Fukushima disaster: Tepco to pay couple in landmark damages case
“A court in Japan has ordered the operator of the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant to compensate a couple who fled radiation, even though they lived outside the evacuation zone”
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) will pay 30m yen ($265,000; £185,00) for financial losses and poor health.
It is thought to be the first time Tepco has been found liable for people outside the mandatory evacuation area.
In 2011 the plant suffered multiple meltdowns after a quake and tsunami.
After that people who lived within 20km (12 miles) of the plant were ordered to evacuate, but thousands of others voluntarily left their homes and businesses over fears of radiation
Analysts say Thursday’s ruling could pave the way for many more compensation claims from such evacuees.
Depressed and stigmatised
In April 2014 some residents started to return to their homes in the exclusion zone, but many areas remain ghost towns with their former residents in temporary housing.
The sum awarded to the couple, who have not been named but are in their 40s, is also far greater than the 11m yen proposed by a government-established centre to mediate settlements for compensation cases.
According to the written submission, the husband became depressed and developed pleurisy after the evacuation and their children were stigmatised for their association with the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Tepco has already been embroiled in a number of compensation claims. In 2011, the government ordered Tokyo Electric to pay 1m yen to every family within 30km of the plant.
EDITORIAL: Extent of suffering key to compensating Fukushima evacuees
The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on March 12, 2011, the day after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck
An estimated 100,000 or so people are still living as evacuees as a consequence of the catastrophic accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.
This figure comprises about 18,000 evacuees who acted on their own initiative and fled from the 23 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture that are outside government-designated evacuation zones. They include people who lived in areas that are not covered by the government-supported compensation program.
The circumstances of their decisions to leave their hometowns are more or less similar to those of the people who fled from areas covered by the evacuation orders. Many of them were concerned about the health of their children or found it difficult to continue their businesses in the affected areas.
But compensation paid to these “voluntary evacuees” by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the crippled nuclear plant, ranging from 120,000 yen to 720,000 yen ($1,000 to $6,400) per person, was far smaller than the amounts received by residents of the evacuation areas.
On Feb. 18, a local court handed down a ruling that may open the door to greater relief for these evacuees.
The Kyoto District Court ordered TEPCO to pay about 30 million yen to a man and his wife for mental illnesses the husband suffered following their “voluntary evacuation” from the calamitous accident. The man, who is in his 40s, together with his wife and three children, filed a lawsuit against the utility seeking 180 million yen in damages, claiming he became unable to work because of mental and physical problems caused by the effects of the nuclear disaster.
Concerned about the possibility of his children’s exposure to radiation, the man decided to leave his home with his family. After they fled, the family stayed at hotels and lived in rented accommodation outside the prefecture.
As he had to live in unfamiliar surroundings, the man developed insomnia and depression. The district court acknowledged that the nuclear accident was the cause of these health problems.
Compensation payments to such voluntary evacuees are based on guidelines set by a central government panel addressing disputes over compensation for nuclear accidents. The guidelines say compensation payments should be based on three factors: increases in living expenses due to evacuation, mental damages and expenses incurred in fleeing and returning home.
TEPCO had paid a total of 2.92 million yen to the family based on the guidelines, but the family claimed the compensation was insufficient.
In its ruling, the district court argued that the guidelines only show “items and scope of damages that can be classified according to type.”
The ruling showed the view that damages with a causal link to the accident should be compensated for according to the circumstances involved. The basic principle for compensation espoused by the ruling is that the amounts of damages to be paid should be determined according to the circumstances of individual cases instead of being uniform and fixed.
Compensation payments to victims of the nuclear disaster, such as evacuees and affected businesses, come out of a 9 trillion yen treasure chest provided by the government to TEPCO.
With its management priority placed on its own early recovery from the consequences of the accident, however, the electric utility has been trying to terminate the payments as soon as possible and keep the amounts within the framework set by the guidelines. The company’s compensation policy has been criticized for failing to make the benefit of residents a primary consideration.
About 10,000 evacuees are involved as plaintiffs in damages suits filed with 21 district courts and branches around the country. This points to the high level of discontent with the compensation payments that have been paid out.
TEPCO should respond with appropriate sincerity to the demands of victims entitled to compensation and review its compensation policy and procedures.
The courts that are hearing these cases should hand down rulings that give sufficient consideration to the plight of the victims.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201602200024
TEPCO ordered to pay couple who ‘voluntarily’ fled Fukushima after nuclear disaster
KYOTO–The Kyoto District Court ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co. to pay 30.46 million yen ($267,000) to a couple for mental illnesses the husband suffered following their “voluntary evacuation” from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The district court’s unprecedented ruling on Feb. 18 said the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant contributed to the insomnia and depression the husband developed after his family fled Fukushima Prefecture in 2011.
Although the plaintiffs did not live in a government-designated evacuation zone around the plant, the court said evacuating voluntarily is “appropriate when the hazard from the accident and conflicting information remained.”
The ruling was the first to award damages to voluntary evacuees, according to a private group of lawyers involved in lawsuits against TEPCO and the central government over the nuclear disaster.
The man, who is in his 40s, his wife and three children were seeking a total of 180 million yen against TEPCO.
According to the ruling, the husband and wife had managed a company that operated restaurants in Fukushima Prefecture. The family fled their home a few days after the nuclear accident started in March 2011 and moved to Kyoto in may that year.
The court acknowledged the man suffered severe mental stress because he had to leave his hometown and quit his position as representative of the company.
TEPCO had paid a total of 2.92 million yen to the family based on the central government’s compensation standards for residents who evacuated on their own.
The utility argued that its payments were appropriate because they were based on guidelines set by a central government panel addressing disputes over compensation for nuclear accidents. The guidelines dictate uniform and fixed payments for residents who left areas outside designated evacuation zones.
However, the district court said these guidelines “simply show a list of damages that can be broken down and the scope of damages.”
The court concluded that compensation amounts should instead reflect the personal circumstances of evacuees in nuclear accident-related cases.
It ordered TEPCO to compensate the couple for the period through August 2012, when radiation levels dropped to a certain level and information on the nuclear accident became more stable and accurate.
Specifically, the court said the husband and wife are entitled to part of the monthly remuneration of 400,000 yen to 760,000 yen they had received each for having to suspend their business following the nuclear accident.
But the court dismissed the damage claims of the couple’s three children, saying their compensation was already covered by TEPCO’s payments.
About 10,000 evacuees are involved in 21 damages suits filed in Fukushima Prefecture, Tokyo, Osaka and elsewhere.
An estimated 18,000 people from Fukushima Prefecture are still living in voluntary evacuation, according to the prefectural government.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201602190066
Tepco to compensate couple for damages from voluntary Fukushima evacuation
The Kyoto District Court has ordered the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to pay about ¥30 million to a couple for economic and health damage caused by their decision to voluntarily flee the radiation in Fukushima Prefecture after the disaster.
The husband lost his job and developed a mental illness during the ordeal.
This is believed to be the first time a court has found Tokyo Electric Power Co. liable for damages stemming from a voluntary evacuation after the plant’s triple core meltdown, which was triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011.
The ruling is expected to affect similar lawsuits filed by voluntary evacuees across the country.
According to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, as of the end of October, some 18,000 people in 7,000 households who lived outside the designated evacuation zone remain evacuated outside Fukushima.
The sum awarded is also far more than the ¥11 million proposed by a government-established center that mediates out-of-court settlements for nuclear accident compensation cases. The settlement program is called ADR.
The center is for people who are not covered by Tepco’s direct compensation scheme. The ADR program is also aimed at reaching conclusions more quickly than through Tepco. Some 18,000 applications for settlement have been made, out of which 13,000 cases have been resolved. But the amount awarded through ADR tends to be small, experts say.
Hideaki Omori, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the ruling “set an example that there is no need to give up when evacuees do not feel satisfied with the sum” presented by the dispute resolution center.
The couple — who had moved twice before settling down in the city of Kyoto in May 2011 — had sought ¥180 million in damages.
The plaintiffs, who are in their 40s, expressed relief after the ruling.
“We are relieved that we will be financially alright for a while, but we still can’t imagine our future life,” they said in a statement released through their lawyers.
According to the written complaint, the husband became unable to work because he developed pleurisy (a respiratory disease) and depression after the evacuation. Their children also experienced emotional distress from being harshly treated by classmates because they came from Fukushima Prefecture.
The court also showed for the first time that such compensation should be extended for evacuation through the end of August 2012, rejecting claims for damages after that.
The court cited the gradual fall in radiation levels in the city of Koriyama, where the couple originally lived before the disaster, concluding that from September 2012 on, the levels were not serious enough to damage health.
After three reactors experienced meltdowns during the disaster, residents within 20 km of the nuclear plant and some areas beyond were ordered to evacuate. Many others also fled at their own discretion and remain in temporary housing.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/18/national/crime-legal/first-tepco-told-compensate-couple-damage-stemming-voluntary-fukushima-evacuation/#.VsbzN-bzN_l
Court orders TEPCO to compensate evacuees
Court orders TEPCO to compensate evacuees
A court has ordered Tokyo Electric Power Company to compensate a family who chose to flee after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The Kyoto District Court issued the ruling on Thursday and told the utility to pay about 30 million yen, or over 260 thousand dollars.
The plaintiffs evacuated from Fukushima to Kyoto Prefecture and elsewhere on a voluntary basis.
They were seeking compensation of nearly 1.6 million dollars. They say they could not work since the accident due to insomnia, depression and other stress-related health problems.
The court said it’s reasonable that the plaintiffs voluntarily evacuated, as information on the danger of the unprecedented disaster had not been revealed.
The court also said the plaintiffs had to evacuate from familiar surroundings and that this caused considerable stress and illnesses.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20160218_31.html
TEPCO ordered to pay damages for voluntary evacuation from Fukushima
KYOTO — A court has ruled that the operator of the disaster-struck Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex is liable for damages stemming from voluntary evacuation by residents in Fukushima Prefecture, believed to be the first ruling of its kind.
The Kyoto District Court on Thursday ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) to pay about 30 million yen in damages to a couple in which the husband lost his job and developed mental illness after the family voluntarily fled in the wake of nuclear disaster triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The sum the court awarded to the couple in their 40s is also much bigger than the 11 million yen proposed by a government-established center to mediate out-of-court settlements for nuclear accident compensation.
The plaintiffs said the ruling “set an example that there is no need to give up when evacuees do not feel satisfied with the sum” presented by the dispute resolution center. The couple, who have evacuated to the city of Kyoto, sought about 180 million yen from TEPCO in the lawsuit filed in 2013.
According to the ruling, the husband was managing a company before he and his family fled Fukushima in the wake of the nuclear disaster. The husband then developed sleeping problems and suffered from depression before becoming unable to work around May 2011.
Presiding Judge Masayuki Miki determined that the nuclear accident “was one of the main reasons” that the husband suffered mental and other problems. He also found that the financial loss the couple faced was the consequence of the accident.
Of the amount TEPCO was ordered to pay, about 21 million yen in damages is associated with lost employment income and expenses due to evacuation, the ruling said.
Another 1.7 million yen is compensation for being “forced to move to a land with no ties with Fukushima Prefecture which they were familiar with,” the court said, adding that they “lost a stable life.”
During the triple reactor core meltdown disaster, residents living within 20 kilometers of the TEPCO nuclear plant and some areas beyond were ordered to evacuate. Many others also fled from their homes at their own discretion.
http://www.japantoday.com/smartphone/view/national/tepco-ordered-to-pay-damages-for-voluntary-evacuation-from-fukushima
Nearly 70,000 evacuees still living in shoddy temporary housing
Temporary housing in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture
Tens of thousands of evacuees from the earthquake and tsunami disaster in 2011 are still living in temporary shelters designed to last only two years.
Most of the 68,000 evacuees are from the hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.
Temporary prefabricated housing was erected hastily because so many people lost their homes and livelihoods in the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake and ensuing towering tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan.
Under the central government’s system to help victims of natural disasters, such prefabricated homes are to be used, in principle, for just two years.
The scale of the disaster led to delays in constructing more permanent public housing for those made homeless.
Many of the communities devastated by the tsunami in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures are trying to build new public housing units for disaster victims on higher ground, but that is proving difficult because the coastal areas are so flat.
In the case of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, all evacuees had left temporary housing and were relocated in 25,000 public housing units just five years after the disaster.
It has been estimated that 29,501 public housing units need to be built for the victims of the 2011 disaster. But as of July, only 11,000 units had been completed.
Officials say construction of all the needed public housing will likely not be completed until fiscal 2018.
Many of those still living in the temporary housing units are senior citizens or those on low incomes who face difficulties in finding other housing on their own.
That is one reason there has only been a 40 percent decrease in the number of evacuees from the peak figure in March 2012. About 199,000 people are still living as evacuees.
About 10 percent of those in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures living in temporary housing either said they were unsure where they would go after leaving those units or local government officials could not confirm the intentions of the evacuees.
In Fukushima Prefecture, about 20,000 evacuees live in temporary housing units. Because nine local communities are still covered by evacuation orders due to the Fukushima nuclear accident that was triggered by the earthquake and tsunami disaster, about 70,000 residents are unable to return to their homes.
In a related development, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency updated its figures on the number of dead and missing from the 2011 disasters to 21,955 as of Sept. 1 against 18,554 on Sept 12, 2012. It said the number of fatalities includes those who died while living as evacuees.
Source: Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201509120035
3/11 evacuees’ refusal to vacate temporary housing causes reconstruction headache
SENDAI – At least 900 temporary housing units in 20 municipalities in the disaster-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima have not been vacated or demolished even though residents no longer have a dire need to stay in them, according to a survey.
If those dwellings are not razed, local governments cannot use the land to reconstruct their communities. But some residents have financial, emotional and other reasons preventing them from moving out, causing a headache for municipal officials.
The survey, released Wednesday, was of 46 municipalities that still provided rent-free temporary housing as of the end of July.
In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, which suffered the greatest tsunami damage on March 11, 2011, 451 temporary housing units need to be vacated, while the town of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, where evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear calamity stay, had about 160 such occupied units.
“I know it’s not good,” a man in his 20s said of the fact that he still lives in temporary housing despite having built a new home outside Ishinomaki.
He didn’t want to move out because he feared disaster would strike again, leaving him without a home.
“There are still many temporary housing units around and I don’t intend to move out anytime soon,” the man said. Ishinomaki still has about 7,200 such dwellings, the largest within the three disaster-hit prefectures.
In Sendai, where many permanent dwellings have been built, there were still 52 temporary units that need to be vacated, according to the survey.
A few families still live in temporary housing in Sendai despite the completion of a new public housing complex.
When a Sendai official called on them to ask why they hadn’t moved into the new complex, they said they were scared because the new housing had been built at a site that had been flooded by the tsunami.
The official didn’t pressure them further.
“But at some point, they need to move into permanent housing,” the official said.
The holdouts include elderly people living alone.
In one case in Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture, although the resident had moved to a nursing facility, there were no relatives who could help move the person’s belongings out of the temporary unit. In another case, an elderly resident died in a temporary unit and no one came forward to claim or dispose of the occupant’s belongings.
Financial constraints are also discouraging residents from moving out of temporary units.
An unemployed resident in Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, has been reluctant to move out of the rent-free housing because the new public housing charges rent. Kuji officials have been unable to persuade the resident to apply for social welfare.
There were other cases in which temporary housing units were not vacated because they were being used for unauthorized purposes, including for storage or as hotel-like accommodations.
“There was a case in which the resident built a home outside the town but used the temporary housing to go to work in Onagawa,” said an official of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture.
“Technically, they need to move out,” said one official. “But some cases are complicated and we have a hard time resolving them.”
Although municipalities have built new, permanent public housing complexes and have urged dwellers in temporary units to relocate to them, there are other hurdles in the way of razing or consolidating the remaining temporary units, including getting residents to relocate away from their current neighbors.
As of the end of July, there were still about 52,000 temporary evacuee housing units in Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi with an average vacancy rate of about 30 percent, and maintaining these communities and ensuring they remain secure are proving difficult.
Among the three prefectures, 10 municipalities have drawn up plans to reduce and consolidate the temporary housing units and seven are working out plans.
Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, has managed since spring to get more than 50 households to move to another temporary housing site, taking the time to explain the situation to each resident.
Officials at Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, held meetings in July and August to explain to temporary housing residents that some had to move to more consolidated units.
The city plans to reduce the temporary housing complexes from 92 to 23 by the end of 2017.
But the city has been forced to revise the plan because of delayed reconstruction work, which has irked residents of the temporary housing units who had hoped to move into better dwellings sooner rather than later.
Kyoji Nagaya, 62, had planned to build a new home on high ground, but construction won’t start for another six months or more. What he believed would be “temporary” housing turned out to be his residence for more than 4½ years.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve been disappointed,” said Nagaya. “I just have to wait.”
Source: Japan Times
Evacuation order lifted in Naraha, but few returning home
NARAHA, Fukushima Prefecture–Authorities lifted an evacuation order for 7,400 residents of this small town close to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Sept. 5, but very few homeowners have indicated they plan to return anytime soon.
Most of Naraha is located within the 20-kilometer-radius evacuation zone surrounding the stricken plant. Even though the evacuation order was lifted at midnight for the entire town, there are lingering fears of radiation contamination and concerns over a lack of essentials that would allow residents to pick up the threads of their former lives.
Of the seven Fukushima municipalities where all residents were ordered to evacuate after the triple meltdown triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, Naraha is the first one to have the evacuation order removed.
One evacuee who did return to his Naraha home was 68-year-old Fusao Sakamoto.
“Looking back, I feel my four-and-half-years as an evacuee was agonizingly long,” the landscape gardener said.
According to the town government, only 780 residents of 351 households, or just over 10 percent of the entire population, were registered at the end of August with the town’s program to allow them to stay overnight to prepare for permanent resettlement.
It was the third removal of an evacuation order among areas in the former no-go zone set within 20 km of the plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The number of residents allowed to return home is the largest with the lifting of the Naraha evacuation order. It is expected to set a precedent for large-scale resettlement of Fukushima evacuees.
Almost all Naraha residents fled from their hometown on March 12, the day after the nuclear disaster unfolded. The Fukushima plant is located in the nearby towns of Okuma and Futaba.
Naraha was initially designated as a no-entry zone, which in principle prohibited residents from entering the town. But it was redesignated as a zone being prepared for the lifting of the evacuation order in August 2012, which meant that residents were allowed to enter the town during daytime hours.
With decontamination work and restoration of basic infrastructure largely completed, evacuees were allowed to return home for long-term stays in April to prepare for permanent resettlement.
On Sept. 5, the town government, which relocated its functions to Iwaki and other municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, began to resume operations at the town office building in central Naraha.
“The clock has just started ticking again for our town with the lifting of the evacuation order after many months,” Mayor Yukiei Matsumoto told town officials. “We will accelerate efforts to achieve full recovery of the town.”
Source: Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201509050035
Fukushima: Japan ends evacuation of Naraha as ‘radiation at safe level’
The town’s 7,400 residents are allowed to return to their homes after the four-year-old evacuation order was lifted on Saturday
A man lights candles in Naraha, Japan. Residents of Naraha will return from Saturday to live in the town near the Fukushima nuclear power plant for the first time since the 2011 disaster.
The Japanese town of Naraha has lifted a 2011 evacuation order that sent all its 7,400 residents away after the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant was crippled by a tsunami that led to a meltdown and contamination.
Naraha was the first among seven municipalities forced to empty entirely due to radiation contamination following the massive earthquake and tsunami that sent the reactors into meltdown.
The government says radiation levels in town have fallen to levels deemed safe following decontamination efforts, and on Saturday lifted the four-year-old evacuation order.
The town represents a test case, as most residents remain cautious amid lingering health concerns and a lack of infrastructure. Only about 100 of the nearly 2,600 households have returned since a trial period begun in April.
The Naraha mayor, Yukiei Matsumoto, said Saturday marked an important milestone. “Our clock started moving again,” Matsumoto said during a ceremony held at a children’s park. “The lifting of the evacuation order is one key step but this is just a start.”
He said fear of radiation and nuclear safety was still present and the town had a long way ahead for recovery. It would be without a medical clinic until October and a new prefectural
hospital would not be ready until February next year.
A grocery store started free delivery services in July, and a shopping centre will open in 2016. Still, many residents, especially those who do not drive, face limited options for their daily necessities.
Residents are given personal dosimeters to check their own radiation levels. To accommodate their concerns the town is also running 24-hour monitoring at a water filtration plant, testing tap water for radioactive materials.
In 2014 the government lifted evacuation orders for parts of two nearby towns.
Source: The Guardian
Japan to lift evacuation order for Fukushima town of Naraha
FUKUSHIMA – The government is set to lift at midnight Friday its evacuation order for the Fukushima Prefecture town of Naraha, most of which is located within 20 kilometers of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Naraha will be the first of the seven Fukushima municipalities where the entire populations were instructed to evacuate to have the order removed.
It will be the third such order to be lifted for a municipality in the former no-go zone set within 20 kilometers of the northeastern Japan power station, which suffered a reactor meltdown accident after a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
Naraha had a registered population of 7,368 in 2,694 households as of Tuesday. According to a survey by the government and others, some 46 percent of the residents hope to return home.
Only a portion of them are likely to go back immediately, however, including 780 people at some 350 households who are doing long-stays at their homes in the town to prepare for permanent returns.
The central and town governments will reopen a medical clinic in the town in October. A new prefectural clinic will be built as early as February.
To handle sudden illnesses among elderly people wishing to return home, medical services will be reinforced through steps such as the distribution of emergency buzzers to those who need them.
In a bid to meet requests for shopping services, a supermarket in the town launched free delivery services in July. A publicly built, privately run shopping center with a supermarket and do-it-yourself store will be established in fiscal 2016.
Dosimeters will be handed out to help people check radiation levels, while 24-hour monitoring will be conducted at a water filtration plant. Tap water will be tested at households hoping to check for radioactive materials.
The government lifted its evacuation order for the Miyakoji district in the city of Tamura in April 2014 and the eastern part of the village of Kawauchi in October 2014.
In August 2012, Naraha was redesignated as an area being prepared for the removal of the evacuation order and where people are allowed to enter during the daytime.
With decontamination work largely completed, evacuees have been allowed since April 2015 to return home for long-term stays to prepare for permanent returns.
Source: Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/09/04/national/japan-to-lift-evacuation-order-for-fukushima-town-of-naraha/#.Ven8rJeFSM9
Fukushima evacuees prepare for eventual return, but most are choosing not to
Evacuees from three Fukushima Prefecture localities who were displaced by the nuclear disaster started temporarily returning to their homes on Aug. 31 to prepare for their eventual permanent return.
But applicants for the temporary stay program that began that day totaled 1,265, less than 10 percent of about 14,000 eligible as of Aug. 30.
The small number indicates that an overwhelming majority of evacuees are still concerned about radiation levels and prospects for a return to normalcy in their hometowns.
Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori said a secure environment must be in place for evacuees to participate in the preparatory program.
“What is most important is to provide a sense of safety and security,” he said at a news conference on Aug. 31. “Evacuees will not readily join the program unless they have easy access to health care, education and shopping areas.”
Residents of parts of Minami-Soma, Kawamata and Katsurao were ordered by the central government to evacuate when a triple meltdown occurred at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant as a result of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Last month, the government approved the program that would let evacuees from the three areas temporarily return to their homes for up to three months. The program is a step toward lifting the evacuation order and encouraging people to return home, as many have chosen to settle elsewhere after the prolonged evacuation.
In the village of Katsurao on Aug. 31, evacuee Kazuhiro Matsumoto, 59, was busy repairing the damaged walls of his home.
“It is nice to be back home, but I will miss my grandchildren after my return here,” Matsumoto said. “I am fixing my home because we need a place where my family and relatives can get together on New Year’s Day.”
While living in makeshift housing, Matsumoto has been working in cleanup operations in Katsurao for which his company was commissioned.
His son’s family of six already built a home outside the village and decided not to return to Katsurao to live.
Rice paddies across from Matsumoto’s home are overrun with weeds, with a large number of bags containing radioactive soil and other waste produced in decontamination operations piling up.
“Even though the authorities say we are safe, I am still anxious because we cannot see radiation,” he said.
The government plans to lift the evacuation order by spring 2017 for many parts of the evacuation area, which encompasses a 20-kilometer radius around the Fukushima plant and localities outside the zone that had high levels of radiation.
Officials from Minami-Soma, Kawamata and Katsurao hope to see the evacuation order lifted by next spring.
They have begun a preparatory program based on prospects that cleanup work will progress further in the coming months.
Local authorities say many general contractors will not accept assignments in the evacuation area. But they believe that work to mend local infrastructure and homes will proceed once evacuees are allowed to return home to live.
The number of residents who signed up for the preparatory program was low because many of the evacuees, primarily young couples, have decided to make a fresh start. They have purchased homes close to their workplaces or their children’s schools.
Four years after the onset of the nuclear disaster, about 79,000 people from 10 localities remain evacuated.
Source: Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201509010062
Fukushima evacuees begin three-month stays in their homes ahead of final return
FUKUSHIMA – Evacuees from three municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture are being allowed to return home for long-term stays before the central government formally lifts the evacuation order for those areas.
The government says it made the move, which took effect Monday, because radiation levels have dropped sufficiently in Minamisoma, Kawamata and Katsurao since the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The government will decide by November whether to lift the evacuation order after hearing from the evacuees.
The long-term stays are allowed for 14,255 people in 4,647 households, the largest number in the long-stay program so far.
Some areas will remain no-go zones because radiation levels remain high.
As of Monday, 1,308 people in 478 households, some 10 percent of the total, had reported to the government that they would start the long-term stays in their homes.
Decontamination work in residential areas in Kawamata and Katsurao was completed in summer last year, halving the average radiation level in the air to 0.5 microsievert per hour.
In Minamisoma, only 26 percent of decontamination work had been finished by the end of July, but natural falls in radiation levels were taken into consideration.
Dosimeters will be given to each household, while consultants will be dispatched to check the health status of residents. Minamisoma has set next April as its target date for the lifting of the evacuation order, while Katsurao and Kawamata are being less exact and have set the target for next spring.
Long-term stays have already been conducted in Tamura and part of Kawauchi, where evacuation orders have been removed, and in Naraha, where it is slated to be lifted on Wednesday.
Source: Japan Times
Cleanup starts in Fukushima’s restricted zone
Japanese Govenment insisting on making priorly evacuated people to return to live in highly contaminated areas
Full-scale decontamination work has begun in one of the areas in Fukushima Prefecture that received the highest doses of radioactive fallout from the 2011 nuclear accident.
About 30 workers gathered at an elementary school in the town of Okuma on Friday. They used heavy machinery to remove top soil from the playground.
Okuma partly hosts the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The government has determined that some parts of the town will remain restricted areas where people will not live for an extended time.
In these restricted zones, decontamination work had only been carried out on an experimental basis.
But at the request of town officials, the Environment Ministry decided to launch full-scale cleanup work targeting a district where there are a lot of schools and public facilities.
The ministry plans to finish decontaminating the roughly 95-hectare area by next March.
Similar restricted zones exist in 6 other municipalities in Fukushima.
Ministry officials plan to decide whether to start decontaminating them after checking their radiation levels and the wishes of the residents.
Source: NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150828_38.html
Government mulls new subsidies for communities near decommissioned nuclear reactors
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to seek ¥4.5 billion in the government’s fiscal 2016 budget to provide financial assistance to local communities facing reductions in existing subsidies following the decommissioning of nuclear reactors, ministry sources said Wednesday.
New support measures are necessary as some aging reactors are to be decommissioned, the sources said.
The operational period for nuclear reactors is limited to 40 years in principle. They can then operate a further 20 years if approval is given by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, but the requirements to extend operations are tough and maintenance costs are high.
In April, a decision was made to decommission five aging reactors, including the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Mihama plant in Fukui Prefecture, located in central Japan.
As a result of the decommissioning decision, the local governments in those areas will see a decline in the subsidies they are given for fiscal 2016 under the current program for support to communities hosting nuclear plants.
The National Governors Association is calling on the central government to continue providing support to host local communities until the dismantling of decommissioned reactors is completed.
The planned support program is expected to help finance new measures to shore up local economies near such reactors, the sources said.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, the Fukushima Prefectural Government decided to subsidize moving expenses for those who wish to return home after vacating areas outside of the designated evacuation zones after the March 2011 disaster.
To support those who aim to return to Fukushima, the prefectural government plans to offer financial assistance of up to ¥100,000 per household, the officials said.
The government has allocated ¥376 million for such expenses in a supplementary budget for September for some 5,200 households, with the aim of providing such support within the year.
“I’m taking seriously the current situation,” Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori told a news conference.
According to the prefectural government, the number of people who left areas that were not affected by evacuation advisories following the nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s wrecked Fukushima No. 1 plant was estimated at some 25,000 as of the end of last year.
The subsidy is expected to be offered to those who have already returned to Fukushima, on condition that they lived in temporary housing for two years or longer.
In June, the Fukushima government decided it would stop providing free housing under the disaster relief law at the end of fiscal 2016, when the financial support on moving expenses is scheduled to end as well.
It also plans to offer housing aid for low-income earners who move from temporary housing to privately rented housing for some two years starting in fiscal 2017.
Source: Japan Times
Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuees promised 2017 return but ‘ineffective’ clear-up may take 200 years
Radiation levels in the abandoned towns near the power plant in Japan are 19 times higher than that considered safe for humans
In an abandoned village where 15,839 people used to live, an unnerving silence prevails.
The families have gone, their cars have been left to rust, and house roof tiles lie shattered on the pavement.
Something terrible has taken place.
Even though the power lines are still down above the deserted streets, a newly installed LED screen over the main road flashes up numbers: 3.741, 3.688, 3.551.
They are radioactivity readings measured in microsieverts per hour, taken from Geiger counters in the ground below.
The normal safe level of background radiation in the air for humans to live in is 0.2 microsieverts. Here in Tomioka, in the shadow of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, radiation is 19 times that.
Recent photographs purporting to show mutant daisies near the plant went viral on Twitter. No wonder people are not coming back.
In March 2011, the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl left the world fearing the extent of the fallout.
Japan’s 43 other reactors were shut down after the meltdown and remained dormant until earlier this month, when Japan restarted its nuclear power programme by turning on a reactor at its Sendai plant in northwest Japan.
But just last week, London-based radioactivity expert Dr Ian Fairlie claimed that while 2,000 people have already died from the effects of evacuation and suicide, another 5,000 could develop cancer after exposure to radiation.
Today, the deathly pall of radiation still lingers. I went back to Japan’s devastated northeast coast after the government opened up part of the evacuation zone enforced after a tsunami caused the disaster.
An unprecedented decontamination operation continues around the clock in a 50-mile radius around the stricken power station.
It is part of a £7billion effort by a Japanese government wanting the community to be able to return.
But as I enter the dead zone I see scores of decontamination workers in masks, plastic gloves and thick overalls. Field by field, they are clearing the top layer of soil from every affected area of farming land and the places where people used to live.
They clear a buffer strip along the side of the forest covering the hillsides above.
The soil is shovelled into thick plastic bags, which are then piled up in football pitch-sized pyramids at designated radioactive waste sites by the roadside.
At one seafront storage facility, where the now-defunct Tomioka railway station used to be, thousands of tonnes of toxic waste line the beach.
Many here believe it is impossible to get rid of the radioactive dust coating this densely forested rural area following the meltdown of three reactors at Fukushima.
As my guide Makiko Segawa says: “They are only digging up the farmland and three metres on both sides of the roads. That is a drop in the ocean, really.
“When you look up into the mountains and the forests, you realise radioactivity is everywhere around us and they will never get rid of it properly.
“People here are genuinely terrified of the effects of radiation and don’t believe assurance it is safe to return.”
Some of the 200,000 evacuees who had to leave in the days after the reactor’s cooling system failed can return, but the majority say they never will.
A mask-wearing policeman patrolling to prevent looting tells me it is dangerous to spend more than 24 hours here.
“We are sent up from Tokyo for a few months at a time, but we never stay longer than we have to,” he concedes.
“I have a family, so of course I worry. We stay in the car as much as possible and try to keep on the move.”
The hands on the clock on the main street outside Tomioka’s supermarket have stopped at five minutes to three. It is a permanent reminder of the earthquake that happened 40 miles out to sea, triggering a 130ft-high tsunami that caused meltdown at Fukushima.
A few metres away, opposite a roadside garage, vending machines are shrouded in six-foot weeds.
There are haunting reminders of broken lives everywhere I look. Children’s shoes have been left on a Mickey Mouse rack by the front door of one shuttered-down property.
Behind screens, through windows cracked by the earthquake, are glimpses of families suddenly uprooted: clothes left to dry, meals unfinished.
It was recently announced the clearance teams have started decontaminating a school in Iitate, one of the places downwind from the Fukushima where radiation remains highest.
I peer through the window of the locked-up school building in Kusano and see it remains as it was on the day of the reactor failure. Boxes of textbooks and stationery sit unopened following a delivery, while the swimming pool is murky and covered in green algae.
Iitate was right in the path of the plant but residents were evacuated only a month later, so many face health problems due to dangerous exposure levels. And only a quarter of the town has been properly decontaminated so far.
A Greenpeace spokesman said: “The decontamination efforts are largely insufficient and ineffective. It is clear that radiation levels in Iitate are too high for a safe return of its residents.”
The disaster has also been blamed for 80 suicides. Last year, a court ordered Tokyo Electric Power Company to pay £284,000 to relatives of a woman who killed herself after evacuation.
We pass abandoned amusement arcades, retail parks, restaurants and factories, all taped off and awaiting demolition. A church building is now a clean-up facility for the workers.
The government has assured all evacuees they can return home by 2017. Yet authorities were recently forced to admit the clean-up operation at the plant could take 200 years. Recent scans of one reactor revealed nuclear fuel in the furnace had melted and dripped into the outer containment vessel. It is so radioactive humans cannot go near it.
Tepco is developing robots capable of entering the ruined reactors and removing radioactive material safely. The alternative is to enclose the whole power station in concrete, above ground and below, as happened at Chernobyl.
Beyond a line of trees I see the outline of the plant. A security official stops our car when we stop at the turn-off.
His hands crossed in an X-shaped warning, it is clear Japan wants to keep its dirty secret away from prying eyes.
Source: Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-evacuees-promised-6307229
Fukushima evacuees return home during Bon to visit ancestors’ graves
Kuniyuki and Reiko Sakuma, along with their daughter Rie Hosoya, right, clean the graves of their ancestors in Okuma, 500 meters from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, in Fukushima Prefecture on Aug. 13.
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture–Clad in masks, caps and other protective gear, a handful of evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear disaster returned to their hometown here to pay their respects at the graves of their ancestors.
Kuniyuki Sakuma, 65, and his wife, Reiko, 66, visited the tomb of Sakuma’s father on Aug. 13, located just 500 meters from the embattled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Their visit coincided with the traditional Bon festival in which people stop by their ancestors’ graves.
Sakuma and his wife remain evacuated in Iwaki, also in the prefecture, due to the lingering high levels of radiation in Okuma. About 110,000 people remain evacuated from their homes in Fukushima Prefecture.
A year after the onset of the 2011 nuclear disaster, Sakuma’s father, Kunimaru, died of a ruptured aneurysm while living in temporary housing as an evacuee. Kunimaru had taken great pride in running a successful pear farm in Okuma and often expressed his desire to return to his farm.
Although his tomb is currently in Okuma, Kunimaru’s final resting place remains unknown as the grave site is marked for the construction of an interim facility to store contaminated soil and material from cleanup efforts at localities surrounding the nuclear plant.
Sakuma said the Environment Ministry has provided no information on what will become of his father’s tomb.
On Aug. 13, airborne radiation levels at the grave site measured more than 100 times the levels in Iwaki.
Sakuma said he understands that returning to Okuma to live is unrealistic. But he added that he cannot readily abandon the land where his parents once resided.
During their one-hour visit, Sakuma and his wife also stopped by their Okuma home to find their garden overrun with weeds.
“I wonder if my father would be upset if I move the grave somewhere else,” Sakuma said. “I would not have to be worried about this kind of thing if the nuclear disaster had not occurred in the first place.”
Source: Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201508140038
Hajime Anbe says he cannot abide the reactivation of the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant’s No. 1 reactor as an evacuee of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster, in Shimotsuke, Tochigi Prefecture.
The tone of Hajime Anbe’s voice, usually soft, becomes forceful when asked about the reactivation of the No. 1 reactor at Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture.
“I cannot believe that a nuclear reactor has been restarted when the prospects of decommissioning the stricken Fukushima plant are still unclear,” he says. “It’s absurd, and rattles the nerves of those of us who have had to evacuate.” As a result of the Fukushima crisis, the 79-year-old Anbe has been forced to flee his home in the prefectural town of Namie and is temporarily living in Shimotsuke, Tochigi Prefecture. He is among the 110,000 people still evacuated, four years and five months since the disaster broke out.
Anbe has a bitter past. In the latter half of the 1960s, Tohoku Electric Power Co. announced the possibility of building a nuclear power plant in Namie and neighboring areas. The planned site was approximately one kilometer east of Anbe’s home. Convinced that such a plant would bring more jobs to his town, Anbe agreed to allow the road behind his home to be used as a route to the plant. He worked to obtain the support of other local residents and took care of the road, cutting the grass that grew on it.
Ultimately, due to residents’ objections and other factors, the plan fell through. Looking back, Anbe says, “I completely believed in nuclear power’s ‘safety myth.’ I should’ve done more research.”
His love for his hometown goes back 70 years, to the end of World War II. When his two older brothers returned from the battlefield, they expressed relief that even though Japan had lost the war, they had a hometown to return to. They told him that now that peace had arrived, they should work to make their hometown into a great place. With that ambition in his heart, Anbe took over the family’s farming business, expanded their farmland to six hectares, and devoted himself to growing rice.
His home in Namie is in a zone designated as preparing for the lifting of an evacuation directive. Because he believes his hometown will cease to exist unless its residents return, Anbe is planning to go back as soon as the evacuation order is lifted. An increasing number of residents are giving up any hopes of returning, however, disappointed that the crisis is far from being brought under control.
“Our hometown survived the war, but this time it might really disappear,” Anbe laments. And that fear is what pushes him to object to the reactivation of nuclear reactors, which feels to him like pretending the Fukushima disaster never happened.
Source: Mainichi
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150812p2a00m0na007000c.html
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