Japan reconstruction minister quits after inappropriate comment on disaster zone
The Japanese cabinet minister overseeing reconstruction of areas devastated by the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster resigned on Wednesday after saying it was better the disaster struck the northeastern region instead of Tokyo.
Masahiro Imamura was forced to quit after remarks he made on Tuesday at a party for ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers and is the latest in a spate of ruling party lawmakers in trouble for their comments or behavior.
Speaking of the costs incurred in the 9.0 earthquake that set off a massive tsunami and left nearly 20,000 dead or missing, Imamura said: “It was better that this happened in the northeast.”
The comments came just weeks after Imamura set off a furor at a news conference by disparaging people who left Fukushima out of fear after the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, then shouting at a reporter and storming out of the room.
Imamura’s comments prompted an immediate rebuke from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who apologized on his behalf. His swift resignation was seen aimed at minimizing the damage to Abe’s government, which has been accused of complacency in the absence of a viable opposition.
“It was an extremely inappropriate comment and hurtful to people in the disaster zone, an act causing the people a reconstruction minister works for to lose trust in him, ” Abe told reporters after Imamura resigned.
The subject still touches a raw nerve because regional businesses have struggled to recover and reconstruction work has been slow. Many evacuee families have also given up hope of returning to their home towns.
Shunsuke Mutai, a deputy reconstruction minister, drew fire last year after forcing a subordinate to carry him on his back so his feet could stay dry as he visited a flooded area. He quit in March on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the March 11 disaster after making a joke about the incident.
A week ago the vice minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Toshinao Nakagawa, was forced to resign from his position after news broke of an extramarital affair. He later resigned from the LDP.
Abe’s support currently hovers around 50 percent despite a series of recent scandals, including one involving a nationalist school. He has a shot at becoming Japan’s longest-serving leader after party rule chances allow him to serve a third consecutive three-year term after his current tenure ends in 2018.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-politics-resignation-idUSKBN17S07R
Survey: 80% of voluntary Fukushima disaster evacuees outside pref. unwilling to return home
A group of evacuees offer silent prayers for earthquake and tsunami victims at an evacuation centre in Soma, Fukushima prefecture on May 11, 2011.
80% of voluntary Fukushima evacuees unwilling to return home – survey
A vast majority of Fukushima voluntary evacuees are not planning to move back to their homes out of fear of radiation despite the government declaring living conditions in the prefecture to be “good”, a new government survey has discovered.
Some 78.2 percent of “voluntary” evacuees households have no intention of returning to their previous places of residence and plan to “continue living” in the area they had evacuated to, results of a Fukushima Prefectural Government survey released on April 24 show.
Only 18.3 percent of households said they intended to move back to the Fukushima prefecture.
On their own accord, some 12,239 households left areas that were not covered by the government’s evacuations orders that were issued following the tsunami and the subsequent meltdown of Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.
Unlike people who were forced to relocate under evacuation orders, voluntary evacuees only received a fraction of the payment of at least 8.5 million yen ($77,300) that the government offered in compensation to mandatory evacuees.
For six years, most of them lived in other parts of Japan through government sponsored subsidies which ended in March this year after the government claimed that the “living environment (in Fukushima Prefecture) is in good order.”
Despite the official assessment, the environmentally wary refugees “still worry about radiation, and many of them have shifted the foundations of their lives to the places they’ve evacuated to,” the prefectural official in charge of the survey told Mainichi, Japan’s national daily.
Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori pledged to work closely with local governments where the evacuees’ old and new homes are located to help them.
“It’s essential to respect the evacuee’s intentions” about returning home, Uchibori told reporters after the release of the survey. “However, we will work to create an environment where people can live with peace of mind, so evacuees can return home in the future.”
https://www.rt.com/news/386153-voluntary-fukushima-evacuees-survey/
80% of voluntary Fukushima disaster evacuees outside pref. won’t move back: survey
FUKUSHIMA — Some 80 percent of voluntary Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuees now living in other areas of Japan have no intention of returning, results of a Fukushima Prefectural Government survey released on April 24 show.
The prefecture ended a housing subsidy for voluntary evacuees at the end of March this year, stating that the “living environment (in Fukushima Prefecture) is in good order” due to ongoing decontamination work and other factors.
Voluntary evacuees “still worry about radiation, and many of them have shifted the foundations of their lives to the places they’ve evacuated to,” the prefectural official in charge of the survey said.
The survey covered 12,239 voluntary evacuee households that had been receiving the prefectural housing subsidy, of which 5,718 households had left Fukushima Prefecture. A total of 4,781 supplied answers to the prefecture regarding where they intended to live in the future, 78.2 percent of which stated that they would “continue living” in the area they had evacuated to. Another 3.5 percent stated that they would move, but not back to Fukushima Prefecture. Only 18.3 percent of respondent households said they intended to move back to the prefecture.
However, only 23.6 percent of voluntary evacuees living in Fukushima Prefecture said they would stay in their current locations, while 66.6 percent said they hope to return to their pre-disaster homes.
Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori told reporters at an April 24 news conference, “It’s essential to respect the evacuees intentions” about returning home. “However, we will work to create an environment where people can live with peace of mind, so evacuees can return home in the future.”
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170425/p2a/00m/0na/003000c
The scandalous deficiency of the health scheme in Fukushima
Taro Yamamoto of the Liberal Party, member of the House of Councilors, accused the double standard of the the public radioprotection policy during his questions at the Special Commission of Reconstruction of the House of Deputies on March 21, 2017. He compared the health examination scheme introduced by Ibaraki prefecture to its population after the JCO* criticality accident to that currently available to Fukushima residents. The result shows the utter deficiency of the latter in spite of the fact that the Fukushima accident is classified as level 7, much more severe than the JCO level 4 accident.
We are publishing here the transcription of Taro Yamamoto’s questions** as well as the soil contamination map of Kashima and Haramachi districts of Minamisoma where the evacuation order was lifted in July 2016. The map is provided by the civil measurement group called “Fukuichi*** Area Environmental Radiation Monitoring Project”**** composed mainly of residents of Minamisoma which has been taking measurements of soil contamination in the vicinity of the members’ neighborhoods and in residential areas since 2012. Taro Yamamoto has already used their maps during another session of the Special Commission of Reconstruction. Let us note that in the map uploaded here, there are only two rectangles where the contamination density is lower than 40,000Bq/m2, and that for the rest of Kashima and Haramachi districts, the density is amazingly higher. As Taro Yamamoto indicated during his questions on November 18 last year, according to the Ordinance on Prevention of Ionizing Radiation Hazards a zone is called a Radiation Control Zone when the surface density is over 40,000Bq/m2. In a Radiation Control Zone, following the Ordinance, it is prohibited to drink, eat or stay overnight. Even adults are not allowed to stay more than 10 hours. To leave the zone, one has to go through a strict screening. The map shows that most of the two districts of Minamisoma city are in this situation. But it is not classified as Radiation Control Zone. On the contrary, people are told to go back there to live, including children.
Measurement devices : scintillation radiometers
Hitachi Aloka TCS172B
Dose rate of airborn radiation at 1 m, 50 cm, 1 cm from the ground. Unit : µSv/h
Hitachi Aloka TGS146B
Calculation of the rate of surface contamination, 1 cm from the ground. Unit : cpm
Procedure for measuring soil samples
Ram a tube in the ground (diam. : 80 mm, h : 50 mm), collect the soil and measure.
For TCS172B/TGS146B, wait for stabilisation, measure 5 times,then take the average value.
Insert ★ where the soil was collected.
Analysis device:
Canberra NaI Scintillation Detector (10 or 20 min)
According to the Ordinance on Prevention of Ionizing Radiation Hazards and Industrial Safety and Health Law, places where the effective dose reaches 1.3mSv in 3 months (approximately 0.6µSv/h of airborne radioactivity) or 40,000Bq/m2, in terms contamination density, are designated as a ‘’Radiation Control Zone’’ and public entry must be severely restricted.
_____
Transcription of the questions of Taro Yamamoto
○Taro Yamamoto
In Japanese history, except for the TEPCO Fukushima accident, are there other cases of population evacuation due to a nuclear accident?
Government expert (Hiromu KATAYAMA)
Here is the answer. According to our understanding, as for the case of population evacuation due to a nuclear disaster in Japan, except for the cases of TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi and Daini that you pointed out, there is the case of the criticality accident of the JCO Tokai plant.
○Taro YAMAMOTO
Thank you.
That was 18 years ago, on September 30, 1999. The criticality accident occurred in a uranium reprocessing facility for the experimental fast breeder reactor fuel, operated by JCO, in the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture. The nuclear fission chain reaction continued for about 20 hours. The radiation went through the walls, reaching the surrounding environment. 150 people within a 350-meter radius were evacuated and the confinement recommendation was given to inhabitants and shops within a 10km radius. On the spot, since the central government delayed to react, the village mayor at the time decided to evacuate the residents upon his responsibility. This is the first case of population evacuation due to a nuclear accident in Japan. It was a severe accident where two workers died, and the rescue members as well as residents in the neighborhood area were irradiated.
Here is my question. How many people were recognized as being irradiated in this accident.
Government expert (Hiromu KATAYAMA)
Here is the answer. According to the report dated March 2000 by the Health Management Committee established by the Nuclear Safety Commission at the time, as for the civil population, there are 7 people for who we have a real value of irradiation, and 200 people for who the dose of radiation is estimated. Among these people, 119 people received more than 1mSv either measured or estimated.
○Taro YAMAMOTO
According the central government, it is 119 people. But Ibaraki prefecture, following the radio security administration of Ibaraki prefecture, reported 666 irradiated people including those who received less than 1mSv. This is more than 5 times of the figure reported by the central government. I suppose that the central government does not want to recognize as many. However, Ibaraki prefecture, recognizing that the local government caused the damaged to its population, reported this figure.
Thereafter, Ibaraki prefecture created a fund of ¥300,000,000 to allow the irradiated population or those who were in doubt to be irradiated access to a heath examination. It concerns around 500 people. Its characteristic consists of the fact that it covers those who are born in 1999, the year of the accident, until they reach 82 years old. In other words, it is conceived to assure free health exminations through their entire life.
Please look at page 2 of document A to see what kind of health examinations the neighboring population can take since the JCO accident. They are quite extensive. It has been the accepted Ibaraki prefectural policy after the JCO accident. Even cancer examinations have been added. These examinations are accessible to those who are not recognized as irradiated, and who were exposed to the additional radiation of under 1mSv. They are open to those who stayed there temporarily because of their work or school, or those who have evacuated from Ibaraki prefecture since the accident.
Please show the next Figure.
Please don’t talk about the circumstances. Please answer in terms of the accident level. In which level is the JCO accident classified? Likewise, in which level is TEPCO Fukushima nuclear plant accident classified?
○Government expert (Hiromu KATAYAMA)
Here is the answer. As for the JCO criticality accident, the Science and Technology Agency at the time evaluated the accident as level 4. Concerning the accident of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency as well as the Nuclear Safety Commission at the time evaluated the emission of radioactive substances and consequently rated the accident as level 7.
○Taro YAMAMOTO
Let’s go over this again. JCO is classed as level 4, it was a level 4 accident. The TEPCO Fukushima nuclear power plant accident is a level 7 accident. With the JCO accident of level 4, with the additional radiation of 1mSv, the authority promised a lifetime access to health examinations including cancer examinations. Yet, in the case of the TEPCO Fukushima nuclear power plant accident of level 7, the population is told to return to the region when the annual dose of radioactivity becomes lower than 20mSv/year, since it is then considered as safe. The housing aid is cut, since there is no necessity of evacuation.
To those who would say that they are not comparable, I would like to ask the following. Currently, in Japan, after a nuclear accident, with 1mSv of additional irradiation, are health examinations offered free during a lifetime? With an accident of level 4, you can have lifetime free examinations including cancer examinations. Yet, with level 7 accident, there aren’t. Look here! Which of these two accidents is more severe?
What is the reason, in the case of the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi accident, not to offer free lifetime health examinations including cancer examinations with additional radiation of 1mSv? Is it because of financial reasons? Is it because it can be installed for a small number of the concerned population of Tokai village, but not in the case of TEPCO nuclear power plant accident, because there will be too many people to be examined and thus will cause financial problems, or even financial breakdown? Is it because it is not practically feasible? Is that why? Then, it is not a scientifically based judgment. This is a financially, efficiency based judgment.
After the dispersion of contamination due to the nuclear accident, Japan has adopted a new standard. It considers it normal to live an everyday life in the area if the dose of radioactivity is under 20mSv/year. The government says that it will make efforts to lower the level to 1mSv/year. Then I asked: how long does it take to lower the level of airborne radioactivity of the contaminated area to 1mSv/year? They are not even embarrassed to answer that they are not supposed to carry out such a calculation.
I asked if this was considered permissible before the accident, if it was allowed by the scientific standards before the accident. The bureaucrats’ answer was: “ this is a new challenge “. I think it is not a very elaborated approach for revitalization. It seems like the authorities have started cleaning up the damage to turn the page, to deny the accident. I suppose that there are people who say “that is not correct”. Some people might consider that the public support after the TEPCO accident is as solid as the support of the Tokai village aftermath, to make the people feel safe and secure.
Let us then see now what kind of medical support is available in Fukushima.
In the case of the Fukushima resident health investigations, only the thyroid cancer examination for those under 18 years old at the time of the accident, and a questionnaire survey for pregnant women are available to the population of Fukushima prefecture. Other than these two, health examinations are available only to those from evacuation zones. This includes a usual obesity examination offered to those over 40 years old all over Japan, plus blood tests including leukocyte fraction analysis.
Isn’t this health examination scheme too poor compared to the one of Tokai village? Besides, it is limited to those who are from the areas that have been classified as evacuation zones. In other words, if you are living in Fukushima prefecture, you can hardly have sufficient medical support, except for in limited areas. In the case of the JCO level 4 accident, one has a guarantee of a lifetime health examination at 1mSv of additional irradiation, and you still can have access to health examinations even if you are exposed to radiation under 1mSv. Yet in the case of the level 7 TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi accident, the support is so much inferior. Mr Minister, it seems to me that the difference of treatment is too much.
There are other things I would like to ask. So please give me a short answer. I think that the gap is too much. In terms of the accident level, Fukushima is more severe. But Tokai village offers a significantly more extensive support. On the other hand, the Fukushima support seems to be too feeble.
Sorry, I am running out of the time. I am going to skip that question, and go forward to other questions.
I would like to ask the following to the Minister. Who is responsible for this situation? The minimum compensation that the State and TEPCO, – who left the cause of the severe accident unattended -, should offer to the population should at least equal to the one offered in the Tokai village case. The central government should suggest it to Fukushima prefecture.
Besides, in the countries where there have been severe nuclear disasters, sanitary vacations are common practice. Their purpose is to reduce the internal irradiation. At least, we should invest in sanitary vacation programs open to the population of Fukushima prefecture.
Lastly, the end of the housing support for the auto-evacuees from the areas outside of the evacuation zones, which is in two weeks time, is the same as the order of forced return. It shouldn’t be just ‘’return’’ and ‘’should return’’. People ought to have the right to choose. The options are: remain or evacuate. In both cases, the State should give compensation and support.
Please give me your answer on the three points.
○Minister (Masahiro Imamura)
You mentioned the levels. I suppose that I don’t have to answer. I think it covers different viewpoints including the accident scale.
Concerning the health problem, Fukushima prefecture is carrying out the Fukushima resident health investigation using the allocation. We have the intention to guide the prefecture to use this efficiently so that we can avoid the health hazards.
About the housing aid, as I have already answered, in spite of specific circumstances, the big majority of people have already returned to Fukushima. As for those who have not returned yet, I suppose that they have their specific situations. We will back up the prefecture to listen to them and carry out the program.
- Chairman (Mitsuru Sakurai)
Your time is up.
○Taro YAMAMOTO
Yes, I conclude.
There are more than 25,000 empty apartments for public servants in Japan. I strongly suggest that they are offered to those who would like to continue the evacuation. Please maintain the housing aid. Mr Minister, I sincerely hope you do. I count on you. Thank you very much.
____
* formerly Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion Co.
** Published in Taro Yamamoto’s official site :
参議院議員山本太郎オフィシャルサイト :
Footage of the question :
質問ビデオ :
***Fukuichi is short for Fukushima Daiichi
**** Fukuichi shûhen kankyôhôshasen monitoring project
Tests to start on radioactive soil for use in reconstruction
Bags of radioactive soil in a temporary storage site in Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, will eventually be transported to an interim storage facility.
MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture–The Environment Ministry is exploring the idea of reusing tons of radioactive soil as gravel to rebuild infrastructure in this disaster-stricken prefecture and beyond.
To gauge the feasibility of the project, it will conduct tests on whether contaminated soil can be securely contained without spillage while controlling the level of radioactivity.
The experiment is being conducted in a corner of a temporary storage site in the Odaka district here, just north of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power plant.
If the tests go off without a hitch, the government is looking at reusing the soil as a construction material in recovery efforts.
Bags of soil gathered through decontamination efforts are kept at temporary storage sites around the Fukushima plant, which went into triple meltdown in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
The first phase of the experiment involves 1,000 or so bags of contaminated soil that have to be sorted according to levels of concentration of radioactive cesium.
Radioactive soil with readings of about 2,000 becquerels per kilogram will be used for mock-up construction of seawalls and other structures. The soil will then be covered by fresh soil that is not contaminated.
The test will also explore practical safety management issues, including ways to prevent scattering of contaminated soil and keeping track of measurements of radioactivity of structures once they are completed.
Project workers began opening bags and sorting soil on April 24.
The volume of contaminated soil collected within Fukushima Prefecture amounted to a whopping 16 million cubic meters as of the end of January.
It will be kept at an interim storage facility that has been constructed within the jurisdiction of the towns of Futaba and Okuma in Fukushima Prefecture. Within the next 30 years, the soil is supposed to be transported outside the prefecture for final disposal.
The Environment Ministry said it hopes the tests will show that the plan to reuse radioactive soil in construction is safe. Projects under consideration include building foundations for seawalls and roads. The overall aim is to reduce the amount of soil that will need to be processed for final disposal.
‘Voluntary’ evacuees torn by decision to flee from Fukushima
Those who fled Fukushima Prefecture and those who stayed after the nuclear disaster get together at a community center in the Sasaya district of the prefectural capital of Fukushima last month.
FUKUSHIMA–Facing diminishing public support and increased scorn from their hometown communities, residents who fled Fukushima Prefecture after the nuclear disaster are now struggling with self-doubts about their decision to leave.
They are called “voluntary” evacuees because they left areas that were not subject to the central government’s evacuations orders after the tsunami slammed into the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.
Since then, they have faced hardships in starting new lives and finding new homes. And persistent fears over radiation continue to prevent many from returning to their hometowns in the prefecture.
When the nuclear crisis was unfolding, Nahoko Hikichi, 44, took her infant and 4-year-old child to Asahikawa, Hokkaido, leaving behind her husband in an area of Koriyama, which was not ordered to evacuate.
Hikichi pored over library books to learn more about the situation in Fukushima, but some of the books dismissed safety concerns about radiation while others warned about health hazards.
“I only became more confused and worried after reading,” she said.
Hikichi said she is torn over whether she made the right choice to leave, but she added she will take no solace if her decision proves correct.
“I chose to flee because I did not want any future regrets over not evacuating,” she said. “If I become convinced that my decision was sound, it would come at a time when the impact of radiation has manifested among children who stayed in the prefecture.
“I am hoping for nothing like that to ever happen.”
Her husband later quit his job to join the family in Asahikawa, but his parents remain in Fukushima Prefecture.
The past month has been particularly tough on those who evacuated voluntarily since the prefectural government ended their free housing program.
At the end of March, 119 of about 12,000 households that evacuated voluntarily within or outside Fukushima Prefecture had not decided where to live, the prefectural government said on April 24.
Although prefectural officials would not disclose further details about their situation, some of the households reportedly cited financial difficulties as a reason for being unable to find new homes.
Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori pledged to work closely with local governments where the evacuees’ old and new homes are located to help them.
People forced to flee under the evacuation orders are eligible to receive at least 8.5 million yen ($77,300) in compensation.
But those who evacuated voluntarily have received a fraction of that figure, and their free housing program has ended.
In terms of rebuilding from the nuclear disaster, Tokyo is now emphasizing self-reliance among evacuees without public support or compensation.
Voluntary evacuees and their supporters have criticized this policy, but the prefectural government shares the central government’s direction.
Tokyo’s evacuation orders forced around 81,000 people to leave their homes around the nuclear plant.
Since then, the central government has been lifting the evacuation orders in an effort to have people return to their homes. In fact, the orders had been lifted for all areas by spring this year with the exception of “difficult-to-return zones,” where radiation levels remain high.
That means more than 50,000 evacuees can return to their homes.
As of last autumn, voluntary evacuees who have not returned to their original homes totaled 26,000, or 30 percent of the overall evacuee population.
Some residents who remained in the prefecture after the nuclear accident are upset by evacuees who say that Fukushima is still too dangerous to live in.
“We reside in Fukushima Prefecture, and I would like them not to speak ill of the prefecture,” said a woman in her 40s who lives in the prefectural capital of Fukushima.
Efforts are under way to bridge the divide among those who remain volunteer evacuees, those who have returned to the prefecture, and residents who stayed in their communities.
A nonprofit organization opened a community center in a two-story house in Fukushima city in March 2015 to allow mothers with young children to share their daily concerns.
Some mothers wanted to know where to buy food ingredients. Others wondered if they have been overreacting to the radiation.
“Many mothers who have returned to the prefecture after fleeing outside are worried about whether they will be able to restore ties with their peers who did not evacuate,” said Megumi Tomita, 47, who heads the project.
Although the NPO does not offer specific problem-solving proposals, Tomita said it is important for anxious mothers to have a venue where they can pour out their feelings.
After the community center opened, the mothers, accompanied by experts, took part in a workshop to measure radioactivity levels of foodstuffs.
They also grow vegetables in nearby fields.
The NPO compiled a booklet in spring featuring messages from 31 mothers who have returned to the prefecture after deciding to flee. Their words are directed at those who remain in evacuation.
“I don’t think your choice is wrong,” said one mother.
“I will give you my moral support,” another message said.
Tomita said their messages summarize a shared feeling: “Those who have evacuated voluntarily have had to make countless decisions over the past six years. The mothers who have had such experiences feel that whatever the decisions the other mothers made, they are not wrong.”
Incredible contamination in Namie, Fukushima
The evacuation orders of the most populated areas of Namie, Fukushima were lifted on March 31st this year.
“Fukuichi area environmental radiation monitoring project” has published airborne radiation measurements map and soil surface density map. The results are simply incredible. This is far much worse than in Radiation Control Zone. Any area becomes designated as such when the total effective dose due to external radiation and that due to radioactive substances in the air is likely to exceed 1.3mSv per quarter – over a period of three months, or when the surface density is over 40,000Bq/m2. In the Radiation Control Zone, it is prohibited to drink, eat or stay overnight. Even adults are not allowed to stay more than 10 hours. To leave the zone, one has to go through a strict screening.
Namie’s radio contamination is far over these figures! And people are told to go back to these areas.
Here is the posting of “Fukuichi area environmental radiation monitoring project” in their FB page on April 20th.
We are uploading the map of airborne radiation rate map measured by GyoroGeiger, the Android supported Geiger counter, during the 38th monitoring action between 3 and 7 April 2017. Dose rate is measured at 1m from the ground.
At 56 points over 100 measuring points, the dose rate was over 1µSv/h. These points are indicated in red. The highest measure was 3.71µSv/h. Conversion to annual dose gives 32mSv. Is it allowed to make evacuees return to such areas?
Here is the soil contamination map uploaded on April 15th. They even had to introduce 7 scales, for the contamination is so high and they couldn’t deal with the scales they were using before! It is a violation of human rights to let people live in such areas.
https://fukushima311voices.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/incredible-contamination-in-namie-fukushima/
TEPCO Restaurant Opened to Public in Nuclear No-Go Zone
Okuma, Fukushima Pref., April 17 (Jiji Press)–A restaurant of a Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. employee dormitory in an Fukushima Prefecture exclusion zone designated after the March 2011 nuclear accident was opened Monday to local residents who make temporary visits to their homes.
It is the first restaurant that can be used by residents of the town of Okuma, one of the host municipalities of TEPCO’s disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, since the accident at the plant forced a blanket evacuation.
The staff restaurant, Okuma Shokudo, has about 240 seats and is open to the general public from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., except on weekends and national holidays. It offers 21 menu items at the prices for TEPCO employees.
The restaurant operator, Torifuji Honten, is now based in the Fukushima city of Iwaki after evacuating from its head office in the town of Tomioka, also in the northeastern prefecture.
“We hope to contribute to disaster reconstruction if only a little bit,” said Takanobu Mori, 49-year-old manager of the TEPCO staff restaurant.
http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2017041700795
“Fukushima, the Silent Voices”, a documentary with the Japanese culture in the background through the lens of a disaster
Lucas Rue has been working in the cinema industry for 15 years. He studied at the Ecole Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle in Paris. With multiple talents he worked on 60 films as assistant director, director, cameraman. Lucas has also been an actors coach for 10 years.
Lucas Rue and Chiho Sato met in 2010 on a shooting. Their passion for the 7th art unites them in filming and in life since they married in 2013.
Chiho worked for an audiovisual company after studying at an art university in Tokyo and living in Japan, she came to France in 2010. She studied French in Paris and then in Nice, then worked freelance on coordinating Japanese TV crews coming to France. She was assistant photographer, then assistant camera and has always been attracted by the cinema. Through her projects, Chiho aimed to bring another perspective on Japan, to have a more international vision. She wanted to see Japan from the outside, to look back at Japanese culture from a distance.
Lucas and Chiho speak passionately about their documentary “Fukushima, the Silent Voices“, a documentary born out of Chiho’s desire to talk about this event through the eyes of her parents, her parents very discreet on this subject. They hesitate to talk about this disaster even they are living next door.
Lucas explains that this documentary is not an anti-nuclear film. They do not try to prove this or that. Japanese culture is the backdrop of this film through the prism of this catastrophe, with the difficulties encountered in expressing personal thoughts and emotions in Japan. The team of this documentary is composed of enthusiasts around Lucas Rue and Chiho Sato.
Despite some difficulties and obstacles encountered in terms of production and filming, the reception of the public was more than warm. People have been touched and the film has achieved its objective since the public after watching their film comes out with more questions about that disaster and also thoughts about if it would happen to them.
This very personal film is the 2017 Gold Winner of the International Independent Film Awards festival which recently took place in California USA, and has been currently officially selected at two Canadian festivals.
In their upcoming projects, Chiho and Lucas have two scenarios for full length films pending production. I wish them all the best for the future.
Six years after Fukushima – women and children still suffer most
The Japanese government is trying to get back to normality after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but the crisis is far from over for women and children, says Greenpeace. Thousands of mothers have sued the authorities.
Six years ago, the triple disaster – earthquake, tsunami and meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant – took the lives of almost 20,000 people and displaced more than 160,000 people from their homes. More than 80,000 people are still living in temporary accommodation.
The disaster had an enormous impact on all members of the affected communities, but to this day it is women and children who “have borne the brunt of human rights violations resulting from it,” according to a report by Greenpeace.
While some injustices faced by women and children were caused by policy failures in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, other women’s and children’s rights violations are a direct result of the current government’s plans to resettle residents to “heavily contaminated ares in Fukushima,” says Greenpeace.
In an effort to get back to normality as quickly as possible, the Japanese government is set to lift evacuation orders at the end of March and allow evacuated residents to return to areas close to the Fukushima power plant.
Employees clean an elementary school in Fukushima. It’s scheduled to re-open in April.
Greenpeace warned, however, that radiation levels are still dangerously high and called on the government not to “pressure” residents to return to their contaminated homes, under threat of losing financial support. A year after an area is declared safe, the government will stop paying compensation to evacuees.
In March, Japan will also cut housing support for people who decided to move out although they were not under a government evacuation order.
“Cutting off housing support for self-evacuees threatens more than 10,000 households, potentially forcing many people back to contaminated areas against their will,” says Kendra Ulrich, Global Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Japan. Ending compensation payments “even though radiation levels far exceed the long-term targets in many areas […] amounts to economic coercion and is a deliberate violation of the law and survivors’ human rights.”
“Atomic divorce”
The resettlement plans create a dilemma for those who refuse to go back to their former homes but are dependent on financial support, especially single mums. After the disaster, a lot of women separated from or even divorced their husbands, who chose to stay in contaminated regions because of their work, and evacuated with their children.
There are no official numbers on how many families split as a result of the disaster. But the phenomenon is common enough to have a name, “genpatsu rikon” – literally meaning “atomic divorce”.
These mothers evacuated with their children from Fukushima prefecture.
Mothers are now faced with the choice between losing housing support or moving back to unsafe areas. In order to speed up the return of evacuees, the government decontaminated corridors and islands instead of entire areas, effectivley creating “an invisible, open-air prison for citizens to return to,” says Greenpeace.
Decontaminated zones often consist of 20 meter strips along roads, around houses and agricultural fields. This poses a health threat as the returnees would be surrounded by contamination.
Mothers are worried about their health and the development of their children. Noriko Kubota, a professor of clinical psychology at Iwaki Meisei University, believes that living in “safe zones” could have a long-lasting negative impact on kids.
“If children need to stay inside and cannot run around outside freely, that would impact their psychological development, more specifically their skills of interacting with each other and controlling their emotions among others,” Kubota told DW.
Mothers sue government
Women are, however, not only silent victims in this disaster. Thousands of mothers have together filed lawsuits against the Japanese government to fight for the continuation of housing support and fair compensation. They also demand accountability for the disaster from the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the company running the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Ms Horie is sueing the government for fair compensation.
“I never imagined becoming a plaintiff myself. I’m going to court now for my children and for the next generation,” Ms Horie told Greenpeace. She moved with her children from Fukushima to Kyoto, where she filed a class action suit together with other mums. “Back then, they said on TV that the accident wouldn’t affect our health immediately, but it might affect my kids in the future. That’s why I decided to evacuate.”
Women who left contaminated areas have been “labeled as neurotic or irrational,” says Greenpeace. Their concerns were dismissed both by their partners and the government. The lawsuit is not only about financial compensation but also for moral satisfaction.
“I want to stand in court, knowing that I am right to evacuate my child,” says Ms Sonoda, who moved with her child from Fukushima to England. “We are right.”
http://www.dw.com/en/six-years-after-fukushima-women-and-children-still-suffer-most/a-37871135
As I See It: Support for ‘voluntary evacuees’ insufficient but not too late to start
Kurumi Sugita: “I do not agree with the following part of the article.
“Radiation levels in Fukushima Prefecture dropped significantly shortly after the outbreak of the disaster, and in some areas, radiation levels are not much different from those in the Kansai region, where I live. “
There exists at least three problems which are related to each other:
1) you shouldn’t base your judgement only on airborne radiation measurements. We should look at the soil radio contamination density which is more reliable.
2) the official figures of airborne radiation measurements are average figures, which annihilates the problem of hotspots.
3) the governments do not acknowledge the risk of internal radiation and its health hazards.
All in all, the so-called “voluntary” evacuees have good reasons to keep evacuated and it is their basic human right.”
Friends help an evacuee (foreground) move in Osaka’s Suminoe Ward, ahead of the cutoff date for free housing, on March 18, 2017.
As I See It: Support for ‘voluntary evacuees’ insufficient but not too late to start
So-called “voluntary evacuees” who fled Fukushima Prefecture due to the ongoing nuclear crisis were cut off from free housing services at the end of March.
Since last fall, I have been reporting on the issue of termination of free housing for “voluntary evacuees” — those who evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture out of radiation concerns, even though their places of residence did not come under the government’s evacuation orders — and have met many evacuees who faced termination amid straitened circumstances and with no prospects of living independently.
Six years have passed since the outbreak of the nuclear disaster, and I believe that insufficient assistance provided by the central government, the Fukushima Prefectural Government, and the municipalities to which Fukushima Prefecture residents evacuated led to the current state of affairs.
Following the onset of the nuclear crisis at Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011, some Fukushima Prefecture residents who did not live in areas designated by the central government as no-go zones “voluntarily” evacuated to other areas of Fukushima Prefecture and beyond. The Fukushima Prefectural Government regarded the homes such evacuees chose to live in as “temporary housing” provided to victims of disasters, and covered their rent. Unlike evacuees from areas designated as no-go zones, most “voluntary evacuees” have not been eligible for compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, leaving payment for housing from the Fukushima Prefectural Government as the only assistance such evacuees received. In June of 2015, however, the prefectural government announced that it would be terminating such assistance at the end of March 2017, saying that “an environment for leading everyday life in Fukushima is in the process of coming together.”
Radiation levels in Fukushima Prefecture dropped significantly shortly after the outbreak of the disaster, and in some areas, radiation levels are not much different from those in the Kansai region, where I live. However, many former Fukushima prefectural residents are still concerned with radiation, and among some families, children do not want to move back to Fukushima because they’ve made friends where they live now. As of October 2016, there were approximately 10,000 households of “voluntary evacuees” from Fukushima Prefecture. This spring, many of those households were faced with the difficult question of whether to move back to their hometowns, or pay out of pocket in order to continue life where they are.
What I took from reporting on the issue is the polarization of “voluntary evacuees.” Those who have been able to adapt to life where they’ve evacuated to and rebuild their lives said they wanted to leave behind their status as “evacuees.” Some even said they’d become leaders of neighborhood community associations.
Meanwhile, others said they couldn’t sleep at night because they were unable to find affordable housing, or that they didn’t have the funds to move. Among the latter were those with family members who have disabilities, or members who are from other countries and do not speak Japanese well — in other words, families who were vulnerable even before the outbreak of the nuclear disaster. I learned of cases in which people’s lives turned for the worse after they evacuated. For example, there have been cases of divorce that resulted after mothers evacuated with their children, leaving the father behind. Meanwhile, other evacuees developed mental illness or suffered strokes. Such evacuees needed assistance that was finely tuned to their individual needs in the areas of employment, medical care and education. However, there were many instances in which I felt they were not receiving sufficient care.
A 57-year-old man who “voluntarily” evacuated from the city of Fukushima to an Osaka municipal residence, remained isolated in a corner of the massive city for 4 1/2 years after the outbreak of the disaster. The man has a visual impairment that has qualified him for level-1 physical disability certification. He is not completely blind, but to read documents, he must step out onto the veranda for natural light and use a magnifying glass. With his disability, it is nerve-racking for him to go out alone in an unfamiliar city. His South Korean-born wife, 62, who helps him with his everyday life, does not read or write Japanese well. Because of this, he rarely obtained information from documents that were delivered to him from administrative offices or support organizations.
He thus remained unable to receive assistance, and was bogged down by debt that he incurred from moving and purchasing household furnishings. He didn’t even learn about the termination of free housing until six months after the Fukushima Prefectural Government made the announcement. Subsequently, based on the advice of a supporter who visited him at his home, he transferred his residency registration to the city of Osaka, and began receiving the city’s support services. However, he still has mixed feelings toward administrative agencies. “They had to have known about my visual disability. Whether it be the Fukushima Municipal Government or the Osaka Municipal Government, if someone had made the effort to inform me, I wouldn’t have had to suffer as much as I did,” he said.
In fiscal 2016, the Fukushima Prefectural Government and the municipalities to which Fukushima prefectural residents evacuated made individual visits to “voluntary evacuees.” They should have made the visits an opportunity not only to listen to residents’ concerns about housing after they were cut off, but also to help map out plans for households under straitened circumstances to become independent. But that was not necessarily the case.
A woman in her 50s who, with her child, evacuated from the Fukushima Prefecture city of Koriyama to a Tokyo public housing complex, was emotionally beaten down after constantly being reminded by housing management that she and her child were to leave by the end of the 2016 fiscal year. The woman said that she was even told that she could be hit with a lawsuit if she did not move out of the building.
The dedication with which local governments took the effort to visit evacuees differed from municipality to municipality, and at least one municipal government did not send staff to visit evacuees until three months before the free housing service was brought to an end. To make matters worse, many municipal governments were sending staff not from their welfare departments, but from their public housing departments to make the visits. Under such circumstances, criticism against municipal governments for lacking a commitment to provide comprehensive support to evacuees is hard to refute.
Another thing that caught my attention as I covered this issue is that a large number of evacuees are apprehensive about going on public assistance. A mother and child who evacuated to the city of Osaka declined advice to apply for welfare. They said they did not want to become a burden to the state, and eked out a living on an 80,000-yen monthly income. However, public assistance exists precisely for people like this family. Municipalities that have dispatched staff to make individual visits to evacuee households, and are abreast of which households are in dire straits, should actively try to dispel misperceptions and prejudice about welfare, and help those people receive the assistance they need.
I believe that the evacuees’ original municipalities of residence and the municipalities to which they evacuated are both responsible for the fact that they were unable to receive sufficient support before free housing was shut down. The Fukushima Prefectural Government assumed that the provision of housing assistance would suffice, while municipalities to which the residents evacuated had a latent notion that the evacuees weren’t “real” residents of the municipality.
It’s not too late, though. Both parties should collaborate and commit to closely assisting those facing grave hardships achieve self-reliance.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170413/p2a/00m/0na/012000c
The Fukushima Evacuees Future
End of March 2017 the Japanese government pretends that the Fukushima disaster is over, ending the compensation and housing programs, forcing the evacuees to return to the contaminated towns close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster site.
Masahiro Imamura, the reconstruction minister, while asked multiple questions about the plight of those classified as voluntary evacuees did expose the government opinion about the disaster’s victims, shocking all the journalists by his insensitivity. During that interview the reconstruction minister got angry with a reporter, ordering him to get out and to never come there again.
The government is encountered wide criticism for its handling of evacuees issue. To raise the radiation exposure limits for all people included children to that of nuclear plant workers has been condemned worldwide.
Those classified as voluntary evacuees are the people who evacuated from the regions of Fukushima that were not under official evacuation orders. Plus as more towns are now reopened, their evacuation orders lifted, those people who do not return are now becoming considered voluntary evacuees as well. The government provided housing assistance for voluntary evacuees ended in March. Asked about the government position on evacuees choosing to not return home Imamura sais that if they chose to not return to their home town they should take full responsibility for their own actions.
Japan’s government has done everything possible to remove all possible other options for evacuees, to force the evacuees to return to live in their contaminated towns. Compensation was ended for many. Housing programs have also ended, and temporary housing units are scheduled for closure, while at the same time many of the reopened towns lack sufficient services and many homes are heavily damaged, abandoned as they were since 2011.
Decontamination efforts to reduce radiation levels have not been very successful. With maybe a low radiation level only in the town center, with a radiation monitor set on concrete, but around town still many locations with unsafe levels. Many of those towns close to Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant still have no evacuation plan in case of further events.
The nuclear plant site remains a considerable risk. Work to dismantle sections of the damaged reactor buildings can release radioactive dust to the wind. Risks of hydrogen explosions, radiation releases or criticalities will remain as long as the site exists in its current state or has highly radioactive materials on site. To force the people back to live in close proximity to the site just puts them at further risk.
Imamura faced with a petition calling for his resignation tried to apologized in a more nuanced tone but the government policy remains. Prime Minister Abe dismissed calls for Imamura to resign.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/nhknewsline/quotesoftheday/20170405/
Show 10 – Fukushima 311 Watchdogs – Fukushima Disaster
Sorry folks for my thick french accent in this interview, but most important is the message itself, not the bearer. Plus this is quite new to me…
Link to the podcast show : http://ahk42.com/podcast/show-10-fukushima-311-watchdogs-fukushima-disaster/
About Herve Courtois:-
Because my 30-year-old Japanese daughter was living in Iwaki city, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 11 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant disaster abruptly awoke me to the dangers of nuclear and also to the omnipresent omerta in the mainstream media exerted by the powerful international nuclear lobby and various governments.
Visiting my daughter in Iwaki just 3 months after the start of the catastrophe, I was surprised by how the people on location were kept ignorant about what was really taking place, about the gravity of the dangers they faced, and about the possible protective measures they should take to minimize the risks to their life.
After a one-month visit, returning home to France, I looked for information and knowledge on the Internet and on the social networks, then became active myself in sharing that information and knowledge with others, and active in the French and International Anti-Nuclear movements. 3 and a half years later, the Fukushima catastrophe is still ongoing, and its cover-up has been partly exposed, but we still have to struggle to make the truth prevail over their many lies. 3 years later I am still here sharing information.
From June 2011 to July 2012, I was the main administrator of the Fukushima 311 Watchdog FB group, its FB page and its first blog. In July 2012, after a very intensely active first year, I burned-out, so I closed the FB group and its Internet blog, keeping only its FB page going up to the present:
In August 2012 I founded a new group, The Rainbow Warriors FB group which is still active:
I chose the alias of D’un Renard (“from a fox” in French) so as to not be identified by the Japanese government for my anti-nuclear activities, and eventually blacklisted as an undesirable alien, which would prevent me from entering Japan and continuing to visit my daughter.
I believe it is time for me to open again a new Fukushima 311 Watchdogs blog now, as the Fukushima catastrophe still goes on, to reach more people with our information, for people to learn about Fukushima and its continued spitting of contamination into our environment worldwide through the Jet Stream, the constant dumping of radioactive contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean, and its contamination of our food chain, with all the health consequences that we may predict.
Governments are unwilling to learn the lessons from Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. The people’s lives are always secondary to government priorities, economics and political expediency. People must learn to protect themselves as no one informs them of the true facts nor protects them.
Fukushima is here with us.
The Rainbow Warriors group on Facebook
The Fukushima 311 Watchdogs page on Facebook
Media for the show:-
The Facebook page about the documentary film Les voix silencieuses (The silent voices) they have 3 versions, one in Japanese, one in french, one in English. LINK
Silent Voices Website LINK
About the documentary film “Fukushima the silent voices” LINK
http://ahk42.com/upcoming-guest-fukushima-311-watchdogs-herve-courtois/
Fukushima’s Upcoming Olympics
Japan will hold soccer and baseball events in Fukushima Prefecture for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. This is not a spoof. Effective March 2017, the Japan Football Association displaces Tokyo Electric Power Company’s emergency operations center at J-Village, the national soccer training center before the nuclear meltdown occurred.
To naysayers that say this is a joke, the answer is ‘no this is not a joke’. It is absolutely true Olympic events will be held in Fukushima Prefecture, thereby casting aside any and all concerns about the ongoing nuclear meltdown; after all that’s history.
Or, is it?
Here is the announcement as carried in The Japan Times some months ago: “The men’s and women’s national soccer teams for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will use the J-Village national soccer training center, currently serving as Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s forward base in dealing with the Fukushima nuclear crisis, as their training base, the Japan Football Association revealed Saturday.”
For those who missed the past few classes, Fukushima is home to the worst industrial accident in human history as three nuclear reactors experienced 100% meltdown, the dreaded “China Syndrome.” Molten core, or corium, in all of the reactors, highly radioactive and deadly, frizzles robots. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) says it may take 40 years to clean up the disaster zone, but that is a wild guess.
Nobody on planet Earth has any idea where the radioactive molten cores are, within the reactor containment vessels or burrowed into the earth, and/or what happens next, e.g., there’s speculation that Unit #2 is rickety and could collapse from another big earthquake (Japan is riddled with earthquake zones, experiencing an earthquake on average every day) thus collapsing, which leads to an untold, massive disaster, rendering the city of Tokyo uninhabitable.
According to Dr. Shuzo Takemoto, Engr. / Kyoto University, February 2017: “The Fukushima nuclear facility is a global threat on level of a major catastrophe… The problem of Unit 2… If it should encounter a big earth tremor, it will be destroyed and scatter the remaining nuclear fuel and its debris, making the Tokyo metropolitan area uninhabitable.”
Numerous efforts by TEPCO to locate the melted cores have been useless. As of recently: “Some Nuclear Regulation Authority members are skeptical of continuing to send robots into reactors in the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant to collect vital data on the locations of melted nuclear fuel and radiation levels… investigations utilizing robots controlled remotely generated few findings and were quickly terminated” (Source: Nuke Watchdog Critical as Robot Failures Mount at Fukushima Plant, The Asahi Shimbun, March 24, 2017).
All of which inescapably brings to mind the following question: How could anybody possibly have the audacity to bring Olympic events to the backyard of the worst nuclear meltdown in history whilst it remains totally 100% out of control?
Answer: Japan’s PM Shinzō Abe and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
According to Naohiro Masuda, the head of decommissioning, TEPCO does not know how to decommission the nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, ongoing radiation is a constant threat to air, soil, food, and water, e.g., state inspectors have discovered deadly high levels of cesium pooling at the base of Fukushima’s 10 big dams that serve as water reservoirs (drinking water and agriculture). For example, Ganbe Dam 27,533 Bq/kg and Mano Dam at 26,859 Bq/kg whereas Japan’s Environment Ministry’s safe limit for “designated waste” is set at 8,000 Bq/kg. That limit is for “waste,” not drinking water. (Source: High Levels of Radioactive Cesium Pooling at Dams Near Fukushima Nuke Plant, The Mainichi – Japan’s National Daily Since 1922, September 26, 2016.)
Japanese officials are ignoring the extraordinarily high levels of cesium at the bottom of the dam reservoirs because the top water levels do meet drinking water standards. The prescribed safe limit of radioactive cesium for drinking water is 200 Bq/kg. A Becquerel (“Bq”) is a gauge of strength of radioactivity in materials such as Iodine-131 and Cesium-137. As it happens, Cesium-137 is one of the most poisonous substances on the face of the planet.
Additionally, open storage and incineration of toxic and radioactive rubble is ongoing throughout the prefecture. In fact, the entire prefecture is a toxic warehouse of radioactive isotopes, especially with 70% of Fukushima consisting of forests never decontaminated, yet the Abe administration is moving people back to restricted zones that Greenpeace Japan says contain radioactive hot spots.
According to Greenpeace Japan, which has conducted 25 extensive surveys for radiation throughout Fukushima Prefecture since 2011: “Unfortunately, the crux of the nuclear contamination issue – from Kyshtym to Chernobyl to Fukushima- is this: When a major radiological disaster happens and impacts vast tracts of land, it cannot be ‘cleaned up’ or ‘fixed’.” (Source: Hanis Maketab, Environmental Impacts of Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Will Last ‘decades to centuries’ – Greenpeace, Asia Correspondent, March 4, 2016).
With the onset of the Fukushima Diiachi meltdown, the Japanese government increased the International Commission on Radiological Protection guidelines for radiation exposure of people from 1 millisievert (mSv) per year up to 20 mSv/yr. As such, according to the standards set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, ICRP Publication 111, Japan’s Olympics will expose Olympians and visitors to higher than publicly acceptable levels of radiation. After all, the emergency guideline of 20 mSv/yr was never meant to be a long-term solution.
With the onset of Olympic venues in Fukushima, maybe that will open the way for the 2024 Olympics in Chernobyl. But, on second thought that will not work. Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone is 1,000 square miles (off limits for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years) because of an explosion in one nuclear power plant that is now under control whereas Fukushima has three nuclear meltdowns that remain, to this day and into the unforeseeable future, radically out of control and extremely hazardous.
Mystifying and Confusing?
Yes, it’s mystifying and confusing, but the games go on.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/12/fukushimas-upcoming-olympics/
Director killed by terrorist lives on through 3/11 victims’ film: “Abandoned Land”
Gilles Laurent shoots a scene in Fukushima Prefecture.
The resilience of victims of the 2011 nuclear disaster inspired a Belgian sound engineer to direct his own film on them, but his chance to finish the documentary was stolen by a terrorist.
Gilles Laurent shot “La Terre Abandonnee” (Abandoned Land) in Fukushima Prefecture while he lived in Japan, and the film, which was completed posthumously, is now on show here. Sadly, the director is no longer with us, as he perished at age 46 in one of the terrorist attacks in Brussels on March 22, 2016.
Laurent’s family and people who appear in “La Terre Abandonnee” are hoping that many others will get the opportunity to watch the film, which has become part of Laurent’s lasting legacy.
The attacks on an airport and a subway station in Brussels resulted in 370 people killed or wounded. Laurent happened to be near a suicide attacker in the subway system and lost his life. He had been en route to a film-editing studio.
“I could never have imagined in the least that he would get caught in a terrorist attack,” said Toshiko Sato, 64, a resident of Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, who appears in the film. Sato was undergoing practical training as a guide-interpreter when she met Laurent.
Laurent had two daughters with Reiko Udo, his Japanese wife, and came to live in Japan in 2013. He decided to direct his film after he learned about the tough spirit of the residents of Fukushima Prefecture, who remained rooted in their own areas even after the nuclear disaster, and developed a desire to chronicle all that he saw on film.
Following the nuclear disaster, the central government issued an evacuation order to Minami-Soma’s Odaka district, where Sato lives. Sato met Laurent while she was preparing to return to her home.
“Media organizations overseas often report on areas of Fukushima Prefecture that are empty of people, but I want people to also learn about disaster survivors who are trying to be positive,” she said she told Laurent when she talked to him.
Laurent then asked to interview Sato. He went on to film her and her husband as they returned to their hometown to visit their family grave and had a gathering with friends at their home for the first time in quite a while.
“I sensed in him a will to report on the current state of Fukushima instead of making vocal calls of some sort or the other,” Sato said.
Laurent’s film crew took over the editing of footage after the director’s death and completed the film that would eventually be titled “La Terre Abandonnee.”
Alice, Laurent’s 42-year-old sister, who lives in Belgium, said she thinks about the feelings of nuclear disaster survivors through the prism of her own sorrow over the loss of her brother to terrorism.
Sylvie, 52, another sister of Laurent, said the film betrays the affectionate sensibilities of Gilles, who was a great nature lover, and added she wants the movie to be watched by many Japanese viewers.
“La Terre Abandonnee” is expected to be released to theaters across Japan.
“Half Life in Fukushima” documents life in the red zone five years after the nuclear disaster
“Half-life in Fukushima” is a documentary feature in competition at the 60th San Francisco International Film Festival. It represents a Switzerland and France collaboration, with co-directors Mark Olexa and Francesca Scalisi at the helm. While the production represents a European origin, the subject matter had gained world-wide attention no less than Chernobyl in 1986.
The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan directly set off the Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster. The town surrounding the Plant was evacuated due to radioactive fallout. Filmmakers Olexa and Scalisi entered the Fukushima red zone five years later and documented a resident still living there, a farmer named Naoto Matsumura.
How Naoto was given permission to stay there is not explained in the film. Actually, Naoto was not alone. He remains in Fukushima with his elderly father, the two striving on a life of self-sufficiency. There is no water from the tap, and radioactive fallouts render everything poisonous, including the mushrooms Naoto had been picking for years in the forest at the back of his home. Only the boisterous ocean remains a powerful reminder of what life was like before disaster hit.
The directors capture their subject with quiet sensitivity and empathy. At first devastated by the loss of everything, but now five years later Naoto is resigned to accept a solitary existence in the ghost town. There are nuclear cleanup crews still working during the day, but all in protective suits and masks. We see Naoto wearing ordinary clothes, feeding his cattle, wandering the streets alone, reminiscing by the ocean, or going into the forest just to look at the trees.
In the opening shot, we see the definition of the term “half-life”. It refers to the time it takes for one-half of the atoms of a radioactive material to disintegrate. It is also an apt metaphor describing the remnants of a life in Naoto. In many scenes, a stationary camera allows us to experience Naoto’s coming and going in real time. One of such moments is when the camera stays with Naoto from a distance as he stops his truck at an intersection when the traffic lights turn red. We stop with him, the scene motionless and silent for about a minute until the green lights come on. Such a vicarious moment into a life on hold is eerily poignant.
One might be surprised to see traffic lights still function and Naoto still obeys them when he is the only one driving in town. It is heart-wrenching to see one man try to maintain normalcy despite all loss, attempting to carve out a life in the midst of desolation. What more, we see Naoto playing a round of golf in an abandoned driving range and singing Karaoke on his own. The film ends with this scene. We hear Naoto sing a song of lost love, a life he can never go back to. After that, we hear the ocean roar as the screen fades to black.
1 This Month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
12 February – Webinar The Big Push: New Nuclear Projects in Canada
Thursday, February 12, 7 pm Eastern | 2nd of 4 sessions in the 2026 Nuclear Waste Online webinar series
Join a webinar on the push for new nuclear generation in Canada. Go to Northwatch.org to register or use the registration link https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZfWOf1GITqSRIZX8CB-A9w
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