriate health management and medical benefits (for the disaster victims who have been exposed to radiation) is the government’s minimum responsibility just like it issued ‘hibakusha’ (A-bomb victims) health books in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Furitsu emphasized.
Hibakusha health books have been awarded to those certified by the government as radiation victims of the 1945 atomic bombings, making them eligible for special health-care benefits, including allowing them access to free medical assistance.
Such a book could also become a powerful weapon to force the government to take responsibility for Fukushima evacuees for future damage to their health potentially related to radiation exposure.
Villagers expressed, however, concern that this could lead to possible future discrimination.
“We understand the necessity of issuing the radiation exposure record books to protect victim’s health,” said one resident. “But high school girls have fears and worries about possible future discrimination that is likely to be caused by possessing the books by posing such questions as, “Can we get married?” or “Can we have children?”
In response to those poignant voices from the disaster victims, Furitsu said, “In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the same concerns were expressed. However, unjustified discrimination occurred not because of the health book, but because those who should take responsibility didn’t take it.”
“The government should take measures that help residents who had been burdened with unnecessary risks,” Furitsu said, referring to such matters as providing health management, medical benefits, education and other activities to raise awareness of discrimination against disaster victims, especially if they have been exposed to low-dose radiation.
Yoshinobu Ito, 73, a farmer who moved to Iitate before the disaster, was especially worried about the risk radiation could have on children when they return to the village.
He released the results of measurements of radiation levels around his house that he has taken since the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
“Although the levels of radiation dose have dropped, they are still 10 times higher than the figures before the disaster. Even if I return to Iitate, rebuilding agriculture is a hardship,” said Ito.
The effects of radiation also cast a shadow over Japanese cattle farmers such as Kiyomi Shigihara, 62, of Nagadoro in the southernmost section of Iitate. Nagadoro was designated as the only “difficult-to-return zone” in the village.
With regard to the government policy of decontaminating only reconstruction base areas and then lifting an evacuation order after five years, Shigihara said, “Under these circumstances, even if I return home, there’s nothing I can do.”
Unable to repress his emotions, Shigihara wiped tears from his eyes.
Nuke watchdog critical as robot failures mount at Fukushima plant
Some Nuclear Regulation Authority members are skeptical of continuing to send robots into reactors in the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to collect vital data on the locations of melted nuclear fuel and radiation levels.
These regulators are increasingly calling for a new survey methodology after recent investigations utilizing robots controlled remotely generated few findings and were quickly terminated.
“We should come up with a method that will allow us to investigate in a short period of time and in a more sensible way,” said a senior member of the NRA, the government watchdog.
The suggestion followed the failure of the latest probe from March 18 to March 22 in which a robot was sent in the No. 1 reactor to ascertain the location of fuel debris, information crucial to preparing for the decommissioning.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, said on March 23 the robot was unable to deliver a camera to planned spots from where images of nuclear fuel debris could be taken.
The utility cited the piping and deposits of what looked like sand accumulating on the piping as impediments that hindered the robot surveyor’s path.
The survey was designed for the robot to reach numerous locations inside the No. 1 reactor to determine the location of nuclear fuel debris and their radiation levels.
The lower part of the reactor’s containment vessel is submerged in water where deposits of fuel debris are believed to reside below the surface after melting through in the 2011 nuclear disaster, triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
At one location, the robot succeeded in placing a camera, which is combined with a dosimeter, to a depth 0.3 meter from the containment vessel floor.
The probe measured underwater radiation levels from 3.0 to 11 sieverts per hour during the five-day survey. But it was unable to take images of the debris in the water.
TEPCO and the government hope to start removing molten nuclear fuel from 2021. But they have yet to collect information on the location, amount and condition of the melted fuel.
In a survey of the No. 2 reactor in February, a robot became stuck in deposits and other debris after traveling only 2 meters inside.
Surveyor robots for the No. 1 through No. 3 reactors have been developed by the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning since 2014, a project costing 7 billion yen ($62 million) by the end of March 2018.
It takes time to develop such multifunctional robots, but the surveys centering around the robots so far have failed to produce meaningful results.
No survey has been conducted at the No. 3 reactor.
The Nihonmatsu Declaration on the Risks of Exposure to Low Doses of Ionising Radiation
A statement by participants to the 6th Citizen-Scientist International Symposium on Radiation Protection （7–10 October 2016）in Nihonmatsu, Japan
Over recent years, some interested parties have claimed that human exposure to low doses（100 mSv/mGy or less）of ionising radiation does not confer an increased risk of cancer, or that the risk is so small that it cannot be estimated.
Our understanding of the risks of ionising radiation leads us to conclude that:
The accrued epidemiological data do not support there being a threshold of risk at 100 mSv for the induction of cancer. [1-11] [12-14]. Most of the available evidence together with mechanistic considerations, point to linearity of dose response at both high and low dose-rates.
Direct measurement of risk below 100 mSv [1-5, 7, 9] and extrapolation from higher doses [3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 15], support the use of the linear dose response model for doses less than 100 mSv and for the estimation of risks for the protection of public health after nuclear accidents.[3]
The INWORKS study of workers is particularly important because the mode of exposure is similar to that which will be experienced by returning evacuees. It provides important information in re- lation to the risks in the dose range 0 to 100 mGy. Over this range the risk（0.8 per Gy）is higher, but not significantly so, than the overall estimate of 0.48 per Gy.This estimate is not influenced by the slope at higher doses.The paper states: “INWORKS thus provides supportive evidence for a positive association between radiation dose and all cancer other than leukaemia, even if less precise when analyses are restricted to data for the 0-100 mGy dose range.”
This position is consistent with:
The 2000 report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Ionising Radiation [16] [17]（UNSCEAR, subsequently endorsed in their 2012 White Paper [18] and the 2012 analysis of the 2006 BEIR VII report from the US National Academy of Sciences [6] the Japanese bomb survivor data .
The World Health Organisation report of 2013 [19] on the Fukushima accident.
We conclude that a recommended “reference level” of 20 mSv/year for returning evacuees from areas adjacent to the Fukushima Daiichi accident will entail an increased lifetime risk of cancer, par- ticularly for those exposed as children.
Signatories
Keith Baverstock, Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Eastern Fin- land, Kuopio, Finland.
Iuliia Davydova, Institute of Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, National Academy of Medical Science of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine.
John Mathews, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Carlton,Australia Sebastian Pflugbeil, Society for Radiation Protection, Berlin, Germany
Ben Spycher, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine（ISPM）, University of Bern, Bern, Switzer- land.
Wolfgang Hoffmann, Institute für Community Medicine, Urnst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Greifswald, Germany
1．Spycher, B. D., et al.,（2015）Background ionizing radiation and the risk of childhood cancer: a census- based nationwide cohort study. Environ Health Perspect. 123: 622-8.
2．Mathews, J. D., et al.（, 2013）Cancer risk in 680,000 people exposed to computed tomography scans in childhood or adolescence: data linkage study of 11 million Australians. Bmj. 346: f2360.
3．Richardson, D. B., et al.,（2015）Risk of cancer from occupational exposure to ionising radiation: retro- spective cohort study of workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States（INWORKS）. Bmj. 351: h5359.
4．Kendall, G. M., et al.（, 2013）A record-based case-control study of natural background radiation and the incidence of childhood leukaemia and other cancers in Great Britain during 1980-2006. Leukemia. 27: 3-9.
5．Cardis, E., et al.（, 2005）Risk of cancer after low doses of ionising radiation: retrospective cohort study in 15 countries. Bmj. 331:77.
6．Ozasa, K., et al.,（2012）Studies of the mortality of atomic bomb survivors, Report 14, 1950-2003: an overview of cancer and noncancer diseases. Radiat Res. 177: 229-43.
7．Pijpe, A., et al.,（2012）Exposure to diagnostic radiation and risk of breast cancer among carriers of BRCA1/2 mutations: retrospective cohort study（GENE-RAD-RISK）. Bmj. 345: e5660.
8．Pearce, M. S., et al.（, 2012）Radiation exposure from CT scans in childhood and subsequent risk of leu- kaemia and brain tumours: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet. 380: 499-505.
9．Bithell, J. F. and A. M. Stewart,（1975）Pre-natal irradiation and childhood malignancy: a review of British data from the Oxford Survey. Br J Cancer. 31: 271-87.
10．Preston, D. L., et al.（, 2003）Studies of mortality of atomic bomb survivors. Report 13: Solid cancer and noncancer disease mortality: 1950-1997. Radiat Res. 160: 381-407.
11．Preston, D. L., et al.,（2007）Solid cancer incidence in atomic bomb survivors: 1958-1998. Radiat Res. 168: 1-64.
12．Brenner, D. J., et al.（, 2003）Cancer risks attributable to low doses of ionizing radiation: assessing what we really know. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 100: 13761-6.
13．Brenner, D. J. and R. K. Sachs,（2006）Estimating radiation-induced cancer risks at very low doses: ratio- nale for using a linear no-threshold approach. Radiat Environ Biophys. 44: 253-6.
14．Goodhead, d.T. Clustered damage to DNA:Time to re-evaluate the paradigm of radiation protection. in Proceedings of the Eleventh International Congress of Radiation Research. 2000. Dublin Ireland:Al- len Press, Lawrence, KS.
15．Preston, D. L., et al.（, 2003）Dose response and temporal patterns of radiation-associated solid cancer risks. Health Phys. 85: 43-6.
16．UNSCEAR, Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiations: Sources and Effects. 2000, United Nations: New York.
17．UNSCEAR, Biological Mechanism of Radiation Action at Low Doses:A white paper to guide the Sci- entific Committee’s future programme of work. 2012, United nations: New York.
18．NAS, Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII – Phase 2. 2006, Na- tional Academy of Sciences:Washington.
19．WHO, Health Risk Assessment from the Nuclear Accident after the 2011 Great East Japan Earth- quake and Tsunami. 2013,World Health Organization: Geneva.
The 6th Citizen-Scientists International Symposium on Radiation Protection
Founded in 2011, The Citizen-Scientist International Symposium on Radiation Protection （CSRP）, is a non-profit organization established by citizens and scientists concerned about the issue of low dose exposure. Since the explosion at Fukushima’s nuclear plant in March 2011, CSRP has held several workshops each year, as well as an annual international symposium, on radiation protection from the viewpoint of citizens, inviting researchers and citizens from both Japan and overseas to find the most effective ways to deal with the issue together. The 6th CSRP symposium was held in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, between October 7 and 10, 2016（for full details of the symposium, please refer to our website http://csrp.jp）. The symposium published two recommendations ̶ the “Conclusions” and the “Nihonmatsu Declaration on the Risks of Exposure to Low Doses of Ionizing Radiation” ̶ based on four days of presentation sessions and roundtable discussions. We sincerely hope that discussions by both experts and members of the public on this issue allow us to deepen our understanding of the situation and better able us to recommend the wisest policy decisions in regard to management of the disaster, beyond positions and paradigms, for better radiation protection measures.
The 6th Citizen-Scientists International Symposium on Radiation Protection
For further scientific elucidation of health risks due to radiation exposure caused by the 2011 TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident, in order to practice better public protection and response measures
Conclusions
Radiation protection measures should be carried out in agreement with the research of scientists from rel-evant disciplines, based on the underlying epidemiological findings. In particular, there are a number of epi-demiological evidences supporting the linear non-threshold（LNT）model that states that the health effects of ionizing radiation have no safety threshold and are linearly proportional to the exposure dose even at a cumulative dose lower than 100 millisievert（mSv）.All the radiation protection measures should presuppose this model from a precautionary standpoint（.Note 1）
Recommendations to the Japanese Government and relevant parties
Expansion of thyroid cancer examination and enhancement of support
Several epidemiological views conclude that the results of the Fukushima prefectural health management survey are already clearly showing the frequent occurrence of thyroid cancer. Considering the diagnosed tu-mor sizes and the surgery cases that resulted from the survey, the currently practiced thyroid examination is consistent with one of the objectives of the survey, “early detection, early treatment.” The survey should be expanded, and the support should be enhanced for people suffering from thyroid cancer and other thyroid abnormalities（.Note 2）
Expansion of health survey
Health protection must be provided not only to the affected residents, but also to the people who are at risk of exposure to radiation while carrying out accident-related work, such as the nuclear plant workers and the off-site decontamination workers. The survey of health effects should be expanded to these people in or-der to determine what damages are being caused by radiation exposure, whether the current measures are effective enough and what should be done to improve the situation（.Note 3）
Respect of the victims’ rights
The emigrated ex-residents or the evacuees should not be forced to return to their hometowns. Those who wish to stay evacuated or emigrated, those who wish to evacuate or emigrate hereafter, or those who want to return to their hometowns, as well as those who have decided to stay in their hometowns despite the ac-cumulating exposure dose — all of the parties should be supported so that they can build the life they de-sire, all while avoiding radiation exposure as much as possible（.Note 4）
Revision of risk communication
In order to improve the current social environment that dissuades the victims from expressing their con-cern about the health effects of radiation, it is necessary to revise the “risk communication” measures led by the central and the local administrative authorities. Measures that aim to persuade the victims of the small risk of health effects without provinding sufficient evidence and impelling them to act as the authorities want, should be revised（.Note 5）
Education and public information on nuclear power and radiation
School teaching materials and learning places are provided from the pro-nuclear standpoint, unilaterally stressing the safety of nuclear power plants and downplaying the risk of health effects. Instead, the stand-point of those who bear the risk（accident victims, workers and future generations）should be taken into ac-count fully（.Note 6）
Role of citizens and scientists
Citizens, including scientists, researchers and media professionals, are requested to promote an open dia-logue in which each party accomplishes its original mission for the pursuit of truth. Together, the victims and all the people involved are expected to create a living environment and public space that enable each of them to express what they really think and feel, to form a consensus, and thus to give rise to mutual trust. （Note 7）
Notes
（Note 1）On this issue, a separate joint statement by the epidemiologists who participated in the 6th Citizen-Scientist Symposium on Ra-diation Protection is to be published.
（Note 2）It is necessary to re-examine the thyroid surveys conducted on those who were 18 years old or younger at the time of the acci-dent, by expanding the ranges（ages and regions）and frequency of the surveys. Cases of thyroid cancer diagnosed by examinations other than the Fukushima prefecture health management survey should be disclosed, including those diagnosed in other regions that may also suffer from radiation effects. Several municipalities located outside the Fukushima prefecture indeed do carry out their own surveys. In addition, it is required to examine thyroid abnormalities other than cancer and to publish the results.
Five years after the accident, when the health effects of radiation exposure are now expected to emerge, the appearance instead, of ar-guments aiming to reduce the thyroid surveys is an issue. Building a debate based on the unsound concept of the “negative effects of the survey” does not appear as a scientifically driven decision. It is historical fact that the delay after which thyroid cancer appears after exposure to radiations, originally estimated to 10 years or more based on data from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bomb survivors, had to be revised to five years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Continuing the survey is thus crucial because it ties into the issue of future compensation. Therefore, the review committee for the Fukushima prefectural health management survey should not be limit-ed by past ideas but should take new data and findings into full consideration.
Studies should be promoted to estimate how much irradiation happened just after the accident, and the results should be made public. As was discussed at the 5th International Expert Symposium in Fukushima on Radiation and Health（September 2016）, data on the contamination by iodine-131 are scarce. The only way to determine the initial exposure dose is to investigate the existing contamination by iodine 129 and other fission products in the environment and to reconstruct the initial dose. Studies need to be extended to regions outside the Fukushima prefecture, because contamination spreads in wide areas in Eastern Japan as shown by results from the air-borne monitoring of the Ministry of Science and Technology（MEXT）and the Nuclear Regulatory Agency.
（Note 3）The Fukushima prefectural health management survey has been criticized from the very beginning for its narrowness of appli-cation. For example, blood testing, whose importance has been emphasized in the areas affected by the Chernobyl accident, has been treated lightly in the case of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. Moreover, given that contamination has spread to ar-eas beyond the border of Fukushima prefecture, it is difficult to understand why the comprehensive health check is limited to evacua-tion zones in Fukushima prefecture. Cancer registration data and other medical information essential for comparative studies of the health status in the affected areas are not made public. Concerns have been expressed about the exposure management of subcon-tracted workers. A re-examination of the health care system for all workers at risk of radiation exposure, including the off-site cleanup workers is imperative. The fact that the Government and TEPCO have failed to disclose necessary information, has given rise to the suspicion that they might be concealing inconvenient information. They are required to take action to address the spreading distrust.
（Note 4）The current policy promoted by the government under the name of “reconstruction” is laying a disproportionate emphasis on the return of evacuees to their hometowns, through the prompt cancellation of evacuation orders and while neglecting support towards victims who desire to emigrate or to remain evacuated. The government has announced the cut off, in March 2017, of the provision of free housing for what they call “voluntary evacuees”（evacuees from outside the evacuation order area）. A similar policy is expected to be applied to evacuees from the current evacuation order areas, once the orders are lifted. Such policies leave no choice to the victims who wish to remain evacuated and avoid further radiation exposure, but to return to their hometowns. Meanwhile, long-term support is needed for those victims who are living in contaminated regions, inside or outside the Fukushima prefecture, including support to resi-dents who wish to evacuate hereafter.
（Note 5）The government’s so-called “risk communication” currently underplays the health effects of radiation exposure caused by the nuclear power plant accident and merely consists in delivering basic knowledge of radiation while claiming that the risks are small, of-ten comparing the health risk of low level radiation to those of medical radiation, smoking, and obesity. This “risk communication” activ-ity has been nothing but a unilateral delivery of information that highlight optimistic views on the risk of radiation exposure. It has failed to install a dialogue that considers the diverse points of view held by the affected residents.
In particular, the conventional government-led “risk communication” has created a social atmosphere in which choosing to avoid being exposed to low-level radiations for long-term safety, is regarded as “wrong”. Victims who wish to emigrate or to remain evacuated from areas where exposure is possible, or those who desire to avoid as much radiation as they can from the food, clothing and shelter even though they chose to remain in their regions, all of them are repressed from expressing their concerns. At times, this causes conflict and cleavages between family members, friends and neighbors.
Intrinsically, “risk communication” should consider the wide range of opinions that exist regarding the risks and, through dialogue be-tween experts and residents, it should elaborate a set of measures that are adapted to each resident’s lifestyle. Initiatives such as col-lecting straightforward scientific data that is useful for avoiding exposure in daily life, illustrate the importance of mutual learning and common efforts between residents and experts.
（Note 6）In public teaching materials, such as the supplementary reader on radiation issued by MEXT in 2014, the instructional materials issued by the Fukushima Prefectural Board of Education（the 1st to the 5th editions）in 2011-16, and the exhibition of the Exchange Building（Komyutan Fukushima）inaugurated by the Fukushima Prefectural Environmental Innovation Center in July 2016, there is al-most no explanation on the official limits of radiation exposure doses, including those in radiation controlled areas（5.2 mSv/year）, the additional exposure for the general public（1 mSv/year）and those of the evacuation order area（20 mSv/year）. Nor is there any expla-nation on emergency radiation protection measures such as the administration of stable iodine, or on the Nuclear Accident Child Vic-tims’ Support Law, enacted in 2012 to protect the victims’ rights.
（Note 7）Since the beginning of the accident, not only the information needed in order to avoid radiation exposure was insufficiently dis-closed, but also the voices of victims were not reflected in the policy decision process related to radiation protection. In order to devise countermeasures that reflect the voices and needs of the most affected victims, it is also required on the side of the citizens, to make opportunities for communication, that is, dialogues widely involving citizens, including scientists, researchers, media, etc.
The symposium participants who agree on this document are as follows:
Cécile Asanuma-Brice, National Center for Scientific Research（CNRS）,France Keith Baverstock, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Iuliia Davydova, Institute of Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, NAMS of Ukraine :Ukraine Shinobu Goto, University of Fukushima, Japan
Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, Scientific illustrator, Switzerland Wolfgang Hoffmann, Urnst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Germany Paul Jobin, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Toshiki Mashimo, Citizen-Scientist Symposium on Radiation Protection, Japan John Mathews, University of Melbourne, Australia
Sebastian Pflugbeil, Society for Radiation Protection, Germany
Yoshiyuki Segawa, Citizen-Scientist Symposium on Radiation Protection, Japan Susumu Shimazono, Sophia University, Japan
Nanako Shimizu, University of Utsunomiya, Japan Ben Spycher, University of Bern, Switzerland Yasuyuki Taneichi, Kuwano Kyoritsu Hospital, Japan Tomoko Tsuchiya, NPO HSE Risk C-cube, Japan Takuya Tsujiuchi, University of Waseda, Japan
https://www.iwanami.co.jp/kagaku/eKagaku_201703_CSRP.pdf
Japan’s TEPCO looking for international help to clean up Fukushima nuclear plant
The call for partners follows two robotic failures during cleanup efforts at the plant last month
TOKYO—The Tokyo Electric Power Co. has issued a call for partners to help it decontaminate and decommission the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
The nuclear power plant was seriously damaged in 2011 by a tsunami triggered by a powerful offshore earthquake. The subsequent reactor meltdowns led to the release of radioactive material, which remains at high levels inside the plant six years after the accident.
The call for international collaboration follows two robotic failures inside Fukushima’s Unit 2 reactor last month. One cleaning robot was pulled out of the plant prematurely due to higher-than-expected radiation, while another had to be abandoned inside after its crawling function failed.
Earlier this month, Naohiro Masuda, the head of decommissioning at the plant said engineers will need to think ‘out of the box’ to develop robots capable of surveilling the plant.
TEPCO said it is particularly interested in consultants with on-site recycling methods that could reduce the amount of radioactive waste being generated—though it noted there are many other areas of expertise it’s interested in as well.
More details about the collaboration program are available here.
TEPCO is looking for partners that would realize innovative values and solutions to critical social issues.
Through challenging ourselves with new technology, dealing with various businesses, and making even greater use of the big data stored and created by TEPCO, we contribute to society’s development by creating new value for the lives and businesses of consumers and business people.
Co-creation will open new doors.
By partnering with you, we will be able to tackle issues we could not before. It is our mission to create better future by openly cooperating with everyone as we move forward.
The Robot Probe Cannot Confirm Where is the Melted Fuel of Unit 1
Tokyo Electric Power Company announced on February 23 that it had completed a robot probe survey lasting five days in the reactor containment vessel of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Unit 1.
Its goal was to confirm the whereabout of the melted nuclear fuel, but it was blocked by piping and could not put the camera in athe place where nuclear fuel could be seen.
Information necessary for taking out the nuclear fuel to decommission the reactor remains inadequate, and some voices began to question the robot conducted investigation method.
During the 5-day survey, there was also a point where the measuring instrument with an camera and a radiation dosimeter integrated together was hung up in a range from 0 to 3 meters from the bottom of the containment vessel, pipes and debris blocking its path in many points. The radiation dose in the water is from 3.0 to 11 Sv. Per hour. It was not possible to directly check the melted nuclear fuel.
TEPCO and the country are facing the decommissioning of a furnace …
Tepco robot failed to capture images of melted fuel in reactor 1
A photo taken by a robot on Wednesday shows an underwater image of water pool on the bottom of the containment vessel of the reactor 1 at the Fukushima No. 1 plant
Tokyo Electric said Thursday that it failed to get any photos of potential fuel debris during a five-day probe of the primary containment vessel at reactor 1 of the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., however, stressed that the investigation was worthwhile because its robot was able to take underwater images in the pool of water at its bottom and gauge its radiation level, which will help it estimate where the melted fuel lies.
The monstrous tsunami of March 11, 2011, tipped reactors 1, 2 and 3 into core meltdowns. The molten fuel rods then penetrated their pressure vessels before apparently dropping to the bottom of the giant containment vessels.
There is about a 2.5-meter deep water pool at the bottom of the primary containment vessel of reactor 1, and Tepco believes most of its melted fuel rods fell into it. Thus the main mission of the robot investigation this time was to capture underwater images.
The robot traversed gratings set up several meters above the vessel’s bottom and lowered a wire with a camera and dosimeter on its tip at 10 locations in the water.
Yet none of the images disclosed by Tepco showed anything resembling fuel debris, while parts of machinery, such as a valve, were captured.
When the robot dangled the camera on spots where Tepco thought there was a higher probability of locating the fuel, it instead found a 90-cm pile of sediment.
Tepco spokesman Yuichi Okamura said the sediment is probably not fuel debris, given the relatively low radiation readings, which ranged from 5.9 to 9.4 sieverts per hour.
Although the readings indicate extreme danger to people, Okamura said the readings would have been much higher had they been melted fuel rods. He said Tepco had no idea what the sediment is but added that there was a possibility it was covering the fuel.
According to Okamura, radiation readings get weaker by a hundredth if blocked by a meter of water. Since the robot detected readings from 5.9 to 9.4 sieverts per hour about 90 cm above the pool’s bottom, there might be something down there emitting strong radiation.
Tepco plans another investigation this month to pick up samples of the sediment.
While no fuel debris was recognized, Okamura said Tepco would review the data and analyze it further. By comparing radiation readings from various locations, the utility might be able to roughly pinpoint where the melted rods lay, he said.
He added that it was an achievement that the robot lasted for five days in the deadly radiation and that Tepco was able to retrieve it.
Yakuza hide IDs to secretly thrive in Tohoku’s disaster zones
A gang leader says he effectively controls several companies involved in rebuilding projects in the Tohoku region.
A company has been busy dispatching temporary workers for the Herculean task of rebuilding lives in the disaster-hit Tohoku region. But the company’s most important job for survival is to conceal any evidence of its true, sinister nature.
“This is a company I established,” said the leader of a gang affiliated with an organized crime syndicate based in western Japan. “I made sure that no signs of any possible association with yakuza organizations were left.”
Although the National Police Agency has tried to prevent gangsters from cashing in on the triple disaster that struck in March 2011, yakuza groups appear to be thriving in the Tohoku region and extending their reach.
Their companies not only dispatch workers and lease heavy machinery, but they are also involved in more traditional services, such as providing prostitutes and dealing drugs, with workers at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and other sites as potential targets.
Police say there is little they can do to shut down the yakuza activities.
The gang leader’s company, which was set up in a city in the Kanto region last December with a start-up cost of 5 million yen ($45,000), appears innocent on the surface.
The president named on company’s registry has no ties with organized crime, and the true leader and members of his family and group are not listed as directors.
The gang leader said he also has effective control over other companies that send workers to contractors involved in an array of projects, including decontaminating areas or dismantling abandoned houses.
“I make millions of yen a month, including about 100,000 yen per contractor and siphoning from workers’ daily allowances,” the gang leader proudly said.
Twenty days after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, 2011, triggering the nuclear disaster, the NPA directed all prefectural police departments to keep gangsters away from the reconstruction projects.
Similar requests were made to the construction industry, Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the nuclear plant, government ministries and agencies and local authorities.
But a number of yakuza organizations are now behind the companies involved in the rebuilding projects.
In some cases, they gain control of legitimate but cash-strapped companies by providing funds.
One crime syndicate reportedly advises umbrella groups on “how to set up a company by keeping others from becoming suspicious.”
Police officials dealing with crime syndicates acknowledge that it is “practically impossible” to thoroughly check for possible ties between subcontractors and gangster organizations.
In some cases, a single project is outsourced to more than 10 subcontractors.
“All we can do is check whether individuals connected to underground groups are listed in the registration papers,” a police official said.
Police say they can confirm a yakuza connection only after they scrutinize the company directors’ circle of friends and acquaintances and other relevant data.
Although anti-yakuza ordinances are believed to be depleting the finances of mobsters around Japan, the crime syndicates are systematically running operations in the Tohoku region as if it’s business as usual.
One leader of an underground group said he was ordered by its parent organization “not to lag behind others” in exploiting potentially lucrative projects.
After the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, the parent organization began asking all groups under its umbrella to give “regular reports” about rental agents of heavy machinery, dump trucks and other equipment indispensable in rebuilding projects on their turfs.
The move was apparently designed to prepare for the day when they needed to quickly obtain as much machinery as possible.
That day arrived on March 11, 2011.
“There is a huge demand for such equipment in a disaster,” a former senior member of a gang group said. “We can lease it at our asking price.”
Crime organizations have also seen a potentially lucrative market in the predominantly male work force at the Fukushima nuclear plant and other reconstruction projects in the Tohoku region.
“I came to Fukushima to have fun as an adult,” said an entry, presumably by a female, on a dating site for men. “I am looking for somebody I can meet in Nihonmatsu,” said another, referring to a city in Fukushima Prefecture.
The website, set up by the head of a gangster organization in the Kanto region, targets workers at the stricken nuclear plant and elsewhere.
The gang leader said he takes women who have experience in the sex industry to disaster-stricken areas in his car and stays there for several days.
He sends the women to love hotels or the clients’ vehicles, depending on the customers’ requests. One encounter costs about 30,000 yen, he said, adding that 60 percent goes to the woman while he pockets the remainder.
“I am in fierce competition with other underground groups in this line of business,” he said. “But I can earn at least 3 million yen a month.”
Drug deals are also said to be at play in the disaster zone.
“I have seen and heard about the use and deals in stimulant drugs at the plant,” recalled the leader of a gang group based in eastern Japan who works at the Fukushima nuclear complex.
He was assigned to the plant just after a hydrogen explosion took place there.
TEPCO and Fukushima prefectural police said they are not aware of any drug use at the plant.
However, a plant worker in his 30s died at a hospital in August 2015 after he complained of sickness on a bus taking him from the nuclear plant.
He turned out to be a gang member, according to police. His urine sample showed possible signs of stimulant drug use, but his cause of death was not determined.
Between 2011 and 2016, police have busted underground groups involved in rebuilding projects in 101 cases.
Fraud accounted for 54 cases. They were primarily gangsters pretending to collect donations for disaster victims or mobsters involved in illicit borrowing.
Twenty-five cases concerned dispatches of workers to assignments that they were not allowed to perform.
In one case, a senior member of a group affiliated with the Sumiyoshi-kai, one of the largest crime syndicates in the nation, was arrested in May 2012 on suspicion of illegally sending workers to the Fukushima plant. Police uncovered that the mobster received about 40 million yen between 2009 and 2011 by sending workers to nuclear plants and thermal power plants across the country.
Visualizing nuclear radiation: Team images gamma rays to help decontaminate Fukushima
A Kyoto University team has developed a new camera to visualize radioactive hotspots
Extraordinary decontamination efforts are underway in areas affected by the 2011 nuclear accidents in Japan. The creation of total radioactivity maps is essential for thorough cleanup, but the most common methods, according to Kyoto University’s Toru Tanimori, do not ‘see’ enough ground-level radiation.
“The best methods we have currently are labor intensive, and to measure surface radiation accurately,” he says, “complex analysis is needed.”
In their latest work published in Scientific Reports, Tanimori and his group explain how gamma-ray imaging spectroscopy is more versatile and robust, resulting in a clearer image.
“We constructed an Electron Tracking Compton Camera (ETCC) to detect nuclear gamma rays quantitatively. Typically this is used to study radiation from space, but we have shown that it can also measure contamination, such as at Fukushima.”
The imaging revealed what Tanimori calls “micro hot spots” around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, even in regions that had already been considered decontaminated. In fact, the cleaning in some regions appeared to be far less than what could be measured by other means.
Current methods for measuring gamma rays do not reliably pinpoint the source of the radiation. According to Tanimori, “radiation sources including distant galaxies can disrupt the measurements.”
The key to creating a clear image is taking a color image including the direction and energy of all gamma rays emitted in the vicinity.
“Quantitative imaging produces a surface radioactivity distribution that can be converted to show dosage on the ground,” says Tanimori. “The ETCC makes true images of the gamma rays based on proper geometrical optics.”
This distribution can then be used to relatively easily measure ground dosage levels, showing that most gamma rays scatter and spread in the air, putting decontamination efforts at risk.
“Our ETCC will make it easier to respond to nuclear emergencies,” continues Tanimori. “Using it, we can detect where and how radiation is being released. This will not only help decontamination, but also the eventual dismantling of nuclear reactors.”
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-visualizing-nuclear-team-images-gamma.html#jCp
Deadly nuclear radiation levels detected in Fukushima
Extremely high radiation levels were detected using cameras and robots in tainted water inside a reactor containment vessel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, Japan Times reported Tuesday, citing Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (Tepco).
The latest readings, taken six years after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, showed 11 sieverts per hour, according to Japan Times. It is the highest radiation level detected in water inside the containment vessel and is extremely dangerous. Sievert is a unit measurement for a dose of radiation. One sievert is enough to cause illness if absorbed all at once, and 8 sieverts will result in death despite treatment, according to PBS who relied on data from multiple sources including United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and MIT’s Nuclear Science and Engineering department.
Following a major earthquake on March 11, 2011, a 15-metre tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima reactors, causing a nuclear accident. Tepco, who operated the plant and has been tasked with cleaning up the worst nuclear incident, since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union, has been some problems of late in its cleanup operation.
Recently, an exploratory robot malfunctioned and died after being sent inside reactor 2, in mid-February, due to exposure to “unimaginable” levels of radiation, close to 650 sieverts per hour. The previous highest recorded level was 73 sieverts per hour. Following the incident, Naohiro Masuda, president of Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning project, told reporters the company had to rethink its methods in order to examine and extract the hazardous material stuck in the plant’s second reactor.
“We should think out of the box so we can examine the bottom of the core and how melted fuel debris spread out,” Masuda said, according to the Japan Times.
Tepco has been attempting to locate melted fuel which leaked from the reactor’s pressure vessel and is believed to have settled at the bottom of the containment vessel that holds the contaminated water. So far, no such debris has been found, and Tepco decided to extend the survey by one day through Wednesday.
A robot sent by the company on March 20 reached the bottom but was unable to locate the melted fuel due to some pipes that blocked its view. But it was able to take pictures of what appeared to be sand piling up near the pipes. The radiation readings near them were 6.3 sieverts per hour.
“Judging from the radiation level, there is a high possibility that what is piling up on the pipes is not nuclear fuel,” a Tepco official said, according to the Asahi Shimbun.
Cleaning up the plant may take an estimated 40 years and cost an estimated 21.5 trillion yen ($189 billion), according to the Guardian.
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/deadly-nuclear-radiation-levels-detected-in-fukushima/
Lethal radiation levels but no melted fuel found in Fukushima reactor water
The Unit 2 reactor building at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The level of radiation was measured by a special robot on Sunday at a point about 30cm (one foot) from the bottom of the containment vessel of Reactor 1, the Japan Times reported on Tuesday.
The current radiation level is 11 sieverts per hour, the highest detected in water inside the containment vessel. A person exposed to this amount of radiation would likely die in about 40 minutes, the Japan Times reports.
Sunday’s probe also revealed sandy substances building up at the bottom of the vessel. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) officials, however, dismissed the idea that it might be melted nuclear fuel.
Experts have been looking for the melted fuel, which they believe has been accumulating in tainted water.
In March 2011, a 9.1 earthquake and the 15-meter tsunami that followed disabled the cooling system of Fukushima’s three reactors, causing the worst nuclear incident since the 1986 Chernobyl incident in Ukraine.
TEPCO, which operates the crippled power plant, has been obliged to deal with the consequences of the incident.
In February, a robot sent to explore Reactor 2 broke down because of the “unimaginable” levels of radiation, close to 650 sieverts per hour. This was the first time a robot entered this reactor since the plant’s meltdown in 2011.
Previously, the highest radiation level was recorded one year after the disaster and went up to 73 sieverts per hour.
TEPCO has promised extract the hazardous material stuck in the plant’s second reactor, its president Naohiro Masuda said, according to the Japan Times.
In December, TEPCO nearly doubled the estimated cost for the Fukushima clean-up to $188 billion.
A zone of more than 300 square miles around the plant is currently uninhabitable due to the continuing radiation.
https://www.rt.com/news/381879-fukushima-reactor-radiation-lethal/
80% of families not going back to Fukushima after housing aid ends
Eighty percent of households who fled but were not forced to evacuate from Fukushima Prefecture after the 2011 nuclear disaster do not intend to return even after their free housing allowance ends this month.
According to the survey results released March 21, 3,722 households, or 80 percent of 4,673 households who had evacuated outside the prefecture, said they had no intention of returning.
As for the 4,010 households who fled but remained inside the prefecture, 949 households, or 24 percent, gave the same response, while 67 percent, or 2,674 households, planned to eventually return to their hometowns.
The statistics are based on responses from 8,683 households that evacuated out of 12,000 contacted by the Fukushima prefectural government.
The central and prefectural governments have provided free housing for evacuees from outside the designated evacuation zone since the nuclear accident triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and catastrophic tsunami.
It was announced in June 2015 the housing program would end this month.
Prefectural officials said part of the reason for the high ratio of people unwilling to return to Fukushima Prefecture is partly because they are uninformed about the rebuilding situation.
“Their resolve to stay away from the prefecture is firm due to concerns about radiation and other factors in the first place,” an official said. “In addition, it appears that they don’t have good access to information on what is going on in the prefecture.”
The number of people that had evacuated to locales inside and outside of Fukushima Prefecture on a voluntary basis totaled 30,000 as of October 2015.
Support groups have demanded the continuation of the housing program.
Whereas 97 percent of the total households contacted, or 11,896, replied that they have already decided on where they would live from April, 2 percent, or 227 households, responded otherwise as of March 10.
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