SEVEN YEARS AFTER: Surprise finding in Fukushima as radiation fears increase slightly
March 5, 2018
A gradual lessening of fears about the effects of radiation from the 2011 nuclear disaster reversed itself slightly as the seventh anniversary of the accident looms.
A joint survey by The Asahi Shimbun and Fukushima Broadcasting Co. found that 66 percent of Fukushima Prefecture residents still feel anxiety over radioactive substances spewed out of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant after it went into triple meltdown.
The figure, which had been on a downward trend in recent years, was up from 63 percent in the previous survey in 2017.
The Feb. 24-25 survey canvassed the views of 1,888 eligible voters living in the prefecture, excluding some areas that remained off-limits due to high levels of radiation. Respondents were randomly chosen by computer and contacted by landline. Valid responses were given by 1,004 voters, or 53 percent.
It was the eighth such survey since the nuclear disaster triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake that unleashed devastating tsunami on March 11, 2011.
Twenty-one percent of respondents said they are “very much” anxious about the effects of radiation, and 45 percent replied that they are feeling anxiety “to some degree.”
Against that total of 66 percent, 33 percent replied “not very much” or “not at all” with regard to anxiety.
To a question about the course of recovery from the disaster, 45 percent of respondents agreed that it has been set. The breakdown was 3 percent saying “very much” and the remaining 42 percent answering “to some degree.”
On the other hand, 52 percent said the course has not been set yet. The figure included the categories of “not very much” and “not at all.”
Asked when residents will be able to live as they did before the disaster, 54 percent replied “more than 20 years later,” followed by 19 percent with “about 20 years,” 16 percent with “about 10 years” and 4 percent with “about five years.”
Even among those who replied that the course of recovery has been set, 47 percent answered “more than 20 years later.”
On the issue of whether to back the restart of idled nuclear reactors, 11 percent said they support it while 75 percent replied that they are opposed.
The percentage figure of those opposed to restarts was much higher than in a nationwide survey in February, in which 61 percent expressed that sentiment against 27 percent who were in favor.
Another question focused on plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s on-site storage of water containing difficult-to-remove tritium. As the number of storage tanks continues to pile up, TEPCO wants to discharge the water into the sea, a plan that won the support of the nation’s nuclear watchdog body.
Sixty-seven percent of respondents were opposed to diluting the water and discharging it into the sea, while 19 percent supported it.
Besides, 87 percent said they felt anxiety “very much” or “to some degree” about contamination of the sea caused by the discharge.
In addition, 52 percent said they felt anxiety “very much” over damages from rumors without substance about the safety of local seafood.
While 64 percent of respondents did not rate TEPCO’s handling of the nuclear accident highly, 17 percent rated it highly.
Another question centered on moves by Fukushima prefectural authorities to switch from blanket testing for radiation of all bags of harvested rice to random checks.
Forty-nine percent were in favor of switching to a new system, while 44 percent were opposed.
The ratio of opposition was higher than in a nationwide survey in February in which 35 percent expressed opposition against 54 percent who supported it.
Eighty-six percent of the respondents answered that blanket testing had eased consumer concerns. The categories for this were “very much” and “to some degree.”
Fukushima tourism finally rebounds from 2010’s triple disasters
Proving that covering up, disinformation and censorship are working very well. Those tourists are certainly unaware that they might bring back from Fukushima more than just wrapped souvenirs….wrapped inside their body.
5 March, 2018
Nearly seven years after the triple disasters of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown virtually crippled Fukushima’s tourism industry, the number of foreign overnight travellers has recovered to levels last seen before the disaster.
In the first 10 months of calendar 2017, a total of 78,680 foreign visitors spent at least one night in the prefecture, surpassing the 77,890 visitors in the same period in 2010. Final statistics for the full year are not available, but prefectural authorities expect the 2017 figure to eclipse 2010’s figure of 87,170 foreigners who stayed in the prefecture.
Tourist visiting Ouchijuku Village, a former post town along the Aizu-Nishi Kaido trade route in Fukushima
Visitor numbers collapsed in the months after the March 11 earthquake and a mere 23,990 foreigners stayed in calendar 2011.
“We have been working with the Fukushima government to promote the prefecture at international events, focusing on events in countries where we have already seen visitor numbers recover, such as Taiwan, Thailand and Australia,” said Kazuhiko Yoshioka, director of overseas promotion for the Fukushima Prefecture Tourism and Local Products Association.
Yoshioka shared that the organisation plugs the prefecture’s samurai history, onsen, fruit, scenery and seasonal highlights as part of overseas promotion. Information on the destination is also shared online.
“Getting the message across can be difficult,” he admitted. “We have found that the best way to overcome worries about safety is to ensure that up-to-date and accurate information is accessible and then to share that information as widely as possible.”
Travel operators concur that visitor numbers have bounced back strongly.
Paul Christie, CEO of Walk Japan, said the company’s walking tour in the footsteps of famous poet Basho in Tohoku are “selling very well – so well, in fact, that they are sold out months in advance.”
“We have found that whatever problems happened in Fukushima seven years ago are no longer in the forefront of people’s minds,” he said. “I have been quite surprised, but it is really not an issue for the vast majority of people.”
At Nippon Travel Agency, Kaho Mori, assistant manager of the inbound division, observed: “There is interest in Fukushima Prefecture as part of our tours of the Tohoku region. We are getting a lot of interest in that part of the country from visitors from North America, although less from European countries.”
7 years after, Fukushima still struggling to return to normal
March 5, 2018
Almost one year has passed since the evacuation order for four municipalities around the ruined Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was lifted to make it possible for local residents to return home.
But the harsh reality of life in towns and villages devastated by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami and the consequences are clearly visible to anyone who visits these areas.
These towns and villages lack many of the functions and facilities to meet the essential needs of people such as housing, shopping, health and nursing care, jobs and communities. This is the reason why many of the local residents have not returned home despite an end to forced evacuation. A survey of evacuees by one local government found nearly 50 percent of the residents have no plan to return.
But it is also true that many of the people who left their towns and villages in the wake of the catastrophic accident want to eventually return home or are of two minds.
It is the government’s important role to make things easier for evacuees to return to their former communities if they want to do so while supporting their current lives.
The government needs to review the measures that have been taken so far and, if necessary, adjust them to better suit the actual circumstances.
A myriad of challenges are threatening to thwart the efforts to rebuild towns and villages ravaged by the disaster. But progress is only possible through hard, tenacious work and constant adjustments for the better.
REALITIES DETER RETURN OF EVACUEES
In Namie, a town located north of the nuclear plant, the newly built Namie Sosei elementary and junior high school, which is to open this spring, held a school enrollment briefing at the end of January.
“Each child receives more sufficient attention at a school with a small number of students, I believe,” says a father of two in his 30s who left Namie with his family following the disaster and now lives in Iwaki, a city in the prefecture farther from the nuclear plant. He has decided to return to Namie so that his children can attend the new school.
The opening of the school will be “an important step forward in the efforts to rebuild Namie back into a normal town where we can hear the voices of children,” says Kiichiro Hatakeyama, head of the municipal board of education.
But the number of such families is still small. Only about 10 students are expected to enter the elementary and junior high school in the first year.
Before the 2011 disaster, more than 20,000 people lived in the town. Only about 500 of them had returned by the end of January since the evacuation order was lifted.
Many evacuated residents have been discouraged from returning to the town by the slow progress in the restoration of the living environment.
There are convenience stores in the town but not a supermarket. Local residents have to drive dozens of minutes to shop at the nearest supermarket.
The municipal government is courting supermarket operators to open a store in the town, but the population is still too small to support this kind of business.
There are only clinics for surgery and internal medicine in Namie. Many of the residents who have returned are elderly people, and they are asking for dentists and eye doctors.
NEW APPROACH NEEDED TO ESCAPE FROM SITUATION
The situation is more or less similar in Tomioka and Iitate, two other municipalities where the evacuation order was called off at the same time with Namie. The government’s strategy aimed at encouraging evacuated residents of these communities to return home by stepping up the decontamination efforts has failed to work as expected.
As the living circumstances remain poor, evacuated residents don’t go back to their homes. As the population thus remains small, services necessary for daily life remain unavailable.
To break this never-ending cycle, the central and local governments need to come up with better ideas to improve the living environment.
As for medical and nursing care services, the Fukushima prefectural government and the administration need to work together with organizations involved to provide active support for the efforts to secure service providers instead of leaving the task entirely to the municipalities.
A system should be created to provide policy support for retailers, not just for their preparations to restart their businesses, but also for their actual operations for a certain period of time.
There are obviously limits to what individual municipal governments can do independently to regenerate their cities, towns and villages.
Cooperation among areas, such as joint efforts by multiple municipalities to restore necessary functions and facilities, is essential.
There have been troubling signs that the government’s policy to support the reconstruction of disaster-hit areas tends to focus on the building of new facilities.
Costly projects to build various facilities, such as research and development institutions in the areas of energy and robotics and large sports facilities, are under way in the region.
“Some local government chiefs are forging ahead with public works projects to build facilities in a rush to take advantage of the central government budget for post-disaster reconstruction while the money is available, but they are failing to think about the ongoing costs,” says a senior official at the municipal government of one affected town. “The central government is also acting in a somewhat senseless manner.”
The administration stresses the importance of helping rebuild the lives of local residents. But its priorities in allocating the financial and human resources seem to be messed up.
SUPPORT FROM ENTIRE SOCIETY
In disaster-stricken areas, the vital bonds between people have been totally destroyed by the effects of prolonged periods of living as evacuees. Local communities have also been hurt by conflict and division over such issues as the status of evacuees as to whether they can return home or how much compensation they have received.
Rebuilding the broken human ties is no easy task. But there are some encouraging signs as well.
In Naraha, where about 30 percent of the residents have returned since the evacuation order was lifted two and a half years ago, a small and casual Japanese restaurant named Yui no Hajimari, which opened in September last year, is thriving. At night, it is thronged with residents in the neighborhood and nuclear workers.
Kaori Furuya, the 33-year-old woman who runs the restaurant, used to work in the Tokyo metropolitan area but decided to start the business in the town after she became involved in a project to help people acquire the skills and abilities needed for the reconstruction of affected communities.
“I want to keep operating the restaurant as a place where local residents and people from outside the town develop contacts and enjoy spending time together naturally,” Furuya says.
Iitate will soon launch a program to expand ties and communication with other parts of the nation. The program, dubbed “Furusato Juminhyo” (hometown certificate of residence), will involve various attempts to convey information about Iitate to people outside who want to support the town and provide them with opportunities to mix with local residents, according to the municipal government.
“We will test various ideas designed to build a new village instead of trying to restore the village to its former state,” says Iitate Mayor Norio Kanno.
Seven years since the calamitous nuclear accident, people in Fukushima are still facing a grim reality and fighting an uphill battle to find a way to regain an environment that enables them to enjoy a peaceful and quiet daily life.
What must not be forgotten is the grave fact that the accident occurred in connection with the government’s long-running policy of promoting nuclear power generation.
Our society is facing a serious test of whether it can keep this in mind and commit itself as a whole to supporting the affected communities’ struggles to rebuild themselves.
SEVEN YEARS AFTER: Radioactive debris piling up at Fukushima interim facility
March 5, 2018
Bags containing radioactive soil and other waste are piled up high at an interim storage facility in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, on Feb. 17.
FUTABA, Fukushima Prefecture–Stacks of soil and other waste contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster continue to grow at an interim storage facility here.
Black bags filled with radioactive debris collected during decontamination work in various locations in the prefecture have been brought to the facility since October, when operations started.
Heavy machinery is used to stack the bags, and green sheets now cover some of the piles.
The town of Futaba co-hosts the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The interim facility is expected to eventually cover about 1,600 hectares of land in Futaba and Okuma, the other co-host of the plant.
The government has acquired 801 hectares as of Jan. 29, and 70 percent of that space is already covered with contaminated debris.
Negotiations between the government and landowners are continuing for the remaining hectares.
The government plans to move the contaminated debris to a final disposal site outside the prefecture by March 2045. However, it has had difficulties finding local governments willing to accept the waste.
Former students return to school 7 years after nuclear disaster
March 4, 2018
Yuki Kokatsu, left, smiles as she finds her Japanese dictionary in Ono Elementary School in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 2. She was a second-grader of the school at the time of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture–Seven years after being forced to leave her belongings behind, Yuki Kokatsu returned to her second-grade elementary school classroom here for the first time.
Yuki, now 15, spotted her melodica instrument on the floor, and said, “I found it.”
The third-year junior high school student also found 30 other items she had left when her family was forced to evacuate due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, including a Japanese dictionary and a jump rope. She put them all into her cloth bag to take home.
“I feel that I was able to recover my lost possessions. I will keep and treasure them,” said Yuki, who had evacuated to Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.
Yuki and other former Ono Elementary School students at the time of the disaster returned to their school on March 2 to retrieve their belongings.
After the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011, which was triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, all the residents of Okuma town evacuated to other areas.
Ono Elementary School is located in an area that remains designated as a difficult-to-return zone. However, the radiation level around the school has been lowered due to decontamination work. Because of that, former students and related people have asked the Okuma town government to allow them to enter the school building.
According to the Okuma town government, six groups visited Ono Elementary School on March 2. A total of 39 groups are expected to do so through March 4.
Fukushima looks to ease blanket radiation checks on rice starting in 2020
Normalisation of the health risks, the Japanese government continues is denial policy.
Rice is checked for radiation in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, in October 2016.
March 3, 2018
FUKUSHIMA – Fukushima Prefecture will begin scaling back its blanket radiation checks on rice as early as 2020 amid growing signs the safety fears sparked by the March 2011 nuclear crisis are disappearing, it has been learned.
All rice will remain subject to checks for the time being in 12 municipalities where evacuation orders were issued following the triple core meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, but other areas will switch to random checks. All locally grown rice has been subject to the checks since 2012.
Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori told the prefectural assembly that checks will become random if no excessive radiation is detected for five years.
All local rice grown between 2015 and 2017 came in below the safety limit of 100 becquerels per kilogram. If the 2018 and 2019 harvests are also found to be within the standards, the checks will go random starting in 2020 in areas outside the 12 evacuated municipalities.
Some have criticized the blanket checks as too costly.
The manager of the Fukushima No. 1 plant is Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.
Displayed sign carried during a demonstration in Japan, at the end of the seventh year…
From Shuji-san:
Displayed sign carried during a demonstration in Japan, at the end of the seventh year…
“Do not forget Fukushima, but please do not come to Fukushima.”
“Do not forget Fukushima, but please do not eat anything in Fukushima.”
“When everyone comes to Fukushima for sightseeing, children of Fukushima will not escape.”
“When you eat the food of Fukushima, the children in Fukushima are eating radioactive substances. “
About Fukushima Food Contamination
From Shuji-san:
It will become increasingly severe in the future to turn your eyes off from the facts or interpret the facts with distortion.
Exports from Japan will also increase.
If we do not keep informed only to those who are willing to face facts, there will be no end to the increase and spread of damage.
I am translating this illustration into native language of various countries and sending it.
Fukushima Disaster Released Uranium, Unexpected Particles
The gate of “Difficult-to-return zone” in Fukushima on March 11, 2014
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was believed to have only resulted in the release of gases. But seven years after one of history’s few radioactive disasters, scientists have found that uranium and other solid microparticles were also released into the surrounding parts of Japan.
The particles are a fraction of the width of a human hair – which means they could be inhaled, according to the study in the journal Environmental Science Technology.
“Our research strongly suggests there is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone,” said Gareth Law, one of the authors, of the University of Manchester.
The debris, which included uranium, caesium and technetium, was discovered in the nuclear exclusion zone, several kilometers from the epicenter of the disaster at the Fukushima plant.
Two locations were paddy oils, and an abandoned aquaculture center.
Uranium itself has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
The previously acknowledged radioactive materials were cesium and iodine, both taking the form of volatile gases. Other gases were released, as well.
But the new information about particles potentially means a longer, bigger cleanup, according to the latest study, led by Satoshi Utsunomiya of Kyushu University.
“Having better knowledge of the released microparticles is also vitally important as it provides much needed data on the status of the melted nuclear fuels in the damaged reactors,” said Utsunomiya. “This will provide extremely useful information for (The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s) decommissioning strategy.”
The March 2011 Fukushima disaster was triggered by a massive 9.0-scale earthquake, then a 15-foot tsunami. The Daiichi plant lost power, which prevented normal cooling operations – and caused the meltdown of all three cores at the plant within a few days. The removal of the melted fuel – which could take decades – is not going to begin until 2022.
Eighteen thousand people were killed throughout the whole incident, and 100,000 were displaced. The disaster has widely been considered the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
Initial reports indicated that much of the contamination was contained in the aftermath of the 2011 disaster. But coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the meltdown, a report indicated that 10,000 additional cancer cases would be expected in the region of Japan that is most affected. Also in 2015, an American scientist contended that the Fukushima site was uncontrolled, and was leaking radioactive cesium and strontium in the Pacific Ocean. Last year, in advance of the sixth anniversary, the utilities charged with the cleanup announced that decommission of some of the fuel at one of the three damaged reactors had to be delayed, due to increased radiation.
Reflection in Fukushima: The Fukushima Daiichi Accident Seven Years On
#7 Years of Fukushima Greenpeace Radiation Survey in Namie and Iitate towns.
Greenpeace radiation surveys of the Fukushima Prefecture area in September 2017 showed that while some of the area has levels close to the government decontamination target (0.23 micro-sieverts per hour) there were many areas which were higher, including above 5 microsieverts per hour.
Going home after 7 years of the accident Story of Ms Kanno
February 28, 2018
Japanese government forcing Fukushima evacuees back into radioactive areas by cutting their compensation. This Greenpeace video provides one story now seven years after the triple catastrophe.
Nearly seven years after the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, mrs. Kanno returns to her evacuated home, the highly contaminated exclusion zone of Namie, Fukushima prefecture. Includes interviews with Mrs. Kanno and Greenpeace radiation specialist Jan Vande Putte.
More Fukushima Propaganda to Come from Japan’s Ministry of the Environment
Feb 26, 2018,
Ministry of the Environment Cohosts Panel Discussion “Update Fukushima” —
Cheer Fukushima by Knowing It More and Sharing That Knowledge More
– Statement for “Update Fukushima” Released from Tokyo –
TOKYO, Feb. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — The Ministry of the Environment of Japan (MOEJ) on Saturday, February 10, 2018, cohosted the Panel Discussion “Update Fukushima” — Cheer Fukushima by Knowing It More and Sharing That Knowledge More –, hosted by the Update Fukushima Executive Committee and held at the United Nations University’s U Thant International Conference Hall (in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo).
While environmental recovery in Fukushima after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake is well underway, the area still suffers misconceptions within Japan and abroad due mostly to the lack of accurate information. To help correct this situation, the ministry cohosted the aforementioned event in order to discuss, identify and share a variety of facts, viewpoints, effective methods and the like necessary to update and communicate information on the state of Fukushima.
The event brought a total of 275 participants into one place, consisting of individual attendees in response to the ministry’s call on the public to join the event in advance, and representatives from the government, Fukushima, education, media and other various fields.
Based on a variety of questions and comments sent in to the Update Fukushima Secretariat in advance, the event took place in this manner: Part 1 of its program featured issues raised by the members of the Update Fukushima Executive Committee and the exchange of views among them, Part 2 introduced case studies on updated Fukushima affairs, as presented by those representing the educational and media communities and local high school students, and Part 3 focused on further discussions on the subjects of “Update the public awareness of Fukushima,” “Continue efforts to communicate the truth about Fukushima in an effective way” and the like, to summarize the discussions into the statement of “Update Fukushima,” which was then released from Tokyo.
On the day of the event, in Part 1: Thoughts on Fukushima Today — Theories, four members of the Update Fukushima Executive Committee appeared on the stage for discussions: Ryugo Hayano, Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo; Sae Ochi, Lecturer, Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Tokyo Jikei University School of Medicine; William McMichael, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Fukushima University; and Hiroshi Kainuma, Associate Professor, Kinugasa Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University. Mr. Kainuma played the role of facilitator to step up interaction between the panel members and the audience on the subjects of Fukushima’s agricultural produce, foods, environment, health, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and other affairs, by giving some quizzes to the audience, which were answered by panel members, while identifying some of the issues that are actually going on in Fukushima, including “misleading information about radiation,” “health risks in Fukushima increasingly more serious than risks between radiation exposure and cancer” and the “wrong imagery about Fukushima felt by people abroad,” for example. Then, he led the panel members to write their messages on the boards, such as “Communicate it to a wide range of people, as well as to each individual,” “Enjoy exploring ‘what you don’t know’,” and “Kakushin (or confidence) x Kakushin (or the core part of the issues affecting Fukushima),” to share their views on what can be done to “update the imagery about Fukushima.”
In Part 2: How the State of Fukushima Today Is Communicated — Case Studies, Assistant Professor McMichael from Fukushima University first appeared on the stage together with foreign students, who participate in the Fukushima Ambassador Program while currently staying and studying in Fukushima, to discuss how to meet the “challenge of building a Fukushima model for global education for recovery from disasters.” In discussing the theme, they admitted that “there are many foreign students who have changed their impressions about Fukushima after they actually visit the place.” Representing overseas media, Vikram Channa, Vice President and Production Head for Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, delivered his speech on the subject of “Communicating Fukushima in the Age of Social Media” to present a TV program titled “FUKUSHIMA DIARIES” broadcast on Discovery Channel to share viewers’ responses to the program.
Then, representing Japanese media, Akira Ito, Chief Producer for the TV Programming Division of TV-U Fukushima, came up onto the stage together with Riken Komatsu, president of Alternative Space UDOK, and Hiroshi Motoki, president of Wonder Farm, who both appeared on the TV program to have a talk show on the subject of “Correcting the Images of FUKUSHIMA Via TV Program,” and then talked about “Fukushima Today,” a documentary program for overseas audiences, as broadcast in a total of 18 countries, including China, South Korea and those in Southeast Asia, in terms of episodes behind the production of the program and responses to it from local viewers.
NB. You can watch the two programs of “FUKUSHIMA DIARIES” and “Fukushima Today” on the following website: http://josen.env.go.jp/en/movie_publication/cooperation_index.html
The last part of the case study session in Part 2 was presided over by Dr. Hayano who led Shunya Okino and Honoka Ara, who are juniors at Fukushima High School, and Ryo Endo, a junior at Fukushima Futaba Future School, to present their case studies so far made under the theme of “We Explore, Learn, Study and Communicate.” Okino said in his presentation, “I hope people will keep watching us in Fukushima (in warmth and without prejudice) by gaining the right knowledge about it,” while Ara said, “I will continue to communicate facts about ‘Utsukushima Fukushima (Beautiful Place, Fukushima)’ not only to people in Japan but also to people in the rest of the world.” And Endo said, “It is natural that even if they come from the same Fukushima prefecture, how hard experiences they might have undergone from that disaster and how to think about their future may vary from person to person. I hope that you understand us in a more flexible way.”
In Part 3: Cheer Fukushima by Knowing It More and Sharing That Knowledge More — Summary, the four members of the Update Fukushima Executive Committee, who appeared in Part 1, were joined by Takashi Hara, a teacher at Fukushima High School, Ippei Nango, Vice Principal of Futaba Future School, and Hideka Morimoto, Vice Minister of the Environment, the MOEJ, to write their messages each for “Update Fukushima” on the boards before getting down to the discussion.
With his message saying, “Want to update educational trips for high school students,” Mr. Hara stressed how important it is to educate people in the right way. Showing his message “‘For Fukushima’ to ‘From Fukushima’ with the Youth,” Mr. Nango said that young people without unwanted ties or fetters are expected to actively participate in the decision-making process to communicate information from Fukushima to the rest of the world.” And MOEJ Vice Minister Morimoto, with his message of “Just talking cannot get across to people — (need for) group learning,” said that based on lessons learnt from the case of the Minamata disease, or methylmercury poisoning caused in Japan by environmental pollution, it is important to build a scheme allowing people to trust one another (or group learning), through which we would like to strive for winning understanding about decontamination and intermediate storage of radioactive materials among people.”
Dr. Hayano wrote “(All women in Fukushima) feel safe to have babies,” “All” and “Individuals” on the board and said, “It is important to communicate the right information to individuals. Education holds the key but it will be also necessary to take an approach of sharing it with all people in the future.”
Dr. Ochi wrote “No qualification is required to talk about Fukushima. Do from now on right here” and said, “Some of you may choose to keep silent because you have never been there or you may feel afraid of causing trouble if you say something despite not being an expert. Never mind, you may think and talk about Fukushima from now on and right here.” Mr. McMichael wrote “No boundaries, Kakushin (confidence) x Kakushin (the core part of the issue) = Kakushin (innovation)” and said, “It is important to move forward to build a better future and get things innovated in the awareness process.” Finally, as the facilitator, Mr. Kainuma, announced a statement for “Update Fukushima” before the audience before closing the panel discussion event.
A Statement for “Update Fukushima”: https://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M104178/201802211137/_prw_PA1fl_kPJ62oum.pdf
Relevant URLs:
Official site of Update Fukushima: http://josen.env.go.jp/update_fukushima/en/
Official site of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan: http://josen.env.go.jp/en/movie_publication/cooperation_index.html
* A report on what was going on at this Panel Discussion event will be disclosed at the URLs above on a later day.
SOURCE Ministry of the Environment, Japan
7 years on, local gov’ts face challenge in protecting 3/11 evacuees from isolation
February 26, 2018
A disaster recovery support worker, left, listens to an evacuee on his life and worries in Taiwa, Miyagi Prefecture, on Feb. 15, 2018.
While March 11 marks the seventh anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and ensuing tsunami that triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, tens of thousands of people who evacuated from their hometowns in the wake of the triple disaster are yet to return. Now, local governments are facing a challenge as they make efforts to prevent evacuees scattered across Japan from becoming isolated.
As of January this year, 75,206 people were still living outside their hometowns following evacuation in the wake of the triple disaster in March 2011. Of those, 40,349 from the three prefectures hit hardest by the disaster — Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate — had left their hometowns to reside in areas outside their home prefectures. While local authorities continue to visit evacuees door-to-door, in many cases their whereabouts have become unknown.
On Feb. 15, Naokiyo Suzuki, 66, and two other disaster recovery support workers sent by the Tomioka Municipal Government in Fukushima Prefecture visited the home of 63-year-old Kazunari Sakamoto, who has evacuated from his hometown with his wife to Taiwa, Miyagi Prefecture. The workers checked whether the couple needed welfare services as they chatted with them.
“It’s hard for us to get local information on the town we used to live in, and we tend to think that we’ve been abandoned,” Sakamoto says. “I’m thankful that workers from my hometown come to check on us.”
At an apartment in the Miyagi Prefecture city of Tagajo, the support workers met with a male relative of an evacuee in her 90s to learn how she was doing. The relative told them that she fell (at the apartment) and bruised her face and said he wanted to have her moved from the current place as he was worried about the steep stairs at the building. Suzuki’s team then asked the bureau at the Fukushima Prefectural Government to handle the man’s request.
There are 34,202 Fukushima Prefecture residents who left the prefecture after the disaster and have not returned. The prefectural government has set up disaster recovery hubs in nine prefectures in the Tohoku and Kanto regions, including Tokyo, and support workers visit and meet with the evacuees. Separately, the Fukushima Prefecture towns of Tomioka and Namie continue to visit their local residents who have evacuated outside the prefecture. These local governments are utilizing the disaster recovery support workers program set up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to cover expenditure, including the support workers’ salaries and their activity fees. The program was established with the objective of providing services to watch over the evacuees.
At the same time, differences in support measures taken by the three prefectures have become apparent. The Iwate and Miyagi prefectural governments, with 1,234 and 4,913 evacuees outside those prefectures, respectively, conduct door-to-door visits, not to check the evacuees’ lives away from their home, but rather to confirm their thoughts on returning to their home prefectures. Both prefectural governments therefore do not visit the evacuees’ homes if their will to return can be confirmed via a phone call or in writing. They explain that they have phone consultation services and other methods to respond to evacuees’ needs.
With such handling of the evacuees, some are feeling increasingly isolated. An 83-year-old woman who lives by herself at a housing complex in Saitama Prefecture after her home in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, was swept away in the tsunami says she only exchanges conversations at her doorstep with a social worker who stops by about once every two months.
“There were various things I could enjoy in Otsuchi, but there’s nothing like that here,” the woman says. She hardly goes out, except to visit the hospital and to go shopping.
A study shows that the risk of depression increases when a person does not have someone in their immediate circle to talk to. Waseda University and other organizations began a survey in October last year targeting households that have moved from Fukushima Prefecture to the Tokyo metropolitan area after the disaster. According to a midterm preliminary report, of the 356 households that responded to a question on whether members had someone to talk to when there was a problem or concern, 157 households, or 44 percent, said “no.” Of these households, 49, or 31.2 percent, said there was at least one family member suspected to have depression — about three times higher than the corresponding figure for households whose members had someone to talk to.
Among the respondents in this survey was a couple in their 50s who said they were thinking about a family suicide due to financial hardships. The husband has had a hard time finding a job and their second son stopped going to school due to bullying. They decided to “leave some kind of trace” before taking their own lives when the questionnaire arrived in the mail and they raised their voice for the first time.
Yutaka Aiko, director general of support group “Shinsai Shien (disaster support) Network Saitama” which helped out with the survey, points out that there are people who hide the fact that they are disaster evacuees from others around them. He stressed that administrative bodies need to understand evacuees’ circumstances through door-to-door visits.
The Mainichi Shimbun asked each local government that conducts door-to-door visits about the number of households they have visited and the number of families they could actually meet, and calculated the success rate. As a result, the Fukushima Prefectural Government had a 34 percent success rate and the Miyagi Prefectural Government 24 percent. Some housing units that are supposed to house evacuees show no sign of occupancy, making it difficult for local authorities to know where the evacuees are located.
Fukushima seafood ban
2018-02-25
Korea should strive to prove harmful effects
South Korea has decided to appeal the World Trade Organization’s ruling on its seafood import restrictions imposed following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The decision came after a WTO dispute panel ruled the restrictions were justified right after the nuclear meltdown, but continuing them violated the WTO’s sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement.
The ruling, however, does not mean the Seoul government should lift the limits immediately. As it decided to appeal, the country can keep them in place until the world body makes a final ruling which may come in the latter half of the year at the earliest.
Whatever the reason, the government should take the responsibility for losing out to Japan. It has taken only seven samples of affected Japanese seafood. It has failed to publish any reports about this matter in the past seven years. In addition, a committee of civilian radioactivity experts stopped its operations monitoring Japanese seafood. In a word, the authorities were ill-prepared for the dispute.
The seafood row began in May 2015 when the neighboring country filed a complaint against Korea over the restrictions. Korea imposed an import ban on 50 types of seafood caught in the waters near the disaster area. It also took further steps to limit fishery imports from seven other prefectures in 2013.
Those measures were to protect Korean consumers from the potential harmful effects of radioactive contamination. But the government has so far failed to prove such effects exist. Thus, it is no surprise Japan won the case.
Now, related government ministries and agencies should waste no efforts to collect scientific and objective data to prove the harmful effects. They also need to address Japan’s refusal to cooperate in probing seawater contamination near the disaster-hit area.
South Korea also needs to ask for help with 24 countries, including the U.S., Russia and Argentina, which also took measures against Japanese seafood after the Fukushima catastrophe. It must keep in mind that food safety is crucial to ensuring the people’s health.
Japan wants Fukushima evacuees to go home. They’re not so sure.
About 160,000 people left their homes in 2011, after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Today, the government says it’s safe for many to return. But regaining residents’ trust remains a challenge.
February 21, 2018 Yonezawa, Japan—For Toru Takeda, the best and worst parts of life in Yonezawa are the same: snow. Located in the mountains 150 miles north of Tokyo, the city typically lies under a few feet every winter. It snows so much that many streets in Yonezawa are equipped with sprinklers that spray warm underground water to keep them clear.
Mr. Takeda is still getting used to the sheer amount of snow and the inconveniences that come with it. Train delays. Slow traffic. Shoveling. It doesn’t snow nearly as much in Fukushima City, his hometown, an hour-long drive away in good weather.
But snow has its benefits when it melts. “The soil here is rich because the snow melts slowly,” Takeda says one morning at a diner in downtown Yonezawa. He’s certain that the gradual thaw makes the fruits and vegetables grown in the region some of the best in Japan. Taking a sip of coffee, he adds solemnly, “The water and soil in Fukushima [Prefecture] is still contaminated.”
It’s been almost seven years since the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami struck the northeast coast of Japan and triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The cleanup is projected to cost $200 billion and take up to 40 years. Yet already many of the area’s 160,000 evacuees have started to return.
The Japanese government says it’s safe, but Takeda isn’t convinced. His faith in authority was shattered by the botched response to the meltdown. Today, he remains suspicious of everything from regulatory agencies to utility companies, to say nothing of food safety and, of course, nuclear power. Whether the government is able to regain Takeda’s trust – and the trust of thousands of others like him – is an important test of its ability to revive the cities and towns of Fukushima.
“We don’t believe the government anymore,” Takeda says, speaking for himself, his wife and daughter, and about 20 other evacuees he knows who have refused to leave Yonezawa. “I’ll do anything and everything I can to make sure we can stay,” he declares. That includes going to court.
Man on a mission
It all started last March, when the Fukushima prefectural government ended unconditional housing subsidies to nearly 27,000 people who left areas not designated as mandatory evacuation zones – including Takeda and many others in Yonezawa. Faced with the choice of returning to areas they fear are still unsafe or paying rent many can’t afford, they’ve chosen neither. Instead, they’ve stayed in their apartments and refused to pay rent. The local public housing agency tolerated this for a while. Then, in September, it filed an eviction lawsuit against the so-called voluntary evacuees, who quickly hired a team of lawyers in response.
“The Japanese government and Tepco caused the disaster,” Takeda says, referring to Tokyo Electric Power Company, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. “They should have to pay.”
Since moving to Yonezawa in April 2011, Takeda, a 77-year-old retired high school English teacher, has emerged as the de facto leader of the city’s evacuee community. He organizes social gatherings and frequently meets with local government officials. He and his wife even set up a learning center in their small, three-room apartment for evacuee children. The center closed after two years, and now Takeda spends most of his time on the lawsuit. He does everything from fundraising to meeting with lawyers.
“The government hates me,” he says. “If not for me then the evacuees would have already gone back.”
While the lawsuit in Yonezawa continues, some victims have already found redress. In October, a district court in Fukushima ruled that the Japanese government and Tepco must pay damages totaling $4.4 million to about 2,900 people. It was the third case in which a court found the company negligent in not preventing the meltdown.
‘It breeds distrust’
Yonezawa, which lies 60 miles northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, was once home to as many as 3,900 evacuees from Fukushima. There are fewer than 500 now left, according to government figures. Some have returned home, either out of financial necessity or because they believe it’s safe, but many have refused. In a survey conducted last April by the Fukushima government, 80 percent of voluntary evacuees living in other parts of Japan said they had no intention of going back.
The government has worked hard to assuage any lingering fears. But Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace, says officials have played down the potential health risks because of the pressure they feel to put a positive spin on the situation. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics approaching, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to deliver on his promise that the Fukushima cleanup effort is “under control.”
“Having zones where people can’t live is politically unacceptable for the government,” Mr. Burnie says. “It creates the impression that a nuclear disaster can destroy whole communities for a long time.”
As the government rushes to revitalize Fukushima, it may run the risk of deepening public distrust, diminishing the respect for authority that is deeply rooted in Japanese society. A 2017 Pew survey found that 57 percent of Japanese have at least some trust in the national government to act in the country’s best interests, though just 6 percent have a lot of trust in national leaders.
Timothy Jorgenson, an associate professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, wrote in a 2016 online commentary that one of the government’s mistakes was its decision to increase the maximum limit of radiation exposure from 1 microsievert to 20 microsieverts per year. (Microsieverts measure the effects of low-level radiation.)
“To the Japanese people, this raising of the annual safety limit from one to 20 mSv appears like the government is backpedaling on its commitment to safety,” Dr. Jorgenson wrote. “This is the problem with moving regulatory dose limits after the fact to accommodate inconvenient circumstances; it breeds distrust.”
Jorgenson wrote that the government would be better off to just explain what the health risks are at various radiation doses and leave it at that. Armed with such information, evacuees could decide for themselves if they want to return home.
For now, the government appears poised to further cut housing subsidies to evacuees. Its current plan would remove 5,000 households from the roll by March 2019. Advocacy groups are pressuring it to reconsider. In a written statement submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Feb. 2, Greenpeace and Human Rights Now, a Tokyo-based nongovernmental organization, called on the government to “provide necessary housing support to all Fukushima evacuees, including those who evacuated from outside the government designated areas, as long as needed to ensure their ability to freely choose where they will live without pressure to return areas where their health or life would be at risk.”
If the Japanese government were to take such advice, the lawsuit in Yonezawa could end. Takeda says it’s a tempting thought, but rather than waiting for the government to change its plan, he’s busy preparing for his next court appearance on March 20.
“I don’t have much time left,” Takeda says. “I can’t go home.”
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