Fukushima - the continuing saga
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MightyDragon
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Japan's political leadership helped save country from worst-case Fukushima disaster, Stanford researcher says
Faced with an unprecedented disaster in postwar Japan, then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his Democratic Party of Japan government handled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster better than originally perceived, according to new Stanford research.
It could have been far worse.
That's the conclusion of research associate Kenji Kushida of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He wrote in the journal Japanese Political Economy that Kan's party had to overcome bureaucratic problems and a lack of emergency planning, both of which they inherited after winning a landslide victory in 2009. The Fukushima nuclear crisis in March 2011 occurred when the plant was hit by a tsunami that resulted from a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Tohoku, Japan, which claimed more than 15,000 lives.
Three of the plant's six nuclear reactors melted down and more than 300,000 people were evacuated. At the time, the Democratic Party of Japan and TEPCO, the private company that operated the power plant, were criticized for their responses.
"Japan's political leadership, and particularly Prime Minister Kan, has been blamed widely for worsening the crisis as the nuclear disaster unfolded," Kushida said. "However, an objective analysis of events as they transpired suggests that the political leadership, newly in power after over 50 years of virtually uninterrupted rule by its opposition, had inherited a very difficult situation, with vested interests, lack of emergency planning and insufficient bureaucratic capacity."
Kushida examined reports by Japanese government commissions, independent committees, a private investigation, TEPCO, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, among others. He also conducted interviews with key observers.
'Saved Japan'
Based on his research, Kushida said he believes that Japan's political leadership reined in a disaster that could have spiraled out of control on a far larger scale.
"Rather, Prime Minister Kan, often accused of excessive micro-management and a counterproductive management style, was actually responsible for a government stance and concrete actions that, in some sense, saved Japan from a far worse disaster," he said.
In the article, Kushida said it was difficult for the general public, inside and outside Japan, to gauge how Japan's government was responding. "In the media confusion surrounding the nuclear accident, and subsequent politicized debates over the Tohoku disaster, the (Japanese) general public was left largely confused," he wrote.
Critiques focused on delays in declaring the emergency and evacuations, chaotic press conferences, micro-management and a slow response to hydrogen explosions at the plant.
But Kan, Kushida wrote, understood the broad risk to Japan if the Fukushima crisis got even worse. So he wrested control of the situation from TEPCO and the bureaucracy. Japan does not have martial law.
"Kan played a critical role in shifting the government's nuclear response into emergency mode," which allowed, for example, sustained water-cooling of the hot reactors, according to Kushida.
Kushida noted that the Democratic Party of Japan ran its 2009 election campaign on "seizing power from the bureaucracies" – giving rise to the criticism during the Fukushima event that it lacked the ability to coordinate such expertise in emergency situations.
"The DPJ's inexperience governing the country was clearly manifested in policy paralysis during its early days in power, suggesting that the party might not have the capacity to deal with Japan's largest postwar natural disaster and nuclear accident," Kushida wrote.
On the other hand, he added, the DPJ inherited a government and nuclear industry structure from the Liberal Democratic Party, which had enjoyed virtually uninterrupted power in Japan from 1955 until 2009. It was the LDP, not the DPJ, that had created the policies, units and procedures that were called upon in the Fukushima disaster.
Kushida found that Japan's existing government structures were not up to the challenge of dealing with Fukushima – no matter which political party was in power.
"Existing procedures and organizations were drastically inadequate for planning and executing an evacuation, and the government suffered shortcomings in information gathering, expertise, and on-the-ground response during the crisis," he wrote.
Kushida said that Kan's leadership was "beneficial in that he took control of a situation in which the locus of responsibility became ambiguous during the crisis and he solved several serious information and coordination problems."
As for blaming Kan's style, Kushida said that strong leadership was precisely what Japan needed at the time: "He did not measurably worsen the crisis, although his relatively abrasive leadership style (for Japanese norms or expectations, at least) alienated many with whom he worked."
Kushida said that much of the "blame-game" after the crisis was a result of the Liberal Democratic Party using Fukushima against the Democratic Party of Japan for electoral gain. In 2012, the LDP regained power based on this strategy.
American perspective
The lessons of Fukushima apply to America's nuclear industry and political leadership as well, Kushida said.
"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is more independent from industry than Japan's regulators at the time, but the American political leadership needs to continue applying sustained pressure and attention to ensure that it remains as neutral and objective as possible," he said in an interview.
Kushida suggested that America's political leadership should diligently examine the repeated extensions of the maximum lifespan of nuclear power plants, the increased risk of nuclear power plant inundation due to climate change, and the need for contingency plans when cascading events overwhelm nuclear plant operators.
He also pointed to the importance of input from outside the established nuclear engineering community on key issues.
Kushida, who grew up in Tokyo, describes himself as "very deeply attached to Japan." When the 2011 disaster hit, he was in the United States attending graduate school – and felt helpless.
"I desperately wanted to do something to help, and over time it became clear that my potential contribution with the greatest impact would be an objective analysis," he said.
Kushida's initial research grew out of a conference report that he wrote for Shorenstein APARC director Gi-Wook Shin.
Today, Japan's 48 nuclear reactors all remain offline for safety checks. Now in power, the Liberal Democratic Party plans to have them reactivated once the Nuclear Regulation Agency confirms their compliance with the new safety standards introduced after the Fukushima nuclear crisis. Prior to the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, Japan had generated 30 percent of its electrical power from nuclear reactors.
Japan's leadership averted worst-case disaster, Stanford researcher says
Faced with an unprecedented disaster in postwar Japan, then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his Democratic Party of Japan government handled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster better than originally perceived, according to new Stanford research.
It could have been far worse.
That's the conclusion of research associate Kenji Kushida of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He wrote in the journal Japanese Political Economy that Kan's party had to overcome bureaucratic problems and a lack of emergency planning, both of which they inherited after winning a landslide victory in 2009. The Fukushima nuclear crisis in March 2011 occurred when the plant was hit by a tsunami that resulted from a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Tohoku, Japan, which claimed more than 15,000 lives.
Three of the plant's six nuclear reactors melted down and more than 300,000 people were evacuated. At the time, the Democratic Party of Japan and TEPCO, the private company that operated the power plant, were criticized for their responses.
"Japan's political leadership, and particularly Prime Minister Kan, has been blamed widely for worsening the crisis as the nuclear disaster unfolded," Kushida said. "However, an objective analysis of events as they transpired suggests that the political leadership, newly in power after over 50 years of virtually uninterrupted rule by its opposition, had inherited a very difficult situation, with vested interests, lack of emergency planning and insufficient bureaucratic capacity."
Kushida examined reports by Japanese government commissions, independent committees, a private investigation, TEPCO, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, among others. He also conducted interviews with key observers.
'Saved Japan'
Based on his research, Kushida said he believes that Japan's political leadership reined in a disaster that could have spiraled out of control on a far larger scale.
"Rather, Prime Minister Kan, often accused of excessive micro-management and a counterproductive management style, was actually responsible for a government stance and concrete actions that, in some sense, saved Japan from a far worse disaster," he said.
In the article, Kushida said it was difficult for the general public, inside and outside Japan, to gauge how Japan's government was responding. "In the media confusion surrounding the nuclear accident, and subsequent politicized debates over the Tohoku disaster, the (Japanese) general public was left largely confused," he wrote.
Critiques focused on delays in declaring the emergency and evacuations, chaotic press conferences, micro-management and a slow response to hydrogen explosions at the plant.
But Kan, Kushida wrote, understood the broad risk to Japan if the Fukushima crisis got even worse. So he wrested control of the situation from TEPCO and the bureaucracy. Japan does not have martial law.
"Kan played a critical role in shifting the government's nuclear response into emergency mode," which allowed, for example, sustained water-cooling of the hot reactors, according to Kushida.
Kushida noted that the Democratic Party of Japan ran its 2009 election campaign on "seizing power from the bureaucracies" – giving rise to the criticism during the Fukushima event that it lacked the ability to coordinate such expertise in emergency situations.
"The DPJ's inexperience governing the country was clearly manifested in policy paralysis during its early days in power, suggesting that the party might not have the capacity to deal with Japan's largest postwar natural disaster and nuclear accident," Kushida wrote.
On the other hand, he added, the DPJ inherited a government and nuclear industry structure from the Liberal Democratic Party, which had enjoyed virtually uninterrupted power in Japan from 1955 until 2009. It was the LDP, not the DPJ, that had created the policies, units and procedures that were called upon in the Fukushima disaster.
Kushida found that Japan's existing government structures were not up to the challenge of dealing with Fukushima – no matter which political party was in power.
"Existing procedures and organizations were drastically inadequate for planning and executing an evacuation, and the government suffered shortcomings in information gathering, expertise, and on-the-ground response during the crisis," he wrote.
Kushida said that Kan's leadership was "beneficial in that he took control of a situation in which the locus of responsibility became ambiguous during the crisis and he solved several serious information and coordination problems."
As for blaming Kan's style, Kushida said that strong leadership was precisely what Japan needed at the time: "He did not measurably worsen the crisis, although his relatively abrasive leadership style (for Japanese norms or expectations, at least) alienated many with whom he worked."
Kushida said that much of the "blame-game" after the crisis was a result of the Liberal Democratic Party using Fukushima against the Democratic Party of Japan for electoral gain. In 2012, the LDP regained power based on this strategy.
American perspective
The lessons of Fukushima apply to America's nuclear industry and political leadership as well, Kushida said.
"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is more independent from industry than Japan's regulators at the time, but the American political leadership needs to continue applying sustained pressure and attention to ensure that it remains as neutral and objective as possible," he said in an interview.
Kushida suggested that America's political leadership should diligently examine the repeated extensions of the maximum lifespan of nuclear power plants, the increased risk of nuclear power plant inundation due to climate change, and the need for contingency plans when cascading events overwhelm nuclear plant operators.
He also pointed to the importance of input from outside the established nuclear engineering community on key issues.
Kushida, who grew up in Tokyo, describes himself as "very deeply attached to Japan." When the 2011 disaster hit, he was in the United States attending graduate school – and felt helpless.
"I desperately wanted to do something to help, and over time it became clear that my potential contribution with the greatest impact would be an objective analysis," he said.
Kushida's initial research grew out of a conference report that he wrote for Shorenstein APARC director Gi-Wook Shin.
Today, Japan's 48 nuclear reactors all remain offline for safety checks. Now in power, the Liberal Democratic Party plans to have them reactivated once the Nuclear Regulation Agency confirms their compliance with the new safety standards introduced after the Fukushima nuclear crisis. Prior to the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, Japan had generated 30 percent of its electrical power from nuclear reactors.
Japan's leadership averted worst-case disaster, Stanford researcher says
Japan is sooooo screwed. Collapsing currency, collapsing economy, companies going bankrupt, declining population, 3 lost decades, nuclear disasters, tsunamis, etc.
Thanks mate, me too. That area has been hit hard. Aside from the nuclear reactor, the deaths of some 30,000 people during the tsunami was a national travesty. Many were elderly, and little babies, school children in schools...
conworldus
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See how the Japanese will spin this one:
Leak at Fukushima nuclear plant threatens dangerous meltdown | Fox News
Leak at Fukushima nuclear plant threatens dangerous meltdown
Published July 07, 2014
FoxNews.com
Facebook100 Twitter118 livefyre
March 10, 2014 - FILE photo of men wearing protective suits and masks work in front of welding storage tanks for radioactive water, under construction at TEPCO's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, Japan.REUTERS
Trouble is looming at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, as a leak has forced the shutdown of a cooling system that could cause temperatures to exceed dangerous levels.
Fukushima operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) was forced to switch off the cooling system at Reactor Unit 5, after engineers discovered it had been leaking water. If the system is not repaired within the next nine days, temperatures are expected to soar, Russian news site RT reported Sunday.
More than 340 gallons of water leaked from the cooling system intended to stabilize the temperature of the spent fuel at Reactor Unit 5. The system was offline but loaded with fuel rods when the plant was damaged by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March 2011. That accident caused three of the plant’s six nuclear reactors to meltdown, releasing extensive amounts of radioactive material. It was the largest nuclear accident since Russia’s Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
The source of the leak was apparently a 3-millimeter diameter hole near a flow valve, a TEPCO statement released Sunday said. When the cooling system was turned off at around noon Sunday, the temperature in the pool that holds the rods was about 73 degrees Fahrenheit but started increasing by 0.193 degrees per hour, TEPCO says.
If no new cold water is pumped in at this rate, it will reach the dangerous threshold of 149 degrees (F) in roughly the next week. Such temperatures would increase the possibility of dangerous reactions and more radiation leaks in the plant.
TEPCO says that currently, there have been no abnormal readings anywhere in the plant.
High temperatures have not been routinely seen at the plant since the cooling system failed in the immediate aftermath of the meltdown in 2011.
TEPCO’s use of seawater for many of its cooling needs at the power plant has previously caused heightened levels of corrosion in sensitive equipment. The cooling system at various reactors has also been compromised by other sources, including rats short circuiting the control panel and forcing a blackout, and an employee “accidentally” switching it off. But those problems were fixed before rod pools overheated.
Fukushima has 9 days to prevent ‘unsafe’ overheating — RT News
Fukushima has 9 days to prevent ‘unsafe’ overheating
Published time: July 06, 2014 21:58
Get short URL
Facility to pump up underground water at the Tokyo Electric Power CO (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture (AFP Photo / Japan Pool via Jiji Press Japan out)
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Accident, Health, Japan, Nuclear
Fukushima operator TEPCO has been forced to switch off the cooling system at mothballed Reactor Unit 5, after it was discovered that it had been leaking water. In nine days, if the system is not repaired, temperatures will exceed dangerous levels.
Engineers have discovered that 1,300 liters of water leaked from a cooling system intended to stabilize the temperature of the spent fuel at the Reactor Unit 5, which was offline but loaded with fuel rods when the plant was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The source of the leak was a 3 mm-diameter hole near a flow valve, a statement published by the Japanese energy giant on Sunday asserts. However it is unclear from company data if the location of the opening has been discovered, or whether it was calculated with flow measurements.
At the time when the cooling system was switched off at around 12pm on Sunday, the temperature in the pool in which the rods are submerged was 23C but started increasing by 0.193 degrees per hour, TEPCO says.
If no new cold water is pumped in at such rate it will reach the dangerous threshold of 65C by the midpoint of the month in roughly 9 days.
Such temperatures, which have not been routinely seen at the plant since the failing of the cooling system in the immediate aftermath, would increase the possibility of dangerous reactions and further radiation leaks in the plant.
TEPCO however says that currently, there have been no abnormal readings anywhere in the plant.
Leakage of radioactive water from a plastic tank (yellow) at TEPCO's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma in Fukushima prefecture. (AFP Photo / TEPCO)
Since TEPCO is using seawater for many of its cooling needs at the power plant, it has previously encountered heightened levels of corrosion, in sensitive equipment. The cooling system at various reactors has also been beset by calamities – from rats short circuiting the control panel and forcing a blackout, to an employee “accidentally” switching it off, though all were resolved before rod pools overheated.
At the same time, TEPCO is struggling to deal with ever-increasing volumes of contaminated water which is being stored in hundreds of tanks at the facility and frequently leaking and contaminating the soil beneath it. And the much publicized plan to stop contaminated water from leaking into the sea by building an ‘ice-wall’ and freezing soil and water around the facility is not working as well as Japanese officials had hoped.
Leak at Fukushima nuclear plant threatens dangerous meltdown | Fox News
Leak at Fukushima nuclear plant threatens dangerous meltdown
Published July 07, 2014
FoxNews.com
Facebook100 Twitter118 livefyre
March 10, 2014 - FILE photo of men wearing protective suits and masks work in front of welding storage tanks for radioactive water, under construction at TEPCO's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, Japan.REUTERS
Trouble is looming at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, as a leak has forced the shutdown of a cooling system that could cause temperatures to exceed dangerous levels.
Fukushima operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) was forced to switch off the cooling system at Reactor Unit 5, after engineers discovered it had been leaking water. If the system is not repaired within the next nine days, temperatures are expected to soar, Russian news site RT reported Sunday.
More than 340 gallons of water leaked from the cooling system intended to stabilize the temperature of the spent fuel at Reactor Unit 5. The system was offline but loaded with fuel rods when the plant was damaged by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March 2011. That accident caused three of the plant’s six nuclear reactors to meltdown, releasing extensive amounts of radioactive material. It was the largest nuclear accident since Russia’s Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
The source of the leak was apparently a 3-millimeter diameter hole near a flow valve, a TEPCO statement released Sunday said. When the cooling system was turned off at around noon Sunday, the temperature in the pool that holds the rods was about 73 degrees Fahrenheit but started increasing by 0.193 degrees per hour, TEPCO says.
If no new cold water is pumped in at this rate, it will reach the dangerous threshold of 149 degrees (F) in roughly the next week. Such temperatures would increase the possibility of dangerous reactions and more radiation leaks in the plant.
TEPCO says that currently, there have been no abnormal readings anywhere in the plant.
High temperatures have not been routinely seen at the plant since the cooling system failed in the immediate aftermath of the meltdown in 2011.
TEPCO’s use of seawater for many of its cooling needs at the power plant has previously caused heightened levels of corrosion in sensitive equipment. The cooling system at various reactors has also been compromised by other sources, including rats short circuiting the control panel and forcing a blackout, and an employee “accidentally” switching it off. But those problems were fixed before rod pools overheated.
Fukushima has 9 days to prevent ‘unsafe’ overheating — RT News
Fukushima has 9 days to prevent ‘unsafe’ overheating
Published time: July 06, 2014 21:58
Get short URL
Facility to pump up underground water at the Tokyo Electric Power CO (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture (AFP Photo / Japan Pool via Jiji Press Japan out)
Share on tumblr
Tags
Accident, Health, Japan, Nuclear
Fukushima operator TEPCO has been forced to switch off the cooling system at mothballed Reactor Unit 5, after it was discovered that it had been leaking water. In nine days, if the system is not repaired, temperatures will exceed dangerous levels.
Engineers have discovered that 1,300 liters of water leaked from a cooling system intended to stabilize the temperature of the spent fuel at the Reactor Unit 5, which was offline but loaded with fuel rods when the plant was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The source of the leak was a 3 mm-diameter hole near a flow valve, a statement published by the Japanese energy giant on Sunday asserts. However it is unclear from company data if the location of the opening has been discovered, or whether it was calculated with flow measurements.
At the time when the cooling system was switched off at around 12pm on Sunday, the temperature in the pool in which the rods are submerged was 23C but started increasing by 0.193 degrees per hour, TEPCO says.
If no new cold water is pumped in at such rate it will reach the dangerous threshold of 65C by the midpoint of the month in roughly 9 days.
Such temperatures, which have not been routinely seen at the plant since the failing of the cooling system in the immediate aftermath, would increase the possibility of dangerous reactions and further radiation leaks in the plant.
TEPCO however says that currently, there have been no abnormal readings anywhere in the plant.
Leakage of radioactive water from a plastic tank (yellow) at TEPCO's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma in Fukushima prefecture. (AFP Photo / TEPCO)
Since TEPCO is using seawater for many of its cooling needs at the power plant, it has previously encountered heightened levels of corrosion, in sensitive equipment. The cooling system at various reactors has also been beset by calamities – from rats short circuiting the control panel and forcing a blackout, to an employee “accidentally” switching it off, though all were resolved before rod pools overheated.
At the same time, TEPCO is struggling to deal with ever-increasing volumes of contaminated water which is being stored in hundreds of tanks at the facility and frequently leaking and contaminating the soil beneath it. And the much publicized plan to stop contaminated water from leaking into the sea by building an ‘ice-wall’ and freezing soil and water around the facility is not working as well as Japanese officials had hoped.
Obambam
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Radiation level in the air may go down over time, but soil and water contamination remains to be an ongoing issue that will continue to plague locals for many more years to come. Just look at Chernobyl, three decades onwards, soil and water contamination remains to be dangerously high.
Parts of the Canadian as well as the Californian coastline are also affected. You can only imagine the levels of the contamination still present at Fukushima. The locals needs help and they also deserve to know the truth. Props to Katsutaka Idogawa san for coming out and speaking the truth.
Parts of the Canadian as well as the Californian coastline are also affected. You can only imagine the levels of the contamination still present at Fukushima. The locals needs help and they also deserve to know the truth. Props to Katsutaka Idogawa san for coming out and speaking the truth.
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betonamujin1902
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It's so unlucky for Japanese. Their homeland is poor of resource, high risk of tsunami and earthquake ... not like China mainland.
But more adorable, their nowaday achivements.
But more adorable, their nowaday achivements.
BuddhaPalm
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"Nuclear" is their fate 大核民族 
senheiser
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Fukushima Disaster: Inside The World's Most Dangerous Room
By Hannah Beech/Fukushima
Photographs & Video by Dominic Nahr for TIME
August 21, 2014
Our respirators are on, as are three pairs of gloves secured with tape, two pairs of socks, rubber boots, a hard hat and a hazmat suit that encases our bodies in polyethylene. Ice packs cool our torsos, but photographer Dominic Nahr, reporter Chie Kobayashi and I start sweating. Maybe it’s nerves, or maybe it’s just the sticky humidity of summertime Japan.
Hannah Beech (far right), TIME’s East Asia correspondent and China bureau chief, on an exclusive visit of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Dominic Nahr for TIME
Soon we approach the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant—ground zero of the worst atomic meltdown since Chernobyl. Dosimeters around our necks record the rising levels of radiation. After the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on March 11, 2011, the aging plant on Japan’s northeastern coast suffered a total power failure, causing the cooling system to shut down. Three of the station’s nuclear-reactor cores overheated, sending plumes of radiation over a placid landscape of fishing villages, rice paddies and dairy farms. (The station has a total of six reactors. Two were in cold shutdown at the time of the accident; another, which had been defueled, suffered an explosion.) As we lumber through the plant like clumsy B-movie extras, I’m reminded that our many layers don’t protect against every type of radiation. Not to worry, we are told by officials from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO). The radiation levels in certain parts of the nuclear complex are actually lower than in some populated swaths of Fukushima prefecture. Later, as I sit in a futuristic cubicle in the plant complex, undergoing a full-body internal radiation check, the soundtrack underscores TEPCO’s soothing message. A line from one song’s lyrics, tinkly and sweetened: “You’ve got a friend in Jesus.”
Three and a half years after the most devastating nuclear accident in a generation, Fukushima Daiichi is still in crisis. Some 6,000 workers, somehow going about their jobs despite the suffocating gear they must wear for hours at a time, struggle to contain the damage. So much radiation still pulses inside the crippled reactor cores that no one has been able to get close enough to survey the full extent of the destruction. Every 2½ days, workers deploy a new giant storage tank to house radioactive water contaminated after passing through the damaged reactors. We wander past a forest of some 1,300 of these tanks, each filled with 1,000 tons of toxic water, some of which was used to cool the reactors.
Leaks have plagued the site. In February, water with a radiation level several million times higher than what’s safe gushed out from a storage tank near the coast on the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO said it was unlikely the water made its way into the ocean, but whistle-blower workers aren’t as sure. There’s the question of what will happen when—not if—another major earthquake strikes this seismically cursed land. The latest plan by TEPCO, Japan’s largest power provider, is to build a wall of frozen earth around the damaged reactors and other highly radioactive areas to prevent radiation from seeping out of the site. But even if this and other technological fixes succeed, the government estimates it will take at least 30 years to decommission Fukushima Daiichi and make the site safe from radiation.
Japan took all of its other 48 nuclear power plants off-line after Fukushima, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to restart some of them despite public opposition. Commissioned in 1971, Fukushima Daiichi should have been retired or retrofitted long before a 46-ft. (14 m) tsunami forced the issue. Touring the site, I’m struck by how much of the damage remains. It’s not just the throbbing danger of the unseen nuclear-fuel rods. The carcasses of the reactors themselves are exposed in places like autopsied remains, stained from the soot of the hydrogen explosions that resulted from the meltdown. We walk into a building that housed the control room for Reactors 1 and 2, where a dozen workers, plunged into darkness by the power cut, labored by flashlight to try to achieve cold shutdown.
The nuclear fuel rod coolant pool of Reactor 4, which did not suffer a meltdown but was extensively damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. Dominic Nahr for TIME
In the control room, amid the rows of screens and panels, calculations scrawled on metal by engineers represent the desperate graffiti of men who could not halt a nuclear meltdown. Electricity was not restored until March 24, nearly two weeks after the tsunami. “We have to honestly and deeply reflect on the accident,” says Takafumi Anegawa, TEPCO’s managing executive officer, whose role is to shake up a utility he has accused of cozy relations with regulators and a cavalier attitude toward safety. “We should reset the level we pursue to the very highest. If we cannot achieve that level because of our capability or our culture, it means we are not qualified.” Akira Ono, the plant superintendent at Fukushima Daiichi, is equally blunt—at least in a Japanese context—about the need to reassess the nation’s nuclear future. “Because of the accident,” he says, “nuclear energy is an issue that should be discussed again in our country.”
There’s no question that Fukushima Daiichi is a huge test for TEPCO—and for Japan. Yet the destroyed plant feels enervated and empty, like a Hollywood version of a nuclear wasteland. Thousands of workers may be on the payroll, but few are in evidence. The protective suits slow everyone down, masking any sense of urgency. Just outside the destroyed reactors, in a swath of Fukushima declared uninhabitable for mankind, azaleas are in full bloom. A rabbit hops across the road—I wonder where, in this devastated landscape, it is going.
It’s a truism, but that doesn’t make it any less true: Japan is perhaps the world’s most collectivist society. But what happens when that collective trust is so fundamentally breached? Fukushima was not just an epic natural disaster in a nation long conditioned to frequent betrayals by land and sea. It was also a man-made crisis, born of political hubris, corporate dereliction and an instinct to obscure Japan’s ugliest elements that remains unchanged to this day. The Japanese, as a people, may bow before the temple of precision, fetishizing detail and safety. But Fukushima proved that no matter how many cool innovations Japanese companies churn out, a lack of oversight and emergency initiative can be deadly.
A view of the area devastated by the Tsunami and about 40km from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant only weeks after the fallout. Dominic Nahr for TIME
You’d think, for example, that a nation ranking as one of the world’s most seismically active would take heed when building a nuclear plant on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Yet TEPCO’s disaster plan and postaccident coordination were woeful. It had ignored a joint government and utility-company study on potential inundation by a tsunami. TEPCO’s advisory ranks were weighed down with too many retired officials. But the fault went well beyond one power company. The Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, authorized by Japan’s parliament, was damning in its 2012 report on the nuclear meltdown: “What must be admitted—very painfully—is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan.’ Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.” The panel, composed of Japanese scientists, doctors and engineers, among others, continued with a candor exceptional for Japan: “The consequences of negligence at Fukushima stand out as catastrophic, but the mind-set that supported it can be found across Japan.”
“What must be admitted—very painfully—is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan.’”
—Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission
Yet the hope that Japan’s nuclear crisis would spark a national reset has gone unfulfilled. The disasters of 3/11 caused the largest single loss of life on Japanese soil since the U.S. detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Japan was reborn after that catastrophe nearly 70 years ago, rising from the ashes of defeat and building, in just a few decades, an economic powerhouse that would eventually draw a third of its energy from nuclear power. This time around, though, the phoenix never emerged. Public faith in the government’s ability to ensure safety and respond to crises has eroded because of the nuclear accident, but Fukushima has not inspired new environmental or civil-society movements that can boast of major accomplishments. “Inertia is still very strong,” says Akihiro Sawa, an executive senior fellow at the Keidanren business federation’s 21st Century Public Policy Institute.
In the meantime, Fukushima’s fallout continues to claim victims. Nearly 20,000 people—mostly in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures but also in Fukushima prefecture—were killed by the earthquake and tsunami. Yet only in Fukushima, the epicenter of the nuclear catastrophe, does the number of people who the Japanese government says have since died from causes indirectly linked to the natural disaster now exceed the initial death toll. Stress, both physical and mental, has led to a rise in suicides.
About 125,000 Fukushima residents, most of whom used to reside within an 18-mile (30 km) radius of the nuclear station, still exist as evacuees because their homes are within a government-mandated exclusion zone. Some now subsist in prefab units more evocative of a third-world disaster zone than the world’s third largest economy. In June the Ministry of Environment admitted that decontamination efforts in some towns near the stricken plant had failed; residents cannot return, even if they want to. Fear has infected other neighborhoods as parents wonder whether the radiation clouds that spewed out of the ruined reactors in the days following the tsunami harmed their children. At the disabled plant itself, many experienced employees have reached the official limit on maximum dosages of radiation—leaving critical work in less skilled hands.
Despite all this, the Japanese government’s message to the world is, Trust us. Last year Prime Minister Abe visited Fukushima, flashed a grin and bit into a locally grown peach to prove that the area’s produce—an economic mainstay—was safe to eat. Shortly after his fruit tasting, Abe traveled to Buenos Aires and gave a speech that propelled Tokyo to victory as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics. “Let me assure you the situation is under control,” he said. But is it? “This was a grave accident in which many mistakes were made,” says Haruo Kurasawa, one of Japan’s foremost TV commentators on nuclear issues. “But no one has gone to jail, and no one wants to take responsibility. Everyone still wants to look the other way. Nothing has really changed.”
The road to the Fukushima Daiichi plant is lined with scenes of small-town Japan: a noodle eatery with chopsticks and condiments on the counter, farmhouses with shingled roofs, even a loader with a claw hanging in midair. Billboards boast of diners, bowling alleys and hot-spring resorts. But no one lives here. The area began to be abandoned on March 12, 2011, when the first of the reactors exploded and left entire towns preserved in radioactive amber.
From left: Residents in Fukushima City stand on the street while rescue teams try to get into the apartment of a part-time decontamination worker who had committed suicide; a resident of Koriyama, about 35 miles (56 km) from Fukushima, so worried about radiation exposure that she keeps a Geiger counter in her home Dominic Nahr for TIME
Yukie lived in Futaba, a tidy town where many residents worked at the nearby nuclear plant. Other parts of rural Japan have been slowly depopulating as society has grayed and the young have flocked to the big cities. But Futaba survived because of atomic power. Fukushima Daiichi’s history is intertwined with Yukie’s family lore: her grandmother grew up on farmland that was given up for the future site of the nuclear plant, and Yukie entered an arranged marriage with a nuclear worker. (Her husband still works at the plant, which is why she doesn’t want her full name used.) “We were a TEPCO family,” she says. After the evacuation order went out, Yukie and her family ran home—just under 2 miles (3.2 km) from Fukushima Daiichi—to grab a few essentials, like blankets and diapers for her daughter. Then they piled into a car and drove northwest. Unbeknownst to them, the prevailing winds blew radiation along the very same path.
Since then, Yukie and her family have moved 10 times, from one set of cramped rooms to another. But the specter of radiation—invisible, odorless, tasteless—follows them. Yukie, 33, and her two small children now live like shut-ins on the outskirts of Iwaki, the biggest city near Fukushima Daiichi, about 25 miles (40 km) away. Earlier this year, her daughter broke out in mysterious rashes; one visiting doctor speculated that radiation could have caused the outbreaks. (Other doctors, however, blamed different causes.) Yukie suffers from frequent nosebleeds, which she says she never had before the disaster.
From left: A young boy has his thyroid checked by a doctor organized by the Independent Mother’s Network. Thyroid cancer was a problem after the Chernobyl meltdown, and many parents around Fukushima fear for their children’s health.; dead cattle—culled because of radiation—are buried in pits within the Fukushima exclusion zone Dominic Nahr for TIME
As yet there’s no clear evidence of any connection between the Fukushima meltdown and ill health in the area, even among nuclear workers. The government has pointed out that taking an X-ray or even a long-haul flight can expose our bodies to surprisingly high doses of radiation, yet somehow we go about our lives without worrying about the risk. But even if the science says otherwise, the radiation from an accident like Fukushima feels different—and dangerous. “There’s so much societal pressure to not even mention the word radiation,” says Sachihiko Fuse, an oncologist who helps run a private medical clinic in Fukushima city. “The national and prefectural governments say, ‘Please, there’s no danger, live as normal.’ But people are concerned.”
There’s no doubting the very real mental-health crisis caused by Fukushima—and no one knows exactly how stress can manifest itself in physical complaints, including nosebleeds. And sometimes the consequences are far worse. Many suicides aren’t reported by families who worry about being stigmatized, say local doctors, obscuring the real death toll. Shigekiyo Kanno, 54, didn’t hide his feelings. A dairy farmer from Soma who lost his livelihood because people feared his milk was radioactive, Kanno used his barn walls for his suicide note. “I’ve lost the will to try,” he wrote, apologizing to his wife and sons before hanging himself from a rafter. “If only there was no nuclear plant.” Kanno’s death was not initially categorized as Fukushima-related.
Atomic power is entrenched in the Japanese government. In 2009 more than 70% of individual donations to the now ruling Liberal Democratic Party came from current or former electric-company executives. The LDP supports restarting Japan’s nuclear power plants, which were idled by a previous government. Toshikazu Okuya, director of the energy supply and demand office at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, frames the need to restart the reactors as both environmental and economic in a land starved of domestic energy resources. Japan’s greenhouse-gas emissions increased by 7% from 2010 to 2012 as imported fossil fuels replaced carbon-free nuclear. The government has estimated the direct impact of the nuclear shutdown to be $35.4 billion a year—this at a time when Abe is trying to revive the national economy. “We cannot say there is no risk,” Okuya admits of nuclear power. But “we need to try to take back public confidence.”
In Fukushima, that starts with mothers, an unlikely demographic that has become politically active and increasingly antinuclear. For months after the meltdown, Kayoko Hashimoto’s daughter wore a dosimeter to school, just as authorities urged. The radiation cloud had passed over the region, but locals were told the area was safe. So why was her daughter’s dosimeter recording high levels of radiation? Hashimoto bought a top-of-the-line dosimeter and began testing the route her daughter took to school. To her shock, she discovered tiny hot spots of radiation throughout the community: one by a bakery, another by a dog kennel, still another in the school parking lot. These levels were even higher than in some towns that had limited outdoor playtime because of fears over radiation exposure. The health effects of such small hot spots aren’t clear, but Hashimoto is worried. “People are scared of radioactivity,” she says, “but they don’t want to make a fuss or draw attention to themselves.”
“[My hometown] is finished. It’s only fit for ghosts.”
—Tatsuko Shiga, 77, a former resident of Futaba, in the Fukushima exclusion zone
Hashimoto has also campaigned against the storage of decontamination waste on school grounds. Piles of black plastic bags—filled with radiation-tainted topsoil and vegetation—are scattered across Fukushima. But no one wants a formal dumping ground near them. Even designating temporary storage sites for the bags is difficult, which is why schools have been used. The bags have a life span of a few years, and already some have grass and debris poking through. “It’s wrong to call this decontamination,” says nuclear analyst Kurasawa. “It’s just moving around contaminated waste.”
Some of the laborers in charge of that decontamination are poorly paid and trained; recruiters have even been known to target the homeless. At Fukushima Daiichi itself, three-quarters of the white-suited workers are subcontracted laborers. In March a contract worker died in an accident after it took an hour to get him to a hospital. “Before I was proud because I thought I was helping to save Japan,” says Sunny, who uses a nickname because he still works at the plant and isn’t supposed to speak out. “But it’s long hours and bad pay. The new foot soldiers don’t get any training, and the media say we’re constantly screwing up. I’ve lost my pride.”
Bags filled with irradiated soil within the red zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant Dominic Nahr for TIME
For Kyoji Konnai, a tatami-mat maker and former nuclear-plant worker, radiation isn’t a concern. In April the government formally lifted an evacuation order for Miyakoji, just over a mountain road from Fukushima Daiichi, after decontamination work was carried out. Konnai and about a third of other neighborhood residents have returned and cleared the mold, vermin and ruined furniture from their homes. “I still think the nuclear industry is important,” he says. “Without it, we’d have no jobs in the area.” But others cannot go home. On the outskirts of Iwaki, a grim collection of metal huts is the latest temporary housing offered to 250 Futaba families. Tatsuko Shiga, 77, has pots of flowers in front of her tiny living space. A shelf holds the family altar. But there’s only so much you can do with a prefab shack. Still, Shiga has no wish to return to her farmhouse, one of the few in her community to have escaped the tsunami’s wrath. “That place is finished,” she says. “It’s only fit for ghosts.”
By Hannah Beech/Fukushima
Photographs & Video by Dominic Nahr for TIME
August 21, 2014
Our respirators are on, as are three pairs of gloves secured with tape, two pairs of socks, rubber boots, a hard hat and a hazmat suit that encases our bodies in polyethylene. Ice packs cool our torsos, but photographer Dominic Nahr, reporter Chie Kobayashi and I start sweating. Maybe it’s nerves, or maybe it’s just the sticky humidity of summertime Japan.
Hannah Beech (far right), TIME’s East Asia correspondent and China bureau chief, on an exclusive visit of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Dominic Nahr for TIME
Soon we approach the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant—ground zero of the worst atomic meltdown since Chernobyl. Dosimeters around our necks record the rising levels of radiation. After the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on March 11, 2011, the aging plant on Japan’s northeastern coast suffered a total power failure, causing the cooling system to shut down. Three of the station’s nuclear-reactor cores overheated, sending plumes of radiation over a placid landscape of fishing villages, rice paddies and dairy farms. (The station has a total of six reactors. Two were in cold shutdown at the time of the accident; another, which had been defueled, suffered an explosion.) As we lumber through the plant like clumsy B-movie extras, I’m reminded that our many layers don’t protect against every type of radiation. Not to worry, we are told by officials from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO). The radiation levels in certain parts of the nuclear complex are actually lower than in some populated swaths of Fukushima prefecture. Later, as I sit in a futuristic cubicle in the plant complex, undergoing a full-body internal radiation check, the soundtrack underscores TEPCO’s soothing message. A line from one song’s lyrics, tinkly and sweetened: “You’ve got a friend in Jesus.”
Three and a half years after the most devastating nuclear accident in a generation, Fukushima Daiichi is still in crisis. Some 6,000 workers, somehow going about their jobs despite the suffocating gear they must wear for hours at a time, struggle to contain the damage. So much radiation still pulses inside the crippled reactor cores that no one has been able to get close enough to survey the full extent of the destruction. Every 2½ days, workers deploy a new giant storage tank to house radioactive water contaminated after passing through the damaged reactors. We wander past a forest of some 1,300 of these tanks, each filled with 1,000 tons of toxic water, some of which was used to cool the reactors.
Leaks have plagued the site. In February, water with a radiation level several million times higher than what’s safe gushed out from a storage tank near the coast on the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO said it was unlikely the water made its way into the ocean, but whistle-blower workers aren’t as sure. There’s the question of what will happen when—not if—another major earthquake strikes this seismically cursed land. The latest plan by TEPCO, Japan’s largest power provider, is to build a wall of frozen earth around the damaged reactors and other highly radioactive areas to prevent radiation from seeping out of the site. But even if this and other technological fixes succeed, the government estimates it will take at least 30 years to decommission Fukushima Daiichi and make the site safe from radiation.
Japan took all of its other 48 nuclear power plants off-line after Fukushima, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to restart some of them despite public opposition. Commissioned in 1971, Fukushima Daiichi should have been retired or retrofitted long before a 46-ft. (14 m) tsunami forced the issue. Touring the site, I’m struck by how much of the damage remains. It’s not just the throbbing danger of the unseen nuclear-fuel rods. The carcasses of the reactors themselves are exposed in places like autopsied remains, stained from the soot of the hydrogen explosions that resulted from the meltdown. We walk into a building that housed the control room for Reactors 1 and 2, where a dozen workers, plunged into darkness by the power cut, labored by flashlight to try to achieve cold shutdown.
The nuclear fuel rod coolant pool of Reactor 4, which did not suffer a meltdown but was extensively damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. Dominic Nahr for TIME
In the control room, amid the rows of screens and panels, calculations scrawled on metal by engineers represent the desperate graffiti of men who could not halt a nuclear meltdown. Electricity was not restored until March 24, nearly two weeks after the tsunami. “We have to honestly and deeply reflect on the accident,” says Takafumi Anegawa, TEPCO’s managing executive officer, whose role is to shake up a utility he has accused of cozy relations with regulators and a cavalier attitude toward safety. “We should reset the level we pursue to the very highest. If we cannot achieve that level because of our capability or our culture, it means we are not qualified.” Akira Ono, the plant superintendent at Fukushima Daiichi, is equally blunt—at least in a Japanese context—about the need to reassess the nation’s nuclear future. “Because of the accident,” he says, “nuclear energy is an issue that should be discussed again in our country.”
There’s no question that Fukushima Daiichi is a huge test for TEPCO—and for Japan. Yet the destroyed plant feels enervated and empty, like a Hollywood version of a nuclear wasteland. Thousands of workers may be on the payroll, but few are in evidence. The protective suits slow everyone down, masking any sense of urgency. Just outside the destroyed reactors, in a swath of Fukushima declared uninhabitable for mankind, azaleas are in full bloom. A rabbit hops across the road—I wonder where, in this devastated landscape, it is going.
It’s a truism, but that doesn’t make it any less true: Japan is perhaps the world’s most collectivist society. But what happens when that collective trust is so fundamentally breached? Fukushima was not just an epic natural disaster in a nation long conditioned to frequent betrayals by land and sea. It was also a man-made crisis, born of political hubris, corporate dereliction and an instinct to obscure Japan’s ugliest elements that remains unchanged to this day. The Japanese, as a people, may bow before the temple of precision, fetishizing detail and safety. But Fukushima proved that no matter how many cool innovations Japanese companies churn out, a lack of oversight and emergency initiative can be deadly.
A view of the area devastated by the Tsunami and about 40km from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant only weeks after the fallout. Dominic Nahr for TIME
You’d think, for example, that a nation ranking as one of the world’s most seismically active would take heed when building a nuclear plant on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Yet TEPCO’s disaster plan and postaccident coordination were woeful. It had ignored a joint government and utility-company study on potential inundation by a tsunami. TEPCO’s advisory ranks were weighed down with too many retired officials. But the fault went well beyond one power company. The Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, authorized by Japan’s parliament, was damning in its 2012 report on the nuclear meltdown: “What must be admitted—very painfully—is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan.’ Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.” The panel, composed of Japanese scientists, doctors and engineers, among others, continued with a candor exceptional for Japan: “The consequences of negligence at Fukushima stand out as catastrophic, but the mind-set that supported it can be found across Japan.”
“What must be admitted—very painfully—is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan.’”
—Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission
Yet the hope that Japan’s nuclear crisis would spark a national reset has gone unfulfilled. The disasters of 3/11 caused the largest single loss of life on Japanese soil since the U.S. detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But Japan was reborn after that catastrophe nearly 70 years ago, rising from the ashes of defeat and building, in just a few decades, an economic powerhouse that would eventually draw a third of its energy from nuclear power. This time around, though, the phoenix never emerged. Public faith in the government’s ability to ensure safety and respond to crises has eroded because of the nuclear accident, but Fukushima has not inspired new environmental or civil-society movements that can boast of major accomplishments. “Inertia is still very strong,” says Akihiro Sawa, an executive senior fellow at the Keidanren business federation’s 21st Century Public Policy Institute.
In the meantime, Fukushima’s fallout continues to claim victims. Nearly 20,000 people—mostly in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures but also in Fukushima prefecture—were killed by the earthquake and tsunami. Yet only in Fukushima, the epicenter of the nuclear catastrophe, does the number of people who the Japanese government says have since died from causes indirectly linked to the natural disaster now exceed the initial death toll. Stress, both physical and mental, has led to a rise in suicides.
About 125,000 Fukushima residents, most of whom used to reside within an 18-mile (30 km) radius of the nuclear station, still exist as evacuees because their homes are within a government-mandated exclusion zone. Some now subsist in prefab units more evocative of a third-world disaster zone than the world’s third largest economy. In June the Ministry of Environment admitted that decontamination efforts in some towns near the stricken plant had failed; residents cannot return, even if they want to. Fear has infected other neighborhoods as parents wonder whether the radiation clouds that spewed out of the ruined reactors in the days following the tsunami harmed their children. At the disabled plant itself, many experienced employees have reached the official limit on maximum dosages of radiation—leaving critical work in less skilled hands.
Despite all this, the Japanese government’s message to the world is, Trust us. Last year Prime Minister Abe visited Fukushima, flashed a grin and bit into a locally grown peach to prove that the area’s produce—an economic mainstay—was safe to eat. Shortly after his fruit tasting, Abe traveled to Buenos Aires and gave a speech that propelled Tokyo to victory as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics. “Let me assure you the situation is under control,” he said. But is it? “This was a grave accident in which many mistakes were made,” says Haruo Kurasawa, one of Japan’s foremost TV commentators on nuclear issues. “But no one has gone to jail, and no one wants to take responsibility. Everyone still wants to look the other way. Nothing has really changed.”
The road to the Fukushima Daiichi plant is lined with scenes of small-town Japan: a noodle eatery with chopsticks and condiments on the counter, farmhouses with shingled roofs, even a loader with a claw hanging in midair. Billboards boast of diners, bowling alleys and hot-spring resorts. But no one lives here. The area began to be abandoned on March 12, 2011, when the first of the reactors exploded and left entire towns preserved in radioactive amber.
From left: Residents in Fukushima City stand on the street while rescue teams try to get into the apartment of a part-time decontamination worker who had committed suicide; a resident of Koriyama, about 35 miles (56 km) from Fukushima, so worried about radiation exposure that she keeps a Geiger counter in her home Dominic Nahr for TIME
Yukie lived in Futaba, a tidy town where many residents worked at the nearby nuclear plant. Other parts of rural Japan have been slowly depopulating as society has grayed and the young have flocked to the big cities. But Futaba survived because of atomic power. Fukushima Daiichi’s history is intertwined with Yukie’s family lore: her grandmother grew up on farmland that was given up for the future site of the nuclear plant, and Yukie entered an arranged marriage with a nuclear worker. (Her husband still works at the plant, which is why she doesn’t want her full name used.) “We were a TEPCO family,” she says. After the evacuation order went out, Yukie and her family ran home—just under 2 miles (3.2 km) from Fukushima Daiichi—to grab a few essentials, like blankets and diapers for her daughter. Then they piled into a car and drove northwest. Unbeknownst to them, the prevailing winds blew radiation along the very same path.
Since then, Yukie and her family have moved 10 times, from one set of cramped rooms to another. But the specter of radiation—invisible, odorless, tasteless—follows them. Yukie, 33, and her two small children now live like shut-ins on the outskirts of Iwaki, the biggest city near Fukushima Daiichi, about 25 miles (40 km) away. Earlier this year, her daughter broke out in mysterious rashes; one visiting doctor speculated that radiation could have caused the outbreaks. (Other doctors, however, blamed different causes.) Yukie suffers from frequent nosebleeds, which she says she never had before the disaster.
From left: A young boy has his thyroid checked by a doctor organized by the Independent Mother’s Network. Thyroid cancer was a problem after the Chernobyl meltdown, and many parents around Fukushima fear for their children’s health.; dead cattle—culled because of radiation—are buried in pits within the Fukushima exclusion zone Dominic Nahr for TIME
As yet there’s no clear evidence of any connection between the Fukushima meltdown and ill health in the area, even among nuclear workers. The government has pointed out that taking an X-ray or even a long-haul flight can expose our bodies to surprisingly high doses of radiation, yet somehow we go about our lives without worrying about the risk. But even if the science says otherwise, the radiation from an accident like Fukushima feels different—and dangerous. “There’s so much societal pressure to not even mention the word radiation,” says Sachihiko Fuse, an oncologist who helps run a private medical clinic in Fukushima city. “The national and prefectural governments say, ‘Please, there’s no danger, live as normal.’ But people are concerned.”
There’s no doubting the very real mental-health crisis caused by Fukushima—and no one knows exactly how stress can manifest itself in physical complaints, including nosebleeds. And sometimes the consequences are far worse. Many suicides aren’t reported by families who worry about being stigmatized, say local doctors, obscuring the real death toll. Shigekiyo Kanno, 54, didn’t hide his feelings. A dairy farmer from Soma who lost his livelihood because people feared his milk was radioactive, Kanno used his barn walls for his suicide note. “I’ve lost the will to try,” he wrote, apologizing to his wife and sons before hanging himself from a rafter. “If only there was no nuclear plant.” Kanno’s death was not initially categorized as Fukushima-related.
Atomic power is entrenched in the Japanese government. In 2009 more than 70% of individual donations to the now ruling Liberal Democratic Party came from current or former electric-company executives. The LDP supports restarting Japan’s nuclear power plants, which were idled by a previous government. Toshikazu Okuya, director of the energy supply and demand office at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, frames the need to restart the reactors as both environmental and economic in a land starved of domestic energy resources. Japan’s greenhouse-gas emissions increased by 7% from 2010 to 2012 as imported fossil fuels replaced carbon-free nuclear. The government has estimated the direct impact of the nuclear shutdown to be $35.4 billion a year—this at a time when Abe is trying to revive the national economy. “We cannot say there is no risk,” Okuya admits of nuclear power. But “we need to try to take back public confidence.”
In Fukushima, that starts with mothers, an unlikely demographic that has become politically active and increasingly antinuclear. For months after the meltdown, Kayoko Hashimoto’s daughter wore a dosimeter to school, just as authorities urged. The radiation cloud had passed over the region, but locals were told the area was safe. So why was her daughter’s dosimeter recording high levels of radiation? Hashimoto bought a top-of-the-line dosimeter and began testing the route her daughter took to school. To her shock, she discovered tiny hot spots of radiation throughout the community: one by a bakery, another by a dog kennel, still another in the school parking lot. These levels were even higher than in some towns that had limited outdoor playtime because of fears over radiation exposure. The health effects of such small hot spots aren’t clear, but Hashimoto is worried. “People are scared of radioactivity,” she says, “but they don’t want to make a fuss or draw attention to themselves.”
“[My hometown] is finished. It’s only fit for ghosts.”
—Tatsuko Shiga, 77, a former resident of Futaba, in the Fukushima exclusion zone
Hashimoto has also campaigned against the storage of decontamination waste on school grounds. Piles of black plastic bags—filled with radiation-tainted topsoil and vegetation—are scattered across Fukushima. But no one wants a formal dumping ground near them. Even designating temporary storage sites for the bags is difficult, which is why schools have been used. The bags have a life span of a few years, and already some have grass and debris poking through. “It’s wrong to call this decontamination,” says nuclear analyst Kurasawa. “It’s just moving around contaminated waste.”
Some of the laborers in charge of that decontamination are poorly paid and trained; recruiters have even been known to target the homeless. At Fukushima Daiichi itself, three-quarters of the white-suited workers are subcontracted laborers. In March a contract worker died in an accident after it took an hour to get him to a hospital. “Before I was proud because I thought I was helping to save Japan,” says Sunny, who uses a nickname because he still works at the plant and isn’t supposed to speak out. “But it’s long hours and bad pay. The new foot soldiers don’t get any training, and the media say we’re constantly screwing up. I’ve lost my pride.”
Bags filled with irradiated soil within the red zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant Dominic Nahr for TIME
For Kyoji Konnai, a tatami-mat maker and former nuclear-plant worker, radiation isn’t a concern. In April the government formally lifted an evacuation order for Miyakoji, just over a mountain road from Fukushima Daiichi, after decontamination work was carried out. Konnai and about a third of other neighborhood residents have returned and cleared the mold, vermin and ruined furniture from their homes. “I still think the nuclear industry is important,” he says. “Without it, we’d have no jobs in the area.” But others cannot go home. On the outskirts of Iwaki, a grim collection of metal huts is the latest temporary housing offered to 250 Futaba families. Tatsuko Shiga, 77, has pots of flowers in front of her tiny living space. A shelf holds the family altar. But there’s only so much you can do with a prefab shack. Still, Shiga has no wish to return to her farmhouse, one of the few in her community to have escaped the tsunami’s wrath. “That place is finished,” she says. “It’s only fit for ghosts.”
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Well, I do remember back in 2009, Russian government actually advised the Japanese government that as a last resort solution, a high yield thermonuclear explosion can be used to clean up the mess.
It is actually not as ridicules as it sounds, thermonuclear explosions leave behind relatively smaller amount of radiation and whatever elements it produced all have fairly short half-life. The large amount of neutron released during the explosion will breakdown heavier radioisotopes into smaller ones with short half-life. In theory, with a thermonuclear clean-up, Fukushima area would be inhabitable again within the decade.
It is actually not as ridicules as it sounds, thermonuclear explosions leave behind relatively smaller amount of radiation and whatever elements it produced all have fairly short half-life. The large amount of neutron released during the explosion will breakdown heavier radioisotopes into smaller ones with short half-life. In theory, with a thermonuclear clean-up, Fukushima area would be inhabitable again within the decade.
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