Up to 10,20 µSv in Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture 163km from Fukushima Dai-ichi
Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture. Way north of Sendai, adjacent to Kessenuma and Minamisanriku. 163km, (101 miles) from Fukushima Dai-ichi.
(part 3) Young woman from Fukushima speaks out
This interview was filmed on February 12, 2016, in Fukushima Prefecture. The young woman was 15 at the time of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, and we are releasing this interview with her permission. She is one of the 166 Fukushima residents aged 18 or younger at the time of the nuclear disaster who has been diagnosed with or suspected of having thyroid cancer (as of February 2016).
Fukushima residents who were 18 years old or younger at the time of the nuclear accident have been asked to participate in the voluntary thyroid ultrasound examination which is part of the Fukushima Health Management Survey. However, 18.8% of this age group were not tested in the 1st round of testing.* While the final results for the 2nd round of testing are not yet complete, every year the number of children participating in the official thyroid examinations is decreasing; the number of children who have not participated in the 2nd round of testing is currently 50.7%** For those young people aged 18-21 (as of April 1, 2014) and who were living in Fukushima at the time of the nuclear accident, 74.5% have not yet taken part in the official thyroid ultrasound examination.**
This young woman’s reason for speaking out is to motivate the families of children who have not yet received the thyroid ultrasound examination to have their children tested. However, in sharing her story about a topic which has become increasingly difficult to talk publicly about in Japan, she faces inherent risks which may include those to her work, community life and personal relationships. I therefore ask that her privacy is respected.
Ian Thomas Ash, Director
Fukushima, an ongoing tragedy Japanese government has brushed aside
Toshihide Tsuda, professor of environmental epidemiology at Okayama University, found that the rate of children suffering from thyroid cancer in Fukushima Prefecture in Japan was as much as 20 to 50 times higher than the national average as of 2014, three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
His findings were published in the electronic edition of the journal of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology late last year, but was refuted by the Fukushima prefectural government and other experts as it doubted the cases are related to the nuclear crisis and the government attributed to the surge to “over diagnosis.”
“Unless radiation exposure data are checked, any specific relationship between a cancer incidence and radiation cannot be identified,” Shiochiro Tsugane, director of the Research Center for Cancer Prevention and Screening, was quoted by a local report as saying.
More than 160 teenagers in Fukushima Prefecture were diagnosed with thyroid cancer, including suspect cases, since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was crippled by the monstrous quake-triggered tsunami in March 2011. And the number almost certainly increase with the passage of time.
At the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the parents of the children who were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in Fukushima formed a mutual help group to demand the government provide convincing evidence that their children’s sufferings were not related to the nuclear crisis.
In fact, the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology sent a message to the Japanese government suggesting it to conduct detailed and continuous research on residents’ health in Fukushima, but the government here did not respond to the advice, according to Tsuda who urged the government to face up to the aftermath of the nuclear issue.
Meanwhile, overseas nuclear experts are also surprised by the irresponsible and indifferent attitude of the Japanese government toward the nuclear refugees.
Oleksiy Pasyuk, an expert on energy policy at the National Ecological Center of Ukraine, told Xinhua that one of the main mistakes made by Japan in the aftermath of the accident was that the government had not stocked enough medicinal iodine tablets, which can prevent the absorption of radioactive material into the human body.
“No iodine tablets were distributed to residents living in the plant’s vicinity, who may have been exposed to radiation — it was an essential lesson, which they had to learn from Chernobyl,” Pasyuk said last month at the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The Fukushima disaster is the worst nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986, but the Japanese government has failed to learn the lessons from the Chernobyl over the past 25 years.
The management of the Fukushima plant had been warned in advance about the risks of failure of the emergency electricity generators and the subsequent failure of the cooling systems in a seismically active region, said Olga Kosharna.
The expert with the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine said that “if they had re-ionizers of hydrogen or holes in the roof, there would be no explosion and no such severe radiation effects. There has been a human error.”
“Japanese mentality is hierarchical — all are awaiting instructions from the top chief to start acting and it is time-consuming. Besides, there was no independent nuclear agency, which examines the technical state of the plant and decides whether to stop the functioning of the reactors or suspend its operating license,” Kosharna told Xinhua.
More than five years on, the debate over the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in three decades are continuing, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the international community in 2013 when Japan bid for the 2020 Olympic Games that the crisis was “totally under control.”
The fact is obvious that about 200 tons of highly-contaminated water flows freely into the Pacific Ocean everyday and the nuclear power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) still can not prevent the contaminated water from leaking from its makeshift containers.
TEPCO in March launched its ambitious project of freezing soil to create an ice wall to decrease toxic water leaking into the ocean. Local reports said that the project is expected to reduce the water to about 50 tons, but added that the effects are still unclear, as such a project is unprecedented on such a huge scale.
According to research by Fukushima University, about 3,500 trillion becquerels of radiative cesium-137 were discharged into the sea with the toxic water since the disaster broke out and the radiative material has reached the western coast of northern America.
Meanwhile, about a hundred thousand evacuees are still displaced and live in cramped temporary housing camps due to the uncontrolled nuclear disaster.
However, in the face of such troubles regarding the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crisis, the Japanese government is eager to reboot the country’s idled nuclear plants.
The Sendai nuclear power plant in the Kyushu area was reopened last November despite the eruption of a nearby volcano. It is also close to Kumamoto Prefecture, which was hit by waves of strong earthquakes, including one measuring a magnitude of 6.7 and another registering M7.3, last month.
The majority of the Japanese public oppose the restarting of the country’s nuclear power plants and only about 30 percent are supportive. More than 60 percent of Fukushima prefectural residents are dissatisfied with the government’s countermeasures against the nuclear disaster.
http://www.miragenews.com/fukushima-an-ongoing-tragedy-japanese-government-has-brushed-aside/
TEPCO: Frozen soil wall proving effective
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the work to freeze soil around the crippled reactors is making progress. It is designed to stop radioactive groundwater from flowing out of the facilities.
Tokyo Electric Power Company began freezing the soil in late March to make a 1.5-kilometer frozen wall surrounding the 4 reactors.
The reactor facilities have been the main source of radioactive contamination of groundwater at the plant.
TEPCO says that as of Tuesday, more than 80 percent of 6,000 checkpoints set up along the wall logged temperatures below zero. The operator says it means the freezing work is going well.
It also says that groundwater levels are rising in areas between the reactor facilities and the frozen wall along the coast. TEPCO officials assume the wall is preventing the water from seeping out. But water is still coming in through some unfrozen parts of the hillside.
Officials told reporters on Thursday that they will further carefully monitor the effect of the frozen wall and seek its completion.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20160520_03/
Below are diagrams from TEPCO’s newest report:http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2016/images1/handouts_160519_02-j.pdf
INSIGHT: Fukushima’s ‘caldrons of hell’ keep questions unanswered
A convenience store in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 12, 2016, remains as it was when the 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered the nuclear accident
After spending slightly more than two years in the capital of Fukushima Prefecture, I was assigned to The Asahi Shimbun’s Tokyo head office starting on May 1. I moved house the other day.
I had previously never been based in Fukushima, although I have long covered energy policy and a number of nuclear accidents as a reporter for the newspaper.
On April 11, 2014, shortly after I was assigned to Fukushima, I was told the words that would serve as a starting point for my news-gathering activities there. I am citing that phrase, which I quoted in a previous column, for a second time here:
“Whatever the future of nuclear power generation, it will remain essential to expand renewable energy sources to ensure a stable energy supply and to fight global warming. Fukushima Prefecture has swaths of land and a historical background for doing so.
The energy industry has always been its leading local industry. The prefecture is home to the Joban coal field, and Iwaki was a city of coal mines. Nobody will be able to change Japan unless Fukushima takes it upon itself to do the task.”
The remark was made by Yukihiro Higashi, then professor of thermal energy at Iwaki Meisei University.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, the Fukushima prefectural government defined “building communities that do not rely on nuclear energy” as a leading principle of its post-disaster rebuilding efforts.
It set a goal of having renewable energy sources cover all energy demand in the prefecture by around 2040. Higashi played a central role in working out that vision.
The goal may seem preposterous, but the professor’s remarks led me to realize that it isn’t.
LEADING ENERGY PLAYER
Fukushima Prefecture produced 10 percent of Japan’s electricity before it was hit by the nuclear disaster. Most of that electricity was sent to the greater Tokyo area, so the prefecture was sometimes sarcastically referred to as a “colony of Tokyo.”
But all that would have been impossible had it not been for the “swaths of land” and the “historical background” suitable to having electric power generated there.
Energy has always been the representative local product of Fukushima Prefecture. That history dates back to the late Edo Period (1603-1867), when the Joban coal field was discovered.
Energy created in the prefecture continued to support Japan’s modernization even after electricity replaced coal as the leading player.
Living in Fukushima Prefecture provides plenty of opportunities to learn about that history.
A cluster of old hydroelectric plants stands in the environs of Lake Inawashiroko. A dozen of these plants, which were built during the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) eras and taken over by Tokyo Electric Power Co., continue to send electricity to the greater Tokyo area to this day.
A step-like array of hydroelectric plants along the Tadamigawa river in the prefecture’s western Oku-Aizu district was built in the postwar period in a desperate drive to “rebuild Japan.”
Both hydroelectric undertakings drew on the bountiful water resources that are the blessings of the prefecture’s terrain.
Nuclear reactors and a bunch of giant thermal power plants began to spring up along the Pacific coast during the high economic growth of the postwar period.
When cast in the context of that history, the goal set forth by the prefectural government appears to betray the pride of its own “leading local industry.” The prefecture’s people pledged that they are the ones who will replace the leading player of energy.
Ten days after I met Higashi, I visited the Yamatogawa Shuzoten sake brewery in Kitakata, Fukushima Prefecture, to see Yauemon Sato, the ninth-generation chief of the brewery, which has been operating since the mid-Edo Period.
Sato had founded Aizu Electric Power Co. in August 2013, setting out on an ambitious plan to help rebuild the prefecture by means of renewable energy sources.
“You know the caldron of hell?” Sato asked me. “You will be sent to hell and will be boiled in that caldron if you do evil. There are four such caldrons in Fukushima Prefecture. And they are still gaping.”
The No. 1 through No. 4 reactors of TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which caused a calamity that will go down in the history of humankind, could certainly be called “caldrons of hell.”
The use of renewable energy sources is a means for closing those caldrons and for obliterating them from Fukushima Prefecture.
More than two years later, the use of renewable energy sources is steadily gaining ground in the prefecture, covering 26.6 percent of all energy demand as of the end of March. The goal remains far in the distance, but the ratio has been gaining about 1 percentage point every year.
The caldrons are still gaping. TEPCO has yet to solve the question of how to block groundwater from flowing into the reactor buildings, which is only increasing the stockpile of water contaminated by radioactive substances. That is preventing the utility from starting serious work to decommission the reactors.
LEFT IN LIMBO
“What should we do?” a 59-year-old woman, evacuated from Okuma, which co-hosts the crippled nuclear power plant, to Koriyama, also in Fukushima Prefecture, asked me when I interviewed her about a year ago.
“Should we go on with our new life here, or should we return to our hometown? My thoughts remain in limbo, and I cannot get around to making up my mind.”
I did not know how to answer her question.
More than 94,000 people of Fukushima Prefecture continue to live as evacuees. The government of the town of Okuma, where all residents remain evacuated, plans to create a rebuilding base with a “habitable environment,” hopefully by fiscal 2018.
But full rebuilding of the town lies far beyond that goal. And that is leaving many people “in limbo.”
What should we do? My pursuit of that unanswered question will continue.
Suspicions grow over Tokyo 2020 Olympic bid team’s payment for ‘consulting fees’
Suspicions have been raised over the credibility of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic bid team’s decision to pay about 230 million yen to the “Black Tidings” company in Singapore for “consulting fees” as part of efforts to win the right to host the Games.
Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) Chairman Tsunekazu Takeda, who headed the bid team in 2013, was hard-pressed to explain the deal during a meeting on May 16 of the House of Representatives Budget Committee. While the total cost of hosting the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games is expected to swell, facts about the Olympic bid team going to extremes to win its bid to host the Games have been exposed one after another.
Takeda, the top figure in the Japanese sports world, was grilled as an unsworn witness during the lower house budget committee meeting. Takeda emphasized, “It is a common practice to have contracts with overseas consultants and there will be no success without them. Their consultations were crucial for our last-minute vote counting and winning votes.” He made the statement when he was questioned by Democratic Party (DP) legislator Yuichiro Tamaki.
Each candidate city for hosting Olympic events signs contracts with multiple consulting firms at home and abroad in order to receive guidance on bidding campaign speeches and advice on lobbying activities aimed at collecting votes from International Olympic Committee (IOC) members. In its bid to host the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, the bid committee signed contracts with about 10 consulting firms, sources said.
According to the bid committee’s report on its activities, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the bid committee footed the bill for bidding activities and spent about 8.9 billion yen between September 2011 and September 2013. Still, that figure is about 60 percent of about 14.9 billion yen spent on Tokyo’s unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.
Of the 8.9 billion yen, about 4.1 billion yen was used for overseas activities to try to win the bid to host the Games. The “consulting fees” in question were included in expenses for overseas public relations activities — part of international bidding activities. The bid committee, which had collected contributions from the private sector and support money, shouldered the expenses for the “consulting fees.” The Tokyo Metropolitan Government did not directly pay the consulting fees. Furthermore, Takeda insisted that the payment was legitimate because it was audited by a Tokyo-based audit company and approved by the IOC.
Nonetheless, suspicions have been raised about the personal connections of Ian Tan Tong Han, who represented the “Black Tidings” company. The French financial prosecutor’s office has been investigating disgraced former International Association of Athletics Federations President Lamine Diack and his son Papa Massata Diack on suspicion of receiving cash in return for giving silent approval to doping by Russian athletes. The French prosecutors focused their attention on the fact that Papa Massata Diack is a close friend of Ian Tan Tong Han. Allegations have emerged that money aimed at colleting votes was funneled to Papa Massata Diack, who had a voice in the decision on which country would host the games.
Takeda emphasized that he was not aware of the connection between Ian Tan Tong Han and Papa Massata Diack. However, Ian Tan Tong Han has not been reached since the allegations came to light and the flow of the consulting fees has not been confirmed. Sources abroad who have been long involved in Olympic events say that Ian Tan Tong Han is not well known. Ian Tan Tong Han’s Singapore office was in an apartment room. The fact that the Tokyo bid committee paid the massive amount of funds to a company that looked like a shell company has led to a sense of public distrust in the Tokyo Olympic bidding campaign.
In the final round of voting at the IOC general meeting in September 2013, Tokyo won 60 votes against 36 for Istanbul. The result showed a landslide victory for Tokyo, but the competition between the three cities including Madrid had been so keen that it was hard to predict the winner. Before the opening of the IOC general meeting, people linked to the race for the right to host the 2020 Games gathered at a lobby of a Buenos Aires hotel where IOC members were staying. Rumors were swirling that people related to Istanbul were apparently calling in IOC members to try to persuade them to vote for their city. Suspicion was stoking idle fears among people there.
At that time, Tokyo was fighting an uphill battle. Then Tokyo Gov. Naoki Inose, who was chairman of Tokyo’s Olympic bid committee, came under fire for saying in April 2013 that Islamic countries were “fighting with each other.” In July that year, Tokyo’s bid to host the Games was viewed with anxiety as news spread of a leakage of contaminated water at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant.
The Tokyo bid committee regarded the IAAF World Championships in Athletics that opened in Moscow in August 2013 as a major highlight of its activities. That’s because many IOC members, mainly those related to athletic sports, would gather there. Ian Tan Tong Han had already promoted himself. Through Dentsu Inc., a major Japanese international advertising and public relations company, the Tokyo bid committee confirmed that Ian Tan Tong Han had played a role in helping Beijing win the right to host the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The bid committee abandoned its pride to pay the consulting fees of 230 million yen.
The murky payment of consulting fees is not the only step taken by the bid committee to win the right to host the Games that sparked public distrust. Although the bid committee changed itself into an organizing committee tasked with preparing and operating the Games in January 2014, it was revealed that the total cost of hosting the world event was underestimated when the bid committee was campaigning for its bid.
Above all, the construction plan for a new Olympic stadium — the main venue for the Games — raised havoc. The construction cost for the new national stadium was estimated at 130 billion yen at the time of the bidding campaign. But after looking into details of the plan, the total cost was expected to soar to about 300 billion yen, forcing the scrapping of the construction plan in July 2015. Meanwhile, the total cost of building temporary venues that are to be dismantled after the Games is likely to rise to about 300 billion yen — about four times the 72.3 billion yen estimated at the time of the bidding campaign. Tokyo 2020 Olympic Organizing Committee President Yoshiro Mori said in July 2015 that the total cost of hosting the Games could exceed 2 trillion yen. It was earlier estimated at 734 billion yen at the time of the bidding campaign.
Why did the Tokyo Olympic committee have to bite off more than it could chew? The root cause of this stems from their eagerness to overcome Tokyo’s weakness shown when it miserably lost its bid to host the 2016 Games. The bid committee set aside hefty funds for overseas consulting fees this time because it had the bitter lesson that it was weak in lobbying activities abroad. Another weakness stems from low support ratings at home for hosting the Games. As compared with Rio de Janeiro, which received a support rate of 84.5 percent for hosting the 2016 Summer Games, Tokyo had only a 55.5 percent support rate for the same event. Tokyo received a support rate of 70 percent for hosting the 2020 Games in a survey conducted in January 2013 by the IOC, but there were persistent views in Japan that priority should be placed on efforts to rebuild the regions battered by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. If the government were to spend huge amounts of money on the Games, it could see public support declining. Holding the estimated cost of hosting the Games down to the minimum was a desperate measure.
A senior official of the organizing committee said the situation looks hopeless. “If we simulated everything at the very outset, we would not be able to host the Olympic Games.” The organizing committee is under pressure to make adjustments to meet realities.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160517/p2a/00m/0na/019000c
Former Prime Minister Koizumi backs U.S. sailors suing over Fukushima radiation
Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi speaks at a news conference Tuesday in Carlsbad, California.
CARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA – Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Tuesday he stands behind a group of former U.S. sailors suing the operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, who claim health problems they now suffer were caused by exposure to radiation after three reactors melted down in the days after a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
Koizumi made the remarks at a news conference in Carlsbad, California, with some of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought in the United States in 2012 against plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., which has renamed itself Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.
The plaintiffs include crew members of the U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which provided humanitarian relief along the tsunami-battered coastline in a mission dubbed Operation Tomodachi.
“Those who gave their all to assist Japan are now suffering from serious illness. I can’t overlook them,” Koizumi said.
The former premier spent Sunday through Tuesday meeting with roughly 10 of the plaintiffs, asking about the nature of the disaster relief they undertook and about their symptoms.
“I learned that the number of sick people is still increasing, and their symptoms are worsening,” he told the news conference.
Koizumi called on those in Japan, both for and against nuclear power, to come together to think of ways to help the ailing U.S. servicemen.
The group of about 400 former U.S. Navy sailors and Marines alleges the utility, known until recently as Tepco, did not provide accurate information about the dangers of radioactive material being emitted from the disaster-struck plant.
This led the U.S. military to judge the area as being safe to operate in, resulting in the radiation exposure, the group claims.
One of the plaintiffs at the news conference, Daniel Hair, said Koizumi’s involvement made him feel for the first time that Japan is paying serious attention to their plight.
According to lawyers for the group, seven of its members have died so far, including some from leukemia.
Koizumi, who served as prime minister between 2001 and 2006, came out in opposition to nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 disaster. He has repeatedly urged the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to halt its efforts to restart dormant reactors across Japan.
Mayor blasts nuclear power to students visiting from Taiwan
Minami-Soma Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai discusses the city’s experiences after the Fukushima nuclear disaster before Taiwanese students and teachers in Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, on May 17
MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture–The mayor here has lamented to visiting Taiwanese students how the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe tore his city apart, with 27,000 residents still unable to return to their homes.
Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai went on to blast nuclear energy in an impassioned speech to the 30 visiting students and their teachers on May 17.
“Putting money ahead of people’s lives is totally unacceptable,” he said.
“I was moved by his speech because he is very concerned about the welfare of children,” a 16-year-old girl said, adding that she is worried about nuclear power plants in Taiwan.
Other students said they were able to grasp the enormity of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and the city’s efforts to rebuild after Sakurai’s ardent talk.
Sakurai told the students, who are on a school trip from Dali High School in Taipei, that even five years on “27,000 residents including many children are still displaced” and that some elderly citizens died while being evacuated.
The mayor said that the terrible damage was not simply limited to the leakage of radioactive material, and emphasized that nuclear disasters had great potential for driving families apart and destroying local communities.
“Many local leaders tend to refrain from saying this, but I am making a strong plea to the central government, the business circles and the world that nuclear power plants are not needed because (if there is an accident) it can totally ruin people’s lives,” he said.
In replying to a question about the city’s radiation levels, Sakurai reassured the student that readings are now “low enough.” He went on to discuss efforts to decontaminate the local communities and the substantial effort required to rebuild them.
But he added that the municipal government is still monitoring radioactivity in tapping water and food products.
“The fact that we need to conduct such checks even today is unusual,” he said.
Asked about Minami-Soma residents’ reactions to restarting nuclear plants in Japan despite the Fukushima disaster, the mayor said, “An overwhelming majority are against the move to resume the operation of nuclear facilities.”
Minami-Soma is situated between 10 and 40 kilometers from the crippled plant, which stands to the city’s south.
The southern part of the city was designated part of the 20-km “no-entry” zone after the nuclear accident, forcing its residents to evacuate.
At one time, the city, whose population stood at 72,000 before the nuclear accident, had only 10,000 people left because of the evacuation order and voluntary evacation by the residents.
Towards decommissioning Fukushima: ‘Seeing’ boron distribution in molten debris
Japanese researchers map the distribution of boron compounds in a model control rod
Kyoto University
Compilation of control rod cross-sectional images, showing results of high-temperature steam oxidation.
Japanese researchers have mapped the distribution of boron compounds in a model control rod, paving the way for determining re-criticality risk within the reactor.
Decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant just got one step closer. Japanese researchers have mapped the distribution of boron compounds in a model control rod, paving the way for determining re-criticality risk within the reactor.
To this day the precise situation inside the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant is still unclear. “Removing fuel debris from the reactor contaminant vessel is one of the top priorities for decommissioning,” says lead author Ryuta Kasada of Kyoto University.
Stainless steel tubes filled with boron carbide are used to control energy output in boiling water reactors, including at Fukushima Daiichi, as boron absorbs neutrons resulting from splitting atoms. With such control rods functioning properly, nuclear fission occurs at a steady rate. In an extreme situation, such as during the Fukushima accidents, where overheated vapors come in contact with the rods, boron reacts with surrounding materials like stainless steel to create molten debris.
“When melting happens, phenomena like relocation occur such that the boron atoms — trapped in the debris — accumulate towards the bottom of the reactor,” explains Kasada. “This can lead to a lack of control agents in the upper core structure and thus a higher risk of re-criticality in those areas.”
“It’s crucial to get a picture of how boron atoms are distributed inside the reactor, so that we know which areas have higher risk of re-criticality. It’s also important to know the chemical state of boron, as some boron compounds can affect the formation of radioactive materials released to the environment.”
Kasada and colleagues filled a model control rod with steam at 1250 degrees Celsius to imitate conditions of a severe nuclear accident. The team then mapped the distribution of molten boron debris and simultaneously determined its chemical state with a soft x-ray emission spectrometer, in which they combined a new diffraction grating with a highly-sensitive x-ray CCD camera, equipped to a type of scanning electron microscope. The boron compounds — including boron oxide, boron carbide, and iron boride — each showed different peak structures on the x-ray spectrum.
“Previously this was only possible to visualize in large synchrotron radiation facilities. We’ve shown that the same is possible with laboratory-sized equipment.”
“This finding demonstrated on a micro-scale what needs to be done in Fukushima,” says Kasada. “This can’t yet be applied in the field, but in the meantime, we plan to visualize the chemical state of other elements so as to create a sound materials base for decommissioning Fukushima.”
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The paper “Chemical State Mapping of Degraded B4C Control Rod Investigated with Soft X-ray Emission Spectrometer in Electron Probe Micro-analysis” will appeared 10 May 2016 in Scientific Reports, with doi: 10.1038/srep25700
Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia’s premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at both undergraduate and graduate levels is complemented by numerous research centers, as well as facilities and offices around Japan and the world.
For more information please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-05/ku-tdf051716.php
Fukushima police arrest 6 construction company employees after body found
Police arrested the head of a construction company and 5 employees for dumping a body believed to be that of a former colleague
FUKUSHIMA (TR) – Fukushima Prefectural Police have arrested six employees of a construction after the body believed to be that of a colleague who had gone missing was found buried on the firm’s premises in Iwaki City, reports Kahoku Shimpo (May 17).
Police arrested Daizo Hyugaji, 35, the president of Musashi Construction, and five other employees for allegedly abandoning a body at a sand storage area for the company company, located in the Hisanohama area.
On Sunday, investigators using a backhoe began digging at the site after receiving a tip that the body of man, who performed decontamination work, had been buried there in the fall of last year. A body believed to be that of the man, aged in 40s, was found on Monday evening.
Police suspect the crime was committed in September of last year. The family of the victim reported him missing the following month.
After confirming the identity of the body, police may apply murder charges to the suspects.
Poet Ryoichi Wago tries to bridge hearts after Fukushima
“For example, Wago says the argument that Japan must rely on nuclear power to some extent may sound rational, but if one spares a thought for the misery of people directly affected by the nuclear disaster then surely championing nuclear power generation does not offer a viable future.
Despite the lack of common ground and the prospect of never resolving such differences, Wago concluded that starting conversations to talk about issues related to the disaster would be a fundamental first step in the right direction.”
FUKUSHIMA–Ryoichi Wago, a high school teacher who doubles as a poet, rose to national prominence with a series of tweets he posted days after the March 11, 2011, nuclear disaster in his native Fukushima Prefecture.
On March 16 of that year, he tweeted the following short free verse about the drama unfolding at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant:
“Radiation is falling.
“It is a quiet night.”
Plunged into despair by the nuclear accident, Wago began groping for ways to get a dialogue going involving all sectors of society to bridge differences brought on by the catastrophe.
At the time of the disaster, Wago, now 47, was at his home in Fukushima city, which is situated inland and northwest of the crippled nuclear power plant. It has been estimated that radioactivity levels there were as much as 500 times higher than before the accident.
Like many other local residents, his wife and son left town and took refuge in Yamagata Prefecture, north of Fukushima. But he stayed on, even though the neighborhood felt like a ghost town. A radio station kept blaring, “Keep calm and evacuate.”
“Will I be forced to leave?” Wago feared. “Fukushima will be abandoned by the nation.”
Two months later, he published “Shi no tsubute,” or “Pebbles of poetry,” a compilation of free verse he had tweeted expressing his fears and anguish. Prior to the disaster, he had only four followers. The number quickly rose to 15,000 by the time the book was released.
Clearly, his words and thoughts were reaching a wider audience. But not everyone was in his corner.
One day a message sent through Twitter gave him pause for thought: “You live inland so you are not a disaster victim. You have not lost your hometown nor your family,” the message read, questioning his legitimacy to talk about the disaster as “one of them.”
By April, gas pumps were working again and Wago was able to visit other parts of Fukushima Prefecture to listen to what people were saying. He spent a year doing this, mostly at weekends, and talked to 60 or so people.
During these chats, he noticed a wide disparity in the way people viewed the disaster.
“I want the government to promise to return us to our hometown,” one individual would venture. “I cannot go back, I will make a new life somewhere else,” another would say.
A mother’s wish that her children would ”be able to play outside” invites a stinging rebuke: “Are you trying to make them sick from radiation exposure?”
It occurred to Wago that such disparities must be felt everywhere in Japan after the 3/11 disaster.
For example, Wago says the argument that Japan must rely on nuclear power to some extent may sound rational, but if one spares a thought for the misery of people directly affected by the nuclear disaster then surely championing nuclear power generation does not offer a viable future.
Despite the lack of common ground and the prospect of never resolving such differences, Wago concluded that starting conversations to talk about issues related to the disaster would be a fundamental first step in the right direction.
That was Wago’s starting point for creating Fukushima Mirai (future) Kagura. Kagura is dance and music performed at festivals and rituals as offerings to Shinto deities.
Wago gathered 50 or so locals as production staff and dancers, and held a talk session to get them to state what they wanted to get out of the project.
“I want to tell how much my tsunami-drowned friends would have wanted to live,” said one. “I want to express my anguish that my hometown was contaminated by radiation,” said another.
Wago recalls “some kind of intangible solidarity” was born among the participants.
In August 2015, the presentation of kagura at Fukushima Inarijinja shrine in Fukushima city received an ovation from the 700 or so spectators gathered for the performance.
His kagura is made up of several parts, including poetry reading accompanied by live calligraphy and a drum performance, and dance performance representing foxes and a dragon.
“A willingness to have conversation rather than confrontation is important. It is not necessarily in words either,” said Wago.
In March 2016, Wago published a new poetry book titled “Kinou yorimo yasashiku naritai” (I want to be kinder than yesterday).
One of those poems goes to the heart of what Wago is trying to express.
“From that day, I am having fruitless discussion with him.
“He tells me he cannot understand a single thing I say.
“I also respond flatly that I cannot understand him.
“Still, we have no way but to keep up our dialogue.”
“Lessons Not Learned From Fukushima”
20/04/2016
Kyushu Earthquake: “Lessons Not Learned From Fukushima” Report By Hiroko Aihara Fukushima Journalist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exw3OzgXT_s
Fukushima independent journalist Hiroka Aihara talks about the failure to learn the lessons of Fukushima in the recent Kyushu earthquake in Japan. She also discusses how the government and the mass corporate media have refused to seriously cover the dangers of another Fukushima. Using the recently passed secrecy laws the government has repressed and silenced journalists. The Abe government has also said that everything has returned to “normality” and the Fukushima crisis is over. She reports that teachers have been told not to warn the students and their families of the continuing radiation dangers and use of the secrecy law to suppress information. She also discusses the growing militarization of Japan and the connection to the nuclear power program and industry.
The interview was done in Tokyo on April, 20, 2016
Tepco to put some Fukushima decommissioning work on hold during G-7 summit
Japan Gov stops Fukushima work to “reduce risk” to world leaders…. what about the Japanese who live there 24/7/365?
TOKYO: The majority of decommissioning work at the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will be put on hold while the Group of Seven summit takes place in Shima, Mie Prefecture, on May 26 to 27, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Satoshi Togawa, a spokesman for Tepco, told The Japan Times on Friday that the planned suspension was a precaution to reduce “risks” that could disturb the meeting of leaders from the seven major advanced nations.
Such risks could include unexpected leaks of contaminated water from tanks or airborne radioactive material monitoring alarms being triggered, Togawa said.
He added that Tepco will continue other essential operations, such as injecting water to keep melted nuclear fuel cool and processing contaminated water.
He also stressed that the suspension was not designed to reduce the risk of terrorism.
“We have made the decision without any request from the government,” he added.
A 2011 massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami knocked out critical cooling functions for three of six reactors at the plant, triggering a triple meltdown.
The decommissioning effort, which involves some 7,000 workers, is expected to take more than 40 years.
Internal Exposure Concealed: The True State of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident
Yagasaki Katsuma, emeritus professor of Ryukyu University, has been constantly sounding the alarm about the problem of internal exposure related to nuclear weapons testing and nuclear electricity generation. Since the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP), he has drawn on his expertise to conduct field research, and to support those who evacuated to Okinawa. We asked him to reflect on the five years since the accident at Fukushima Daiichi, and to lay out the issues that lie ahead.
Heading to the blast site 12 days post-explosion
On March 17, 2011, a friend who lived in Fukushima City contacted me. “They’re reporting an onslaught of radioactivity, but we have no idea about any of that”, he said. “We need dosimeters, but there’s no way to get our hands on them.”
I ended up making my way to Fukushima along with several dosimeters for measuring radioactivity. I set up the dosimeters. Fukushima was under a petrol provision restriction, and I could not travel freely. I needed to make arrangements for an “emergency vehicle” to use. I had left Okinawa on March 24, traveled via Osaka by plane to Fukushima Airport, and entered Fukushima City by a bus that went through Kōriyama. The Japan Railways (JR) trains had stopped running. It had been 12 days since the first explosion, which had occurred at reactor No. 1 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). It snowed the next morning, and I saw that a torrent of radioactivity – 12 microsieverts/hour – was relentlessly falling on the living spaces of Fukushima’s citizens.
From March 25 to 31, I went to eight areas to measure radiation doses in the air, farmland and water: Fukushima City, Iwaki City, Aizu-Wakamatsu City, Kitakata City, Minami-Sōma City, Kōriyama City, Iitate Village, and Kita-Shiobara Village. I engaged in discussions with farmers and other locals about what steps they should take.
At the time, the dose readings from farmland went down by half when just the top layer of weeds and straw litter were removed; digging 3 cm deep reduced the readings by 80%. So I suggested that if people did not plant crops this year, and removed 5 cm of topsoil from their land, they could prevent future batches of crops from radioactive contamination. It was a situation in which both national and local governments were at a loss about what to do; they could not even come up with countermeasures, and were practically without policies. In the end, apart from a few enterprising farmers who followed my recommendations, most farm-owners felt compelled to plant crops, and ended up ploughing the soil to spread radiation up to 20 cm deep.
Of the 2 dosimeters I had brought with me to conduct my survey, I lent one to a farmers’ union for one year, thus doing what I could for them in terms of temporary assistance.
No Measures to Protect Residents
One of the things which stunned me was the absoluteness of the safety myth (anzen shinwa). Even though radioactive dust was falling, no one knew anything about how to protect their bodies. The local governments had not a single dosimeter among them. The evacuation manual for NPP accidents used in Fukushima City’s elementary schools was exactly the same as the evacuation manual for earthquakes.
Furthermore, all attempts to talk about demonstrations of the danger of NPPs were categorically suppressed. Herein lies the root of why no countermeasures were taken to protect residents from radioactivity. No stable iodine tablets were distributed; no SPEEDI (System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information) data was announced, and so on.
Before the accident, I had published a book called Concealed Radiation Exposure in 2009 with Shin Nihon Shuppansha, which expounded my view that internal exposure was a hidden kind of exposure more dangerous than external exposure.
The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) and the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) have suppressed information about those sacrificed in the atomic bombings. The International Commission for Radiation Protection (ICRP) has concealed the issue of internal exposure in the context of their commitment to the cause of the United States’ nuclear strategy.1 The Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident, through multiple explosions, has scattered between one hundred and several thousand more radioactive materials than the Hiroshima bomb into the environment, resulting in health damage caused by internal exposure. This would ineluctably lead the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the ICRP to cover up internal exposure and exposure casualties. In other words, I believed that they would do everything they could to cast off health damage to Fukushima residents, and support the Japanese government’s policies to abandon its own citizens. This is what drove me to rush down to Fukushima.
The Accident on Televised Programmes
For two years in 2011 and 2012, I delivered more than 120 lectures each year, and held interviews with the mass media. The mass media did courageously report on the reality and danger of internal exposure, but a distressing incident occurred in the process. This happened during my appearance, on July 2, 2011, as a guest on NHK Television’s Weekly News Insights.
The NHK flipchart that disappeared was based on this graph. 2
I had asked them to make a flipboard for me which showed data on how the rate of child cancer deaths in Japan had jumped five years after the atomic bombings of 1945 to three times their original rate (see graph). It was data which clearly demonstrated that these children were the world’s first casualties of internal exposure. The night before the show, I was handed a script and sat in a meeting discussing the show until past 10 PM. However, the next morning, when I headed to NHK, the director told me that due to time constraints, we could not follow the script we had discussed the previous night. On entering the studio, the flipboard which I had expected to be at my feet was nowhere to be seen. When I asked a nearby staff member to please bring it for me, quickly, the reply was that they could not do that. With 30 seconds to go before showtime, I had no choice but to appear on the show bereft of my data.
The following day, when I requested a written explanation of these events, NHK did not oblige me. Faced against my will with such a situation, I feel strongly that I am responsible for not being able to properly deal with it.
The Society for Connecting Lives
My deceased wife, Okimoto Yaemi, established a society called “Connecting Lives – The Society to Connect Okinawa with Disaster Sites” together with Itō Michiko, an evacuee from Fukushima, and others. They demanded that the Tokyo Electric Power Company explain compensation claims to the victims of the disaster, and even made them come to Okinawa to explain this in person to the evacuees here. It was the first time TEPCO had travelled outside of Fukushima Prefecture to hold an information session. In Okinawa, a group of plaintiffs for a lawsuit to “return our livelihoods, return our region” also came together. 3
In the midst of all her work, Okimoto always came to send me off and to pick me up from Naha Airport. Now that she is gone, I have taken up her role as the representative for the “Connecting Lives” society.
After the accident, the melted-down reactor core was too radioactive to be properly disposed of. It is clear as day from this fact alone that nuclear power generation should not be permitted. In these 5 years, there has been a regime brimming with pollution: it is manifest in things like the lack of intelligence and care on the part of the Japanese government, the utilitarianism that places profits and power above human rights, and the political concealment of the worst environmental radiation disaster in history.
******
It is now 5 years since the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and we are in an abnormal state of affairs in which TEPCO and the national government are forcing people to silently accept their victimization.
Under the Atomic Energy Basic Law, the maximum annual exposure limit for the public is set at 1 millisievert. But people are being forced to accept a revised threshold that is 20 times larger, that of 20 millisieverts per year.
In Fukushima Prefecture, the cessation of compensation payments and the lifting of the evacuation order in highly contaminated regions has forced people to return, at the same time that housing support for the evacuees is also being ended. Of course, there are no measures at all in place to deal with radioactivity outside Fukushima Prefecture.
The Chernobyl NPP accident of 1986 led Ukraine (also Belarus and Russia) to establish laws that protected human rights, which stands in great contrast with the human rights situation surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident.4
Claiming Radiation Effects as Psychological
The media reports on the occasion of 3.11’s 5th anniversary contain references to the “fūhyō higai” (damage caused by rumors of radiation) that they claim is hampering the reconstruction process. Why do they not call this as it is, “radioactivity damage”? “Fūhyō higai”is a term that they use in order to replace radiation effects as psychological problems.
Under appointment of the IAEA, Shigematsu Itsuzō (now deceased), the former chairman of RERF(formerly ABCC), carried out a health survey of Chernobyl residents. He remarked in a report he made in 1990 that “there are virtually no diseases that are caused by radiation, but attention must be paid to the psychological stress that is caused by wondering whether or not one has been exposed to radiation”. The theory that “psychological stress causes illness” is a method used to conceal the radiation victimization of the nuclear age.
In Chernobyl, uncontaminated food was distributed to residents of contaminated areas. Respite trips for children are also ensured by the state. And yet, in Fukushima, there is a huge push to “support by consumption” (tabete ouen) and the administration has implemented a policy of “locally-grown and locally-consumed” in providing children’s school lunches. Japan is not attempting to avoid internal exposure as Chernobyl-affected states did; it is doing the exact opposite.
What is at the bottom of this response? Whether it is protecting residents from radiation exposure, or decommissioning of the melted reactor core, or indeed dealing with the contamination of underground water, there are numerous things that need to be addressed even by diverting the budgets of the forthcoming Tokyo Olympics. However, the Japanese government is trying to overcome all these issues with cheaper costs at the expense of people’s suffering. Underlying this is their utilitarianism – an ideology which prioritizes economics over human rights and human lives – as well as their philosophy of abandoning the people.
Following what the government is saying, one is left speechless. “If it’s under 100 becquerels, then sell it [produce]”; “If you don’t sell it you won’t be able to support yourself”; “If you talk about radioactivity you won’t be able to sell [your produce]”; “Don’t talk about radioactivity”. Media reports are controlled by the government, and people can only remain silent.
Providing safe food is the mission of agriculture. Surely there is no more cruel infraction of human rights than to force producers, against their will, to make food that might adversely affect human health by radioactive contamination. There is no solution to this injustice other than to get rid of this system that has been imposed by fiat. Although farmers’ labors have lowered the amount of radioactive contamination in their produce, tragedies will continue as long as they keep the allowable radioactivity in food up to 100 becquerels/kilogram.
Such standard stems from the thinking that economic profits comes before health. Radioactivity even in small amounts can cause harm. International Commission on Radiological Protection has it that carcinogenesis starts with DNA mutation of a single cell. Human susceptibility to radioactivity depends on individuals, and more vulnerable ones, particularly fetuses are affected first. The natural miscarriage rate of the four prefectures including Fukushima since 311 has risen by 13%.5
Consumption of one becquerel of C-137 (with biological half-life of approximately 80 days) every day will result in an internal accumulation of 140 becquerels within about 2 years. If we have to inevitably set any standard for allowable radioactivity in food, we should use the guidelines set forth in the recommendation by German Society for Radiation Protection, which is “no food with a concentration of more than 4 becquerel of the leading radionuclide Cesium-137 per kilogram shall be given to infants, children and adolescents. Grown-ups are recommended to eat no food over 8 becquerel per kilogram of the leading nuclide Cesium-137.”6
Deceitful Dosimetry
The Japanese government’s philosophy of abandoning its people starts with its refusal to trust them, in other words it views them as unintelligent citizens. Fearing that a panic would result, it did not announce SPEEDI data, nor did it distribute solid iodine tablets. It prioritized “emotional stability” over protecting residents from radiation danger. Moreover, it implemented thorough control of information.
It is not simply that residents are seen as ignorant. The government has even actively betrayed their trust. A classic example of such actions by the state is the presentation of data on the radioactive contamination levels in the environment. The government set up monitoring posts (MP) in Fukushima Prefecture and neighboring prefectures and made the readings from them into official data. Along with Yoshida Kunihiro and others from the “Safety and Reassurance Project”, in the autumn of 2011, I checked the dose measurements of the MP. We found clear evidence that the publicly available data of the MP only showed 54% of the actual level of contamination in our readings.
Comparison of Radiation Dose Readings from the Monitoring Posts and Actual Doses
X-axis: amount of radiation (microsieverts/hour
Y-axis: actual doses for residents and measurements at monitoring posts
Black dot-dash line: Actual absorbed dose received by residents
Dotted red line: Measurements at monitoring posts without decontamination
Red line: Measurements at monitoring posts with decontamination
[When laid alongside a graph of the actual recorded radiation doses taken by the authors at the monitoring posts (black line; the absorbed dose to residents), the same displayed readings taken from the same monitoring posts were 58% of that value in the case of non-decontaminated areas and 51% for decontaminated areas.]
[2011 autumn, taken with a certified scintillator counter, model HITACHI-ALOKA YCS172B]
On top of that, there was also a deliberate downplaying in government processing of the numerical data. The level of soil contamination is directly related to the amount of radiation in the air, and an objective measurement of this thus should be obtained from the air dose. However, on the assumption that there is a uniform exposure dose to the whole body, this reading was converted to 60% of its full amount based on the projected dose, an amount called the “effective dose”, a number that divides the exposure dose among the body’s various organs. Furthermore, they made a hypothetical estimate of the time people spent inside and outside their homes, and created a “substantive dose” reading that was another 60% lower. In the background to these machinations lies the will of the international nuclear energy industry.
The health survey being conducted by the Fukushima Prefecture Health Survey Evaluation Committee continues to progress, and the sad news is that it has already located 163 cases of cancer. From a scientific point of view, it is clear that these cases are undeniably caused by radioactivity. I also found, from the ratio of male to female patients, that about 75% of cancers in each sex were induced by radiation. Despite this, the Evaluation Committee continues to assert that there is no proof that these cancers are linked to the NPP accident.
Just as the committee insists that the numerous stark cases of thyroid cancer are not linked to radioactivity, so they will attempt to bury all other adverse health impacts in the sand.
******
Environmental pollution by radiation in Japan is ongoing, and, following the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident, it is the worst it has ever been. This is true whether we look at the amount of radioactivity being released via the long-term meltdown of the reactor core, which is spewing uncontrollably, while the government and mass media collaborate in the cover-up. From the standpoints of society, economics and preventative medicine, a terrible state of affairs will result if we do not provide public protection to the people affected by the accidents and clarify the nature and extent of environmental damage.
“Cheaper” Countermeasures
The Japanese government has deemed the amount of radioactivity released from the Fukushima accident as one sixth of that which was released from Chernobyl. However, the subsequent revelations suggest that Fukushima’s radioactivity is actually anywhere from 2 to 4 times as high as Chernobyl’s.7 Compared to the explosion of just one reactor at Chernobyl, which had a 1,000,000 kilowatt capacity, the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi involved 4 reactors with a combined output of 2,810,000 kilowatts.
The post-accident maintenance of nuclear reactors between Fukushima and Chernobyl also differs. Seven months after Chernobyl, a steel and cement sarcophagus was built to cover the reactor, thus stopping the further release of radioactive materials. Japan, even after 5 years, continues to let radioactive substances spew out into the air and water, thus worsening the world’s environment.
Without using the necessary basic procedures, they are simply trying to implement “cheaper” countermeasures. The fact that the stricken reactor cannot be managed alone can demonstrate that nuclear power lacks practicality and there is no choice but to abolish it.
As mentioned before, Japan is not honestly disclosing the degree of contamination and is using various measures to underestimate it. They have not published dose readings for radioactive nuclides such as uranium, plutonium, and strontium-90. The monitoring posts, which are supposed to provide public data of radioactivity, give readings that are only around half of the actual doses.
Pediatric thyroid cancer cases in Fukushima have risen to 163. It has been proven scientifically that these are due to radiation. (Tsuda Toshihide et al. have demonstrated this via statistics8; Takamatsu Isamu has examined the relationship between exposure dose and cancer onset rate9; Matsuzaki Michiyuki10 and Yagasaki Katsuma11have studied the relationship of radiation with the sex-differentiated ratio of cancer).
In response to this research, the Fukushima Prefectural Health Evaluation Committee has continued to insist that there is no clear link between cancer and the NPP accident. They are trying to bury all the injuries to health by this denial of a link between radioactivity and the many recorded cases of thyroid cancer. By expunging the record of health damages caused by radiation, they hope to heighten the false impression that NPPs are “safe”. In Japan, excessive utilitarianism goes unmentioned; companies’ profits and the state’s convenience take priority over human life.
The Systemization of Dispersal
The countries surrounding Chernobyl created a “Chernobyl Law” to protect their residents 5 years after the accident. Under this law, the government designated areas that received more than 0.5 millisieverts of radiation each year as “dangerous”, and areas that received between 1 and 5 millisieverts of radiation each year as “areas with relocation rights”, while areas receiving more than 5 millisieverts each year could not be used as residential or agricultural sites. Health checkups and respite trips for children have been covered in a massive budgetary investment by the state in order to protect its residents.
What about Japan? The legal exposure limit for the public is 1 millisievert per year. As previously mentioned, the government has raised the upper threshold to 20 millisieverts per year in their drive to push Fukushima residents to return. The Chernobyl law forbids residence and agriculture in areas where more than 5 millisieverts (per year) of irradiation is expected; in Japan, approximately 1,000,000 people live in such areas.
Under the Basic Law on Atomic Energy, which governs nuclear reactors and related phenomena, the standard for radioactive waste management (the level considered for safe recycling use) is 100 becquerels per kilogram. Notwithstanding this rule, the special law for measures to handle contamination by radioactive substances permits up to 8000 becquerels per kilogram. Contamination dispersal is thus becoming systematized.
A law to support child victims was established, but no maps of radioactive contamination were made, and the areas specified to receive assistance under this law’s “Basic Policy” are limited to Fukushima Prefecture. With this law they have thus made all areas outside Fukushima Prefecture ineligible to receive radioactivity countermeasures.
When looking at the measurements taken by the Nuclear Regulation Authority of the contamination levels in all prefectures, we see that contamination exists everywhere in the country, Okinawa being no exception.
In particular, eastern Japan shows high levels of contamination. 10 prefectures show contamination of more than 1,000 becquerels of Iodine-131 per square meter of land –Tochigi, Ibaraki, Tokyo, Yamagata, Saitama, Chiba, Gunma, Kanagawa, Nagano, and Shizuoka (Readings for Fukushima and Miyagi were not available for a period of time because the measurement equipment were destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami, but other sources confirm high I-131 dispersion in Fukushima). 11 prefectures show more than 1,000 becquerels of Cesium-137, and Cesium-134 – Fukushima, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Tokyo, Yamagata, Saitama, Chiba, Gunma, Kanagawa, Iwate, and Nagano.
These readings are taken from a fixed point, which means that if a radioactive plume does not pass over these points, it will not be measured, and is liable to produce an under-estimation gap by 1 to 2 digits.
Although the Ministry of Education has implemented airborne monitoring, cities with a density of buildings higher than 3 stories present obstacles to this technology, making it unable to record their levels of contamination. Severe contamination is concealed in the Tokyo metropolitan area and other places in the region.
Legal Protection of Citizens
The above facts demonstrate an intentional ignoring of the serious level of radiation pollution. Japanese citizens should recognize radioactivity pollution as a de facto state of affairs.
In order to protect Japanese citizens from radioactivity pollution, the government and administration should take responsibility for protecting victims via a swift application of the regulations exactly as they are laid out under the Basic Law on Atomic Energy. Here we raise some suggestions for administrative policies to enact not only towards evacuees, but all residents. 1. The state should recognize and guarantee citizens’ right to evacuate and relocate. It should also bear responsibility in enacting measures to protect vulnerable victims, especially children.
- Health damages that emerge from NPP accidents should be studied on a nation-wide scale, and a study of the conditions of evacuees should be quickly implemented.
- Those most vulnerable to radiation should be protected by measures based on a sincere commitment to preventive medicine.
- With regard to the numerous early-onset cases of child thyroid cancer that have far exceed such early cases caused by Chernobyl, medical care and compensation should be provided; children and all residents should be protected. Thyroid screening should also be carried out for the entire country.
- Measures to prevent the entrance and exit of radioactive substances in all regions should be enacted.
- TEPCO’s social responsibility as a victimizer corporation in radioactivity pollution should be clarified.
This is a translation of a modified version of Yagasaki’s three-part article series “Kakusareru naibu hibaku – Fukushima genpatsu jiko no shinso” that appeared in Ryukyu Shimpo on March 16, 17, and 18, 2016.
Notes
Japan lifts evacuation order for city near nuclear plant
Minamisoma is one of the most contaminated places in Fukushima. Decontamination is never permanent. Some places already have been decontaminated up to 5 times already, but the contamination always coming back gradually to the pre-decontamination levels thanks to the ruisseling rain and the wind bringing it from the forested hills where it has accumulated. Fukushima prefecture is 80% forested hills/mountains, all heavily contaminated.
The Japanese Government insists on perpetuating the decontamination lie, pushing the people to return to live in the previously evacuated areas, hammering in the media that low-radiation exposure is not harmful to health. Economic priorities prevailing above people lives.
Quoting Bo Jacobs: “This is entirely about removing legally obligated compensation. When you are forced to evacuate, the government is liable for the costs. When the government says that the radiation in your community is acceptable, then there is no more legal obligation to compensate you for living someplace that is safe. “
Tokyo: The Japanese government on Friday lifted an evacuation order for the entire city of Minamisoma, located near the disabled nuclear plant in Fukushima.
The decision, which is awaiting approval from the local council, will allow the return of 12,000 people to the municipalities included in the restricted area around the plant due to the nuclear disaster in 2011.
Minamisoma, with a population of 46,000, is located north of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and the southern and western part of the city is still under the evacuation order, affecting around 11,700 people.
The government has decided to lift the restriction after completing the decontamination work in the residential and surrounding areas, a government spokesperson told state broadcaster NHK.
From next month onwards, Japan intends to allow evacuees to return to the Katsurao and Kawauchi villages too, which means that around 1,480 and 1,040 people will be able to return to their homes respectively.
The last municipality where the evacuation order was completely lifted was Naraha in September 2015, although the inhabitants have returned in small batches due to fear of persisting radiation, a shattered local economy and scarce availability of services.
Around 74,200 citizens throughout the Fukushima prefecture remain evacuated as a result of the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, out of which only around 4,500 have returned to the areas where the evacuation order has been lifted, according to the local government in February.
http://www.newsx.com/world/28364-japan-lifts-evacuation-order-for-city-near-nuclear-plant
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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