Number of evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture due to the nuclear power plant accident
August 23, 2022
On August 23, three groups of evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture requested the Reconstruction Agency not to exclude approximately 6,600 people from the number of evacuees from outside of Fukushima Prefecture due to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, because their whereabouts cannot be confirmed. The reduction in the number of evacuees in the statistics may lead to a trivialization of the damage caused by the nuclear power plant accident.
The Reconstruction Agency compiles the number of evacuees based on the information that evacuees have reported to the municipalities where they have taken refuge. In some cases, such as when evacuees move away without notifying the local government, their whereabouts are lost. As a result of the survey conducted since last September, approximately 2,900 people’s whereabouts are unknown, and approximately 2,480 people have moved without notifying the municipality. In addition, a total of 6,604 people will be excluded from the evacuee statistics, including approximately 1,110 people who answered “will not return” in the survey.
As of April, the number of out-of-prefecture evacuees was approximately 23,000, a decrease of more than 3,300 from January, as reports continue to follow this policy. The number is expected to continue to decrease as each municipality works to correct the situation.
The request was made on this day by the National Association of Evacuees for the “Right to Evacuation” and others. Seiichi Nakate, 61, co-chairman of the association and an evacuee from Fukushima City to Sapporo City, said, “Even though I no longer have the intention to return, I am aware that I am an ‘evacuee. I cannot allow myself to be excluded by the government.” He handed the written request to a Reconstruction Agency official. The official explained that the exclusion would be made in order to match the actual situation of the evacuees, but that it would not affect the support measures.
At the press conference, Nakate said, “Eleven years have passed since the accident, and the number of official support measures at the evacuation sites is decreasing every year. The evacuee statistics are the basis for all support measures, and I am concerned that they may lead to further reductions in support in the future. (Kenta Onozawa)
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Evacuated Fukushima villagers return home, but not without worries
11 years from when the Noyuki community were asked to relocate, many residents have already rebuilt their lives and settled down in areas where they had been evacuated.
June 15, 2022
TOKYO — As day broke on a rainy Sunday, the barricade was opened on the road leading to the Noyuki district of the Fukushima Prefecture village of Katsurao.
For 11 years, the district had been designated as off-limits in the wake of the meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s nearby Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
With the evacuation order lifted for much of the village, it aims to restart as a community through the building of an exchange facility and supporting the resumption of farming.
But the joy of returning to their old lives is tempered with worries about an uncertain future. Only two families actually returned to Noyuki on the first day, and one resident said that restarting life after a decade away leaves him with “80% unease.”
In Katsurao as a whole, the number of residents actually living there now is less than 40% of the 1,300 or so registered on the village rolls.
Katsurao Mayor Hiroshi Shinoki, standing to the side of the barricade when it was opened at 8 a.m. on Sunday, declared, “We’ve entered a new stage, but also a new start.”
Located among the Abukuma mountain range, Katsurao encompasses a total area of about 84 square kilometers, of which more than 80% is covered by forest. In June 2016, the evacuation order was lifted for much of the village — with Noyuki, which had been designated as a so-called difficult-to-return zone because of high radiation levels, among the exceptions.
Decontamination work has since lowered radiation levels below the criteria for lifting the order, and the 0.95-square-kilometer section of the district where residences are located opened Sunday.
Noyuki is located deep in the mountains in the northeastern part of the village. The village has set a five-year target of having around 80 people return to live in areas where evacuation orders have been lifted. But, the 11 years that have passed weigh heavily on small remote communities like Noyuki, and many residents have already rebuilt their lives and set down roots in areas where they evacuated.
Fujio Hanzawa was one who decided to return to his hometown. “I had been waiting for this day to come,” the 69-year-old said as he sipped tea on Sunday morning, looking out the window of the living room in his rebuilt house. “I want to take it easy while feeling the change of the seasons.”
After the rain that fell let up in the evening, he went out and worked for a bit in his rice paddy, then took a walk around the community before returning home.
Born in Noyuki as the eldest son of a farm family, Hanzawa grew up being told by his parents that it was his responsibility to defend his nest. Even while working as a village civil servant, he grew rice and vegetables and watched over the land that had been the family’s since the Meiji era (1868-1912).
At the time of the nuclear accident, Hanzawa was involved in helping evacuees, and he and his family had to relocate several times around the prefecture. About six years ago, when there was no prospect in sight of the evacuation order being lifted in Noyuki, Hanzawa built a cozy one-story house about 40 kilometers away in Koriyama City.
As his mother, who needs nursing care, lives in Koriyama, he plans to split his time between Katsurao and Koriyama.
In anticipation of the lifting of the evacuation order, test rice cultivation began in the Noyuki district last year. “It’s a thrill to plant the seedlings and harvest the rice,” said Hanzawa, who is head of the local agricultural cooperative.
However, most of the cooperative’s members “commute” from homes in evacuation sites. The members of the two families that returned this time, including Hanzawa’s, are all elderly.
Can they help each other in times of emergency? Can they resume careers in farming?
“Comparing my happiness and my uneasiness, I’m 80% uneasy,” Hanzawa said. “I want to take my time to determine what I can do. I hope seeing me will help persuade people to return to the village.”
11 years after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, residents angered by the retreat from decontamination of the entire area: “It is only natural to clean up the mess and return it.
February 19, 2022
It will soon be 11 years since the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Many people who have left their homes in areas where it is difficult to return are still uncertain about their future. Last year, the government announced a new policy to decontaminate only the areas around the homes of those who wish to return to their homes in areas where the lifting of evacuation orders was not foreseeable. This is a step backward from the previous policy of decontaminating the entire area, and the residents are angry, saying, “They won’t decontaminate unless we decide to return? (Natsuko Katayama)
In August 2021, the government decided to partially lift the evacuation order for the remaining difficult-to-return areas in seven cities, towns, and villages in Fukushima Prefecture by decontaminating homes and roads by 2029 in response to requests from people who want to return to their homes and live there. The government plans to begin decontamination in fiscal 2024, but has yet to decide what to do with the homes and land of those who do not wish to return. The “designated recovery and revitalization zone,” where decontamination was prioritized within the zone, accounts for only about 8% of the area that is difficult to return to.
The trees around our house and in the fields have grown so thick that we can’t do anything about them… Every time Kazuo Kubota, 70, and his wife Taiko, 66, who have been living as evacuees in Fukushima City, return to their home in the difficult-to-return area of Namie Town in Fukushima Prefecture, they sigh.
Their house is located in the Hatsuki district of Tsushima, Namie Town, about 30 kilometers northwest of the nuclear power plant. The fields are overgrown with trees that can grow up to three meters high. We can’t even cut the kaya with a sickle anymore,” said Kazuo. The plastic greenhouse for leaf tobacco is now just a skeleton, with thick branches sticking up from below. His house was also ransacked by wild boars and other animals, and he gave up clearing it.
Still, Taiko feels relieved when she returns to Hatsuke. Surrounded by nature, she feels the four seasons. Horseradish grows in the stream beside my house, and salamanders live there. I want to return here as soon as possible.
He hopes to have the area around his house decontaminated and the house demolished, the land cleared, and the house rebuilt so that he and Kazuo’s mother, Tsuya (95), can return to the area together.
If we could have lived in Hatsuke, our family would have been much closer,” said Taiko. Before the nuclear accident, the family used to go everywhere together, but after the evacuation, they were separated.
Tsuya, who used to work in the fields early in the morning and take care of her favorite flowers, began to stay at home more and more often and developed dementia. The family became increasingly strained and quarrelsome. With no one to talk to about her care, Taiko developed alopecia areata and continued to go to the hospital.
In the same town of Tsushima, there is a “Specific Reconstruction and Regeneration Center Area (Reconstruction Center)” where decontamination is being carried out ahead of time, covering 1.6% of the total area of Tsushima. On the other hand, Hatsuke, located to the west of the Reconstruction Center, has relatively low levels of radiation, but has not been decontaminated except along the main road.
When Taiko sees places in Namie that have been decontaminated over and over again, she feels her guts boil over.
If the area had been decontaminated even once, I would have been motivated to do my best,” she said. Why is it that all other areas are decontaminated before being sent home, but the hard-to-return area, which has the highest radiation dose, is not decontaminated until the residents decide to return?
His eldest son is said to be saying, “I want to start a farm in Hatsuke after I finish raising my child. However, there is a strong concern that decontamination limited to the living areas of those who wish to return to the area will result in “unevenness” and many contaminated areas will remain.
That is why Kazuo is so angry. “I still want to go back here. My parents cultivated this land and passed it down to me. I want to leave it to the next generation. If we pollute the land, it is only natural to clean it up and return it.”
”Eleven years have passed. I want to go home. I want to go home. I’ll do whatever I can to return to Hatsuke and die,” Tsuya said, but then he said, “I’ve given up. I’ve given up.”
Taiko said as if she were praying. “I don’t know how long we will be able to move. I want the decontamination work to be done as soon as possible.”
A lonely evening at home for Fukushima man retracing past
December 11, 2021
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture–Settling in for the night, Mitsuhide Ikeda poured sake into a glass and raised a toast to framed photos of his deceased parents: “I finally made it back home. Let’s drink together.”
The last time the 60-year-old cattle farmer spent a night at home was 10 years and nine months ago.
Large parts of this town that co-hosts the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were declared “difficult-to-return” zones after the triple meltdown triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Ikeda’s parents died after the nuclear accident.
The Shimonogami district where the Ikeda’s home is located lies about five kilometers southwest of the Fukushima nuclear facility.
As part of efforts to rebuild the areas around the plant, the government recently began letting residents return home for an overnight stay as a means of preparing for the day when they can do so permanently.
Unsurprisingly, concerns about radiation levels are still on the minds of many former residents. His wife, Mikiko, 64, refused to accompany him for that reason. Ikeda was the only individual in his neighborhood who took up the offer to return home.
Dangerously high radiation levels registered immediately after the disaster that made it impossible for anybody to live in the area have gradually fallen. The government spent vast sums on the time-consuming process of decontaminating topsoil as a way of reducing radiation levels.
It intends to lift the evacuation order for some parts of Okuma in spring. That would be the first step for setting the stage for residents to return home.
The temporary overnight stay program began in Katsurao on Nov. 30 and is gradually being expanded to five other municipalities, including Okuma.
A check for radiation in November on the Ikeda plot found one spot with a reading of 3.8 microsieverts per hour, above the level deemed safe enough for the government to lift the evacuation order.
Even though the Environment Ministry is planning additional decontamination work, Mikiko was unsettled by the reading and concluded it would be impossible to pick up the threads of their past life in Okuma.
Other changes in the close to 11 years since the nuclear disaster make a return to Okuma unrealistic.
While a large supermarket, hospital and bank branch remain standing in the town, there is no indication when those facilities might resume operations.
In the interim, the Ikedas plan to commute to Okuma from the community they moved to as evacuees.
The overnight stay program is restricted to an area close to what was once the bustling center of the town. About 7,600 residents lived there before the nuclear disaster.
The town government envisions that as many as 2,600 people will reside in the town within five years of the evacuation order being finally lifted if plans proceed to rebuild social infrastructure.
But the writing is on the wall for many people.
According to the Environment Ministry, about 1,150 homes in the district had been torn down as of the end of September.
And as of Dec. 8, only 31 residents in 15 households applied for the overnight stays.
Even Ikeda admits that Okuma will likely never return to the community he knew before 2011.
“Too much time has passed,” he said.
Last Fukushima town to reopen welcomes back its first residents
Three people have moved back to Futaba, which aims to attract about 2,000 over the next five years
February 16, 2022
Late last month, Yoichi Yatsuda slept in his own home for the first time in more than a decade.
As a resident of Futaba, a town in the shadow of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, there was a time when simply spending the night in his family home had seemed an impossible dream.
The 70-year-old was one of tens of thousands of people who were forced to flee and start a life in nuclear limbo when the plant had a triple meltdown in March 2011.
As Japan reeled after the earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, Yatsuda and his wife, Analisa, and an estimated 160,000 other residents of Fukushima prefecture packed a few belongings and left, believing they would be back within weeks.
“If you had told me at the beginning that I would have to wait this long to come home, I would have given up straight away,” said Yatsuda, a retired professional keirin cyclist who has lived in more than 10 places since the disaster.
Today, the couple are attempting to rebuild their lives in Futaba, the last of dozens of towns and villages to have ended their status as no-go zones after radiation levels were deemed low enough for people to return.
They made periodic visits to repair and refurbish their house, which was once overrun by wild boar, and have been allowed to stay overnight on a trial basis since late January. Local authorities hope more people will follow when the evacuation order is officially lifted in parts of the town later this year.
Yatsuda’s homecoming has been bittersweet. Before the disaster, Futaba was home to about 7,000 people. Just 15 residents applied to take part in the trial, and to date only three, including Yasuda and his wife, have moved back permanently.
Many of his former neighbours have found jobs and built new lives in other parts of the region and across Japan. In a poll by the reconstruction agency, just 10% of Futaba’s former residents said they would like to return, while 60% had no plans to go back.
Those with young children are the most reluctant to contemplate returning to a town that has no schools, shops, restaurants, hospitals or public services. Those with homes that survived the tsunami – which killed 50 people in Futaba – have had them demolished, leaving the town dotted with empty plots of land.
Yatsuda’s only neighbour – although he lives a short drive away – is Yasushi Hosozawa, who lives in a tiny room above a parking space and a shed filled with his beloved fishing rods.
“I was born here, and I always felt that if I was ever given the chance to return, then I would take it,” said Hosozawa, whose wife and son run a restaurant in another Fukushima town farther inland. “I love fishing and have my own boat moored here … that was a big factor in deciding to come back.”
The 78-year-old, a former plumber and cafeteria owner, returned late last month to find that his water supply had yet to be reconnected, meaning he had to drive to the railway station to use the toilet. “There used to be lots of people here,” he said, pointing at patches of grass where his neighbours’ homes once stood. “But look at it now … it’s a wasteland.”
Like many Fukushima residents, Yatsuda has little positive to say about Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the company that operates the nuclear plant, where decommissioning work is expected to last decades. “I believed Tepco when they said that something like the 2011 disaster could never happen,” he said. “It’s all about trust. When I returned to Fukushima 40 years ago, I was assured that this was a safe place to live.”
While no one expects life in Futaba to ever return to its pre-disaster normality, local officials believe more people will resettle. The town has set a target of attracting about 2,000 people, including new residents, over the next five years, and new public housing for 25 households will open in October.
“Very few people want to come back, so can you really say that the town has recovered?” said Yatsuda, who will plant flowers in his garden this spring and, he hopes, reopen the gym behind his home where he trained aspiring keirin racers before the disaster.
“The problem is people can’t see physical signs of recovery with their own eyes. Unless the authorities do more to create jobs and attract new residents, I can’t see things improving much in the next 10 years.”
The stress of life as an evacuee has taken a toll on his mental and physical health, but he has no regrets about returning to a town that, its three current residents aside, still resembles a nuclear ghost town. “This is our house. This is where we played with our children when they were little,” he said.
While the couple have no concerns about radiation, they have accepted that, for now, they must travel outside the town to spend time with their eight grandchildren.
“We used to enjoy seeing friends and playing with our grandchildren here,” said Analisa. “It would be great if younger families moved here … I desperately want to see and hear children again.”
Fukushima man returning home wants to tell sons about his ‘error’
February 14, 2022
FUTABA, Fukushima Prefecture–The town where Yuji Onuma in his youth dreamed up a slogan promoting the “bright future” that nuclear power promised remains deserted and a shell of its former self.
But Onuma, 45, is now hoping to pass along a different message to his sons of the dangers of nuclear power, as he plans to continue visiting his former home after more than a decade away.
Evacuees from this town, cohost to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, are being allowed to stay overnight at their homes for the first time in 11 years since the nuclear disaster.
The temporary stays are ahead of a full return envisaged in the limited area of Futaba in summer this year. Futaba is the only municipality where all residents remain evacuated.
OVERNIGHT STAY REKINDLES MEMORIES
An Asahi Shimbun reporter accompanied Onuma, his wife and their two sons as they returned home from Jan. 29 through 30 on a “preparatory overnight stay” program that started on Jan. 20.
Around noon on Jan. 29, Onuma was in the Konokusa district of Futaba, 6 kilometers to the northwest of the nuclear plant, with his wife and two sons.
The district is designated a “difficult-to-return” zone, where an evacuation order remains in place because of the high levels of radiation from the triple meltdown at the plant, and is outside the area for the preparatory stay program.
Houses in the district were seen with entrances closed off with barricades.
“Damage from the nuclear disaster is not always easy to see, but I still want you to know something about it,” he told his family as they walked along a street.
Onuma pointed to a barbershop that he used to go to as a young boy. He also pointed to the home of a classmate and a road he would take to go to a driving school.
“There were people’s livelihoods in every single one of these houses before we were evacuated,” he told his family members in the midst of the totally deserted landscape.
“Oh!”
The abrupt shout came from Yusei, the oldest of Onuma’s sons. Right before the eyes of the 10-year-old was a house that was flattened by the massive tremor of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which triggered a tsunami and the nuclear disaster, on March 11, 2011.
A rainwater drainage pipe covered with moss was seen lying on the ground. A tree was spotted growing through an opening between the tiles of the house’s roof.
Difficult-to-return zones account for more than 90 percent of the landmass of Futaba, where no one has yet returned to live. Ties with fellow townspeople have grown so thin that Onuma learned about the deaths of his neighbors and a classmate only through an information bulletin of the town government.
“It’s so sad,” Onuma said. “I could have offered incense for them if only it had not been for the nuclear disaster.”
The preparatory overnight stay program started in the area designated a “specified reconstruction and revitalization base,” where the evacuation order is expected to be lifted in June.
In the designated area, many houses have been demolished. Onuma’s home stands alone, surrounded by empty lots.
Onuma also had planned to have his home demolished, as no elementary school or junior high school was likely to be reopened any time soon.
What the youngest of his sons said changed his mind. Onuma quoted 8-year-old Yusho as saying, when the family was visiting Futaba last March, “I like Futaba. I want to come to Futaba again.”
Encouraged by his son’s remarks, Onuma in April began improving the living conditions at his home, including tidying it up and decontaminating it.
He said he hopes to keep returning here with his family during summer vacations and on other occasions so he can see how the community will continue changing in the future.
ARCHITECT OF FUTABA’S ONCE PROUD SLOGAN
An overhead signboard once greeted visitors to a central shopping street in Futaba’s downtown area. It carried a slogan saying, “Nuclear power is the energy of a bright future,” which Onuma submitted when he was an elementary school pupil to win a local competition.
Being the author of the iconic slogan was, for some time following the nuclear disaster, a source of distress for Onuma.
He once thought that atomic energy could be entrusted to provide people’s power needs for the future. However, in the twinkling of an eye, the nuclear accident changed the lives of so many people.
Onuma said he has a different view of nuclear power now.
“I have to tell my children everything, including my own ‘error,’ so the same thing will never be repeated,” Onuma said.
He planted pansies, which can mean “remembrance” in the language of flowers, on a flower bed outside his home.
“I hope to convey pre-disaster remembrances of Futaba to my children,” he said. “And I also hope to go on creating new ‘remembrances’ in this town, where the clocks have stood still for 10 years and 10 months and counting.”
EVACUATION ORDER MAY BE LIFTED IN JUNE
Futaba was home to 7,140 residents when the quake and tsunami struck. The town remains totally evacuated due to the nuclear disaster that resulted, and its residents are taking shelter across 42 of Japan’s 47 prefectures.
Part of Futaba’s difficult-to-return zones has been designated a specified reconstruction and revitalization base. The town government is hoping to have the evacuation order lifted in the reconstruction base area in June.
The preparatory overnight stay program, which allows evacuees who want to return to spend the night at their homes in advance to prepare for their lives there, started in Futaba on Jan. 20.
Many townspeople of Futaba, in the meantime, have rebuilt their lives in other communities to which they have evacuated. Only 19 individuals from 13 households had applied for a preparatory overnight stay by Jan. 27, with Onuma’s two sons being the only minors among them.
The town government has set the goal of having 2,000 residents, including new settlers, five years after the evacuation order is lifted.
When parties including the Reconstruction Agency and the town government took a survey last year, however, some 60 percent of Futaba’s residents said they had decided against returning, and only about 10 percent said they wished to return.
Trickle of residents return to Fukushima’s last deserted town
Jan. 21, 2022
TOKYO – Five former residents of the last remaining uninhabited town near Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant returned on Thursday to live there for the first time since the 2011 disaster.
Following extensive decontamination, numerous areas around the plant in northeast Japan have been declared safe after a huge earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown over a decade ago.
TV footage showed the returnees inspecting the buildings, with one testing a tap outside his house.
“It’s out! This is the first time in 10 years and 11 months that running water comes out,” he said.
Futaba, whose population of around 5,600 was forced to flee over radiation fears, had been the final deserted municipality in the Fukushima region.
But restrictions were lifted in a small part of the town in March 2020 and the government is preparing to lift the cordon on a wider area later this year.
A local official told AFP that five people from four households are returning to live in Futaba on a trial basis, the first of just 15 people who have applied to a scheme, working towards a permanent return to the town.
The group had already been back to visit Futaba, but Thursday marks the first time they will stay overnight.
They can live there as part of the trial until at least June, when the wider cordon is expected to be lifted and their residence can become permanent, the official said.
The scheme “aims to ensure that residents will be able to live without problems, by, for example, checking if the sewers function well and there are facilities to support everyday life”, a cabinet office official in charge of supporting Fukushima residents told AFP.
More than 18,400 people died or remain missing after the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 which sparked the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The government has undertaken an extensive decontamination programme in the region, literally scraping layers of topsoil, among other methods to remove radiation.
It has gradually declared areas safe for residents to return, with just 2.4 percent of the prefecture still covered by no-go orders as of last year.
But in some places, evacuees have been reluctant to return even after measures are lifted, worried about persistent radiation or fully resettled in other places.
Fukushima town prepares for return of residents
Jan. 4, 2022
Tuesday marked the first business day of 2022 in Japan. Officials in Fukushima Prefecture’s Futaba Town are planning to welcome residents back later this year.
The town’s residents have not returned since an accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant forced them to evacuate. Part of the plant is located in the town. The accident occurred in March 2011. Futaba is the only municipality that evacuees have not returned to. The town had a population of about 7,000 before the disaster.
After years of decontamination efforts, the residents are expected to be allowed to return to some areas, starting in June.
Futaba Town officials held a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the first day of the year. The event took place at a town office in Iwaki City. Iwaki is located about 60 kilometers south of the center of Futaba Town.
Futaba Town Mayor Izawa Shiro told about 40 officials that this is going to be a very busy year, as the residents are expected to return.
Izawa said he will be on the frontlines of the town’s reconstruction efforts. He also asked the officials to join him.
Beginning on January 20, residents will be permitted to stay overnight in the town, in order to start preparing for their return. The evacuation order is expected to be lifted in June.
A lonely evening at home for Fukushima man retracing past
Unsurprisingly, concerns about radiation levels are still on the minds of many former residents. His wife, Mikiko, 64, refused to accompany him for that reason. Ikeda was the only individual in his neighborhood who took up the offer to return home.
December 11, 2021
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture–Settling in for the night, Mitsuhide Ikeda poured sake into a glass and raised a toast to framed photos of his deceased parents: “I finally made it back home. Let’s drink together.”
The last time the 60-year-old cattle farmer spent a night at home was 10 years and nine months ago.
Large parts of this town that co-hosts the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were declared “difficult-to-return” zones after the triple meltdown triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Ikeda’s parents died after the nuclear accident.
The Shimonogami district where the Ikeda’s home is located lies about five kilometers southwest of the Fukushima nuclear facility.
As part of efforts to rebuild the areas around the plant, the government recently began letting residents return home for an overnight stay as a means of preparing for the day when they can do so permanently.
Unsurprisingly, concerns about radiation levels are still on the minds of many former residents. His wife, Mikiko, 64, refused to accompany him for that reason. Ikeda was the only individual in his neighborhood who took up the offer to return home.
Dangerously high radiation levels registered immediately after the disaster that made it impossible for anybody to live in the area have gradually fallen. The government spent vast sums on the time-consuming process of decontaminating topsoil as a way of reducing radiation levels.
It intends to lift the evacuation order for some parts of Okuma in spring. That would be the first step for setting the stage for residents to return home.
The temporary overnight stay program began in Katsurao on Nov. 30 and is gradually being expanded to five other municipalities, including Okuma.
A check for radiation in November on the Ikeda plot found one spot with a reading of 3.8 microsieverts per hour, above the level deemed safe enough for the government to lift the evacuation order.
Even though the Environment Ministry is planning additional decontamination work, Mikiko was unsettled by the reading and concluded it would be impossible to pick up the threads of their past life in Okuma.
Other changes in the close to 11 years since the nuclear disaster make a return to Okuma unrealistic.
While a large supermarket, hospital and bank branch remain standing in the town, there is no indication when those facilities might resume operations.
In the interim, the Ikedas plan to commute to Okuma from the community they moved to as evacuees.
The overnight stay program is restricted to an area close to what was once the bustling center of the town. About 7,600 residents lived there before the nuclear disaster.
The town government envisions that as many as 2,600 people will reside in the town within five years of the evacuation order being finally lifted if plans proceed to rebuild social infrastructure.
But the writing is on the wall for many people.
According to the Environment Ministry, about 1,150 homes in the district had been torn down as of the end of September.
And as of Dec. 8, only 31 residents in 15 households applied for the overnight stays.
Even Ikeda admits that Okuma will likely never return to the community he knew before 2011.
“Too much time has passed,” he said.
Fukushima residents demand stricter decontamination to enable safe return
Residents of the Yonomori district in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, march with a portable shrine in April 2007.
January 22, 2021
“Will Tomioka go back to how it was before?” Looking at the results of a survey, Kazuyoshi Kamata, vice head of the Yonomori Station northern administrative district in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, reflects on his hometown and its reconstruction following the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant triple meltdown in 2011.
In the surveys conducted by the Reconstruction Agency last fall, Tomioka residents listed important conditions in deciding whether they would return to their hometown or not, such as the reopening and construction of new medical, welfare and elder care facilities as well as the resumption and improvement of shopping complexes.
One condition that stands out among the list, though, is a further reduction in the amount of radiation, which 1 in 3 residents raised as an important issue. The government has been decontaminating specially designated areas, where it was once thought that settlement was limited for good but which can be reopened for residents. It has set the annual radiation exposure limit to be lower than 20 millisieverts as one of the standards to lift the evacuation orders.
Now that nearly 10 years have passed since the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, Kamata stressed the need for the government to decontaminate the area under stricter standards so that residents will feel safer returning to their hometown.
“In order to maintain people’s feelings for their hometowns, I want (the government) to stick to the stance of rebuilding our Tomioka in the form that we all want, including restoring the (basic living) environment.”
Tomioka’s Yonomori district used to be bustling with an increasing population, said Kamata, adding that younger generations supported the local community by planning events utilizing a famous row of cherry blossom trees and developing agriculture centered around rice crops.
“The district was a place full of energy where everyone, regardless of generation, was involved in making the local community,” said Kamata.
At the Yonomori cherry blossom festival held in spring, for example, smiles spread among residents as children strolled around, and the event also featured a mikoshi, or Shinto palanquin, from Otoshi Shrine.
The government is also doing its part in reconstructing the specially designated area in Tomioka by establishing zones focused on revitalizing businesses and agriculture. With creating agricultural corporations and making use of tourism resources such as roadside cherry blossom trees as the two main pillars, the government is working to attract about 1,600 people to live there, which is 40% of the population before the accident.
In the meantime, residents have been raising concerns about the 20 millisieverts condition, demanding a higher standard and more decontamination. In places that have recorded higher radiation levels, it is expected there will be damage from harmful rumors about things including tourism and agriculture.
“Without people, reconstruction would not begin. Creating conditions to invite more people without concerns is of utmost importance,” said Kamata, arguing that alongside other areas, restoring the living environment, including decontamination with the aim of lowering the annual radiation exposure to 1 millisevert or less, will be needed for future generations to live in Yonomori.
“Once the evacuation order is lifted, I want the local community to regain its connections within (the district),” said Kamata, hoping to take on a role of handing down the district’s traditions and way of life, as well as traditional scenery, to younger generations once he returns. As a vice-head of the administrative district, though, Kamata also intends to communicate crucial issues to the local government while residing in the area.
The lifting of the evacuation order in the specially designated area is expected in the spring of 2023, 12 years after the order was first issued.
“Without tackling issues such as restoring the living environment and infrastructure, as well as decommissioning of the Fukushima No.1 plant in a diligent manner, people won’t come back,” said Kamata. Now he hopes the government will share his passion for the hometown’s rebuilding.
This section features topics and issues covered by the Fukushima Minpo, the prefecture’s largest newspaper. The original article was published Jan. 12.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/01/22/national/fukushima-decontaminating-town/
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Fukushima, the impossible return to the villages of the former evacuation zone: the example of Iitate
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Autres articles de l’auteure à consulter ici :
https://cnrs.academia.edu/C%C3%A9cileAsanumaBrice
Few return to Fukushima schools after evacuation lifted
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