Suicides rise among Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuees — The Asahi Shimbun

” Disaster-related suicides in Fukushima Prefecture have surged this year, with prolonged evacuation from the nuclear accident and uncertainty about returning home or leading normal lives suspected as the main causes.

Nineteen suicides in Fukushima Prefecture from January to the end of November have been tied to the March 2011 triple disaster, up from 15 for all of last year, according to statistics compiled by the Cabinet Office.

Over the same period this year, one disaster-related suicide was recorded in Miyagi and two in Iwate, the two other prefectures that were most heavily damaged nearly five years ago by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.

Local police determined if a suicide was related to the disaster and subsequent evacuation after talking to bereaved family members.

Suicide statistics in the three prefectures compiled since June 2011 showed that the situation among evacuees is much more despondent in Fukushima Prefecture than in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, according to the Cabinet Office section in charge of dealing with suicides.

So far, a total of 154 suicides have been linked to the disaster in the three prefectures until the end of November 2015. More than half of the deaths were people who lived in Fukushima Prefecture before the disaster struck.

Between June and December 2011, the suicide numbers were 22 in Miyagi Prefecture and 17 in Iwate Prefecture. Fukushima Prefecture recorded 10 in that period.

However, the numbers for Iwate and Miyagi prefectures have subsequently declined while the figure for Fukushima Prefecture has been at least 10 a year.

Many disaster victims in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures have been able to return to their hometowns to lead comparatively normal lives.

But evacuation orders remain for six municipalities in the vicinity of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and parts of three other local governments in the prefecture.

As of November, about 24,000 people in Iwate and about 55,000 in Miyagi were living in temporary housing away from their homes. In Fukushima, the number was about 103,000.

“The problems facing Fukushima disaster victims become more complicated as time passes,” said Masaharu Maeda, a professor of disaster psychiatry at Fukushima Medical University.

He pointed to differences among evacuees from areas where evacuation orders have been lifted.

“The elderly may return to their homes, but the generation who are still raising children do not return, meaning families are torn apart,” Maeda said. “There is a need to increase the number of people who have specialized knowledge to help provide support to disaster victims through improved care.”

Cabinet Office officials conducted a survey on the reasons for 80 suicides in Fukushima that were identified as disaster-related by police, who talked to bereaved family members.

The most common cause was health problems, found in 42 cases, followed by economic and lifestyle woes for 16 people and family problems for 14. In some cases, more than one motive was included.

The central government is considering lifting the evacuation order by March 2017 for districts near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant where residents are allowed to enter during the day.

But there is no indication when the evacuation order will be lifted for the remaining seven municipalities where airborne radiation levels are still high.

In 2014, the Fukushima Medical University conducted a survey of about 38,000 evacuees from areas where the evacuation order remains in place.

Close to 40 percent of respondents said they were concerned about the negative health effects in the future from exposure to radiation. Nearly 50 percent said they felt the radiation would have a negative impact on their children and grandchildren.

People concerned about radiation were more likely to suffer from depression, the survey showed.

Disaster victims in Fukushima were also found to be more likely to suffer from depression or post-traumatic stress disorders than people in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures. ”

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Keep your nuclear power, Mr. Shinzo Abe. We can do without a Fukushima. — Catch News

” Big deal

• India, Japan may sign a nuclear deal during Shinzo Abe’s visit

• The deal will fast-track the French’s nuclear project in Jaitapur

• It’ll enable supply of key parts for Mithi Virdi, Kovvada plants

Heavy price

• Jaitapur plant will wreck one of world’s 10 Hottest Biodiversity Hotspots

• It’ll also destroy the livelihoods of nearly 40,000 people

• Areva’s reactors, used at Jaitapur, have been flagged for safety concerns

More in the story

• Post-Fukushima, why is India alone in a mad rush for nuclear power?
• Two years ago, Shinzo Abe said Fukushima was “under control”. Latest report: radiation is 4,000 times higher

_____________________________________________________

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe arrived in India on 11 December. He came with a bag of goodies – bullet trains, aircraft and, most importantly, nuclear power.

Do we really want his nuclear power?

No, we definitely don’t. Here’s why.

The proposed India-Japan Nuclear Agreement, to be signed during the visit, is more than just a bilateral deal. It’s an instrument to serve American and French nuclear lobbies.

The deal would fast-track the French nuclear giant Areva’s project in Jaitapur, Maharashtra. It’s also crucial for supply of critical equipment to the American nuclear projects in Gujarat’s Mithi Virdi and Andhra Pradesh’ Kovvada.

But that isn’t its most damaging aspect.

Both Tokyo and New Delhi have been trying to sell the deal as essential for India’s “development”.

The truth is it would lead to the destruction of some of our most pristine landscapes, biodiversity hotspots, prosperous agricultural lands and rich community cultures.

How? Nuclear power plants require large quantities of water as coolant. They are usually located near major highways and not too far from well-populated consumption centres. And such places, all over the world, have economically and culturally flourishing communities.

Jaitapur, for example, is located in the stunningly beautiful Konkan, replete with verdant plateaus, magical mountains and undulating hills, lagoons, creeks, the open sea and infinite greenery. The NPCIL has labelled nearly 65% of the region’s land as barren, which the local people find outrageous.

Konkan is one of the world’s 10 “Hottest Biodiversity Hotspots,” sheltering over 5,000 species of flowering plants, 139 of mammals, 508 of birds and 179 of amphibians, including 325 globally threatened ones.

The region offers prosperous life to its inhabitants. Altogether, the nuclear park would jeopardize the livelihoods of 40,000 people.

The annual turnover of Jaitapur’s fishing villages is about Rs 15 crore. In Nate alone, there are 200 big trawlers and 250 small boats. Nearly 6,000 people depend directly on fishing and over 10,000 are dependent on ancillary activities.

The community is apprehensive that once the project gets operational, the elaborate security arrangements around it would block the fisherfolks’ use of the two creeks of Jaitapur and Vijaydurg.

The fish population will also be affected since the plant would release a huge 52,000 million litres of hot water into the Arabian Sea daily.

Jaitapur has highly fertile land, which produces rice and other cereals, and arguably the world’s most famous mango, the Alphonso. Cashew, coconut, kokum, betel nut, pineapple and other fruits are also found in abundance.

The land is also quite productive in terms of its use for cattle-grazing and rain-fed agriculture.

Ticking (atomic) time bomb

Safety concerns at Jaitapur are not unfounded. Areva, which is verging on bankruptcy after the Fukushima disaster, is building six European Pressurised Reactors in Jaitapur.

The EPR is under the scanner with the French nuclear regulator highlighting crucial vulnerabilities in its design – ironically, in a report released just two days before Modi’s visit to France in April.

Finland canceled its order for the Olkiluoto 4 project this year after recurring delays and cost over-runs.

There are similar stories in Kovvada and Mithi Virdi, where livelihoods and safety of tens of thousands of villagers is threatened by the proposed nuclear plants.

Abe, of all people, should know about these dangers.

Fukushima isn’t yet forgotten, Mr Abe

In his own country, under his watch, the Fukushima crisis is deepening ever further. As per the national broadcaster NHK, the Tokyo Electric Company, which runs the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, has detected 4,000 times higher radiation.

This despite Abe’s declaration two years ago that Fukushima was “under control”.

Mainichi reported yesterday that 4 years and 9 months after the accident, more than 9 million bags of highly contaminated radioactive waste are lying around at 1,14,700 interim storage sites in Fukushima with no disposal plan in sight.

Apart from containing the crippled reactors, managing over 100 tonnes of contaminated water that is pumped daily to keep the molten cores cooled, Abe’s regime is struggling with the issue of rehabilitation.

No less than 200,000 people continue to live in temporary settlements with shattered lives and broken families, amid the constant fear of radiation-borne diseases and even social ostracism.

Contrary to the analogies of car accidents often dished out by promoters of nuclear plants, radioactive accidents are qualitatively different than any other industrial or natural mishap.

In most accidents, relief and reconstruction can start from the next day. In case of a nuclear accident, highly toxic radiation renders that impossible for decades.

For the first time in April, a robot was sent inside the core of the Fukushima reactor for an assessment of the molten fuel. The radiation was so high that it “died” within 3 hours.

Much like Chernobyl, where a 20-km zone around the disaster site remains uninhabitable 30 years of the accident, Fukushima has its own ghost towns such as Namie, Futaba and Minami Soma.

To protest this dire situation, tens of thousands of people have hit Tokyo’s streets, apart from the hundreds who have been demonstrating in front of the Japanese parliament every Friday evening since the accident.

Still, Abe wants to sell nuclear technology to India.

More worryingly, why is India in a mad rush for nuclear power. Particularly, when it’s so insanely costly.

Paying for the rich man’s dream

The price of electricity from the imported reactors is going to be extremely high. Going by the cost of EPRs in Britain, each Indian reactor may cost as much as Rs 60,000 crore.

Indeed, the cost of Jaitapur’s first phase alone equals the total expenditure on science and technology.

Post Fukushima, India is among a handful of countries pursuing nuclear expansion. In 2008, ahead of the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting, India offered its major member states huge nuclear purchases.

The promises – made in exchange for an end to the 35-year-long embargo that India faced for diverting civilian material for making an atomic bomb in 1974 – have meant that India has missed the global shift away from nuclear power.

Essentially, India’s nuclear projects are the price villagers would be paying for the elite’s superpower dreams. India’s nuclear establishment was the first group to be surprised by the nuclear deal with the US in 2005, only to later rationalise it with justifications like inevitability of nuclear power for India.

The inherently unsafe nuclear power becomes much more risky in India owing to the totally non-transparent nuclear sector that has shown scant regard for independent scrutiny and regulation.

India is perhaps the only country in the post-Fukushima world which has proposed a weaker nuclear regulator.

The government is making every effort to do away with already weak legal provisions to hold nuclear suppliers liable for accidents. Bureaucratic apathy and corruption can be relied on for further mismanagement of potential accidents.

Not surprisingly, villagers in Jaitapur will be protesting during Abe’s visit, and many more from outside will be joining them. They are those who care about this country. ”

source with internal links

What’s really going on at Fukushima? — Counterpunch

By Robert Hunziker: ” Fukushima’s still radiating, self-perpetuating, immeasurable, and limitless, like a horrible incorrigible Doctor Who monster encounter in deep space.

Fukushima will likely go down in history as the biggest cover-up of the 21st Century. Governments and corporations are not leveling with citizens about the risks and dangers; similarly, truth itself, as an ethical standard, is at risk of going to shambles as the glue that holds together the trust and belief in society’s institutions. Ultimately, this is an example of how societies fail.

Tens of thousands of Fukushima residents remain in temporary housing more than four years after the horrific disaster of March 2011. Some areas on the outskirts of Fukushima have officially reopened to former residents, but many of those former residents are reluctant to return home because of widespread distrust of government claims that it is okay and safe.

Part of this reluctance has to do with radiation’s symptoms. It is insidious because it cannot be detected by human senses. People are not biologically equipped to feel its power, or see, or hear, touch or smell it (Caldicott). Not only that, it slowly accumulates over time in a dastardly fashion that serves to hide its effects until it is too late.

Chernobyl’s Destruction Mirrors Fukushima’s Future

As an example of how media fails to deal with disaster blowback, here are some Chernobyl facts that have not received enough widespread news coverage: Over one million (1,000,000) people have already died from Chernobyl’s fallout.

Additionally, the Rechitsa Orphanage in Belarus has been caring for a very large population of deathly sick and deformed children. Children are 10 to 20 times more sensitive to radiation than adults.

Zhuravichi Children’s Home is another institution, among many, for the Chernobyl-stricken: “The home is hidden deep in the countryside and, even today, the majority of people in Belarus are not aware of the existence of such institutions” (Source: Chernobyl Children’s Project-UK).

One million (1,000,000) is a lot of dead people. But, how many more will die? Approximately seven million (7,000,000) people in the Chernobyl vicinity were hit with one of the most potent exposures to radiation in the history of the Atomic Age.

The exclusion zone around Chernobyl is known as “Death Valley.” It has been increased from 30 to 70 square kilometres. No humans will ever be able to live in the zone again. It is a permanent “dead zone.”

Additionally, over 25,000 died and 70,000 disabled because of exposure to extremely dangerous levels of radiation in order to help contain Chernobyl. Twenty percent of those deaths were suicides, as the slow agonizing “death march of radiation exposure” was too much to endure.

Fukushima- The Real Story

In late 2014, Helen Caldicott, M.D. gave a speech about Fukushima at Seattle Town Hall (9/28/14). Pirate Television recorded her speech; here’s the link:

Dr. Helen Caldicott is co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and she is author/editor of Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe, The New Press, September 2014. For over four decades Dr. Caldicott has been the embodiment of the anti-nuclear banner, and as such, many people around the world classify her as a “national treasure”. She’s truthful and honest and knowledgeable.

Fukushima is literally a time bomb in quiescence. Another powerful quake and all hell could break loose. Also, it is not even close to being under control. Rather, it is totally out of control. According to Dr. Caldicott, “It’s still possible that Tokyo may have to be evacuated, depending upon how things go.” Imagine that!

According to Japan Times as of March 11, 2015: “There have been quite a few accidents and problems at the Fukushima plant in the past year, and we need to face the reality that they are causing anxiety and anger among people in Fukushima, as explained by Shunichi Tanaka at the Nuclear Regulation Authority. Furthermore, Mr. Tanaka said, there are numerous risks that could cause various accidents and problems.”

Even more ominously, Seiichi Mizuno, a former member of Japan’s House of Councillors (Upper House of Parliament, 1995-2001) in March 2015 said: “The biggest problem is the melt-through of reactor cores… We have groundwater contamination… The idea that the contaminated water is somehow blocked in the harbor is especially absurd. It is leaking directly into the ocean. There’s evidence of more than 40 known hotspot areas where extremely contaminated water is flowing directly into the ocean… We face huge problems with no prospect of solution.” (Source: Nuclear Hotseat #194: Fukushima 4th Anniversary – Voices from Japan, March 10, 2015, http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/2468/)

At Fukushima, each reactor required one million gallons of water per minute for cooling, but when the tsunami hit, the backup diesel generators were drowned. Units 1, 2, and 3 had meltdowns within days. There were four hydrogen explosions. Thereafter, the melting cores burrowed into the container vessels, maybe into the earth.

According to Dr. Caldicott, “One hundred tons of terribly hot radioactive lava has already gone into the earth or somewhere within the container vessels, which are all cracked and broken.” Nobody really knows for sure where the hot radioactive lava resides. The scary unanswered question: Is it the China Syndrome?

Following the meltdown, the Japanese government did not inform people of the ambient levels of radiation that blew back onto the island. Unfortunately and mistakenly, people fled away from the reactors to the highest radiation levels on the island at the time.

As the disaster happened, enormous levels of radiation hit Tokyo. The highest radiation detected in the Tokyo Metro area was in Saitama with cesium radiation levels detected at 919,000 becquerel (Bq) per square meter, a level almost twice as high as Chernobyl’s “permanent dead zone evacuation limit of 500,000 Bq” (source: Radiation Defense Project). For that reason, Dr. Caldicott strongly advises against travel to Japan and recommends avoiding Japanese food.

Even so, post the Fukushima disaster, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed an agreement with Japan that the U.S. would continue importing Japanese foodstuff. Therefore, Dr. Caldicott suggests people not vote for Hillary Clinton. One reckless dangerous precedent is enough for her.

According to Arnie Gundersen, an energy advisor with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, as reported in The Canadian on August 15, 2011: “The US government has come up with a decision at the highest levels of the State Department, as well as other departments who made a decision to downplay Fukushima. In April, the month after the powerful tsunami and earthquake crippled Japan including its nuclear power plant, Hillary Clinton signed a pact with Japan that she agreed there is no problem with Japanese food supply and we will continue to buy them. So, we are not sampling food coming in from Japan.”

However, in stark contrast to the United States, in Europe Angela Merkel, PhD physics, University of Leipzig and current chancellor of Germany is shutting down all nuclear reactors because of Fukushima.

Maybe an advanced degree in physics makes the difference in how a leader approaches the nuclear power issue. It certainly looks that way when comparing/contrasting the two pantsuit-wearing leaders, Chancellor Merkel and former secretary of state Clinton.

After the Fukushima blow up, ambient levels of radiation in Washington State went up 40,000 times above normal, but according to Dr. Caldicott, the U.S. media does not cover the “ongoing Fukushima mess.” So, who would really know?

Dr. Caldicott ended her speech on Sept. 2014 by saying: “In Fukushima, it is not over. Everyday, four hundred tons of highly radioactive water pours into the Pacific and heads towards the U.S. Because the radiation accumulates in fish, we get that too. The U.S. government is not testing the water, not testing the fish, and not testing the ambient air. Also, people in Japan are eating radiation every day.”

Furthermore, according to Dr. Caldicott: “Rainwater washes over the nuclear cores into the Pacific. There is no way they can get to those cores, men die, robots get fried. Fukushima will never be solved. Meanwhile, people are still living in highly radioactive areas.”

Fukushima will never be solved because “men die” and “robots get fried.” By the sounds of it, Fukushima is a perpetual radiation meltdown scenario that literally sets on the edge of a bottomless doomsday pit, in waiting to be nudged over.

UN All-Clear Report

A UN (UNSCEAR) report on April 2, 2014 on health impacts of the Fukushima accident concluded that any radiation-induced effects would be too small to identify. People were well protected and received “low or very low” radiation doses. UNSCEAR gave an all-clear report.

Rebuttal of the UNSCEAR report by the German affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War d/d July 18, 2014 takes a defiant stance in opposition to the UN report, to wit: “The Fukushima nuclear disaster is far from over. Despite the declaration of ‘cold shutdown’ by the Japanese government in December 2011, the crippled reactors have not yet achieved a stable status and even UNSCEAR admits that emissions of radioisotopes are continuing unabated. 188 TEPCO is struggling with an enormous amount of contaminated water, which continues to leak into the surrounding soil and sea. Large quantities of contaminated cooling water are accumulating at the site. Failures in the makeshift cooling systems are occurring repeatedly. The discharge of radioactive waste will most likely continue for a long time.”

“Both the damaged nuclear reactors and the spent fuel ponds contain vast amounts of radioactivity and are highly vulnerable to further earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and human error. Catastrophic releases of radioactivity could occur at any time and eliminating this risk will take many decades… It is impossible at this point in time to come up with an exact prognosis of the effects that the Fukushima nuclear disaster will have on the population in Japan… the UNSCEAR report represents a systematic underestimation and conjures up an illusion of scientific certainty that obscures the true impact of the nuclear catastrophe on health and the environment.”

To read the full text of the rejoinder to the UN report, go to: https://japansafety.wordpress.com/tag/saitama/

Fukushima’s Radiation and the Future

Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press (AP), June 12, 2015: “Four years after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, the road ahead remains riddled with unknowns… Experts have yet to pinpoint the exact location of the melted fuel inside the three reactors and study it, and still need to develop robots capable of working safely in such highly radioactive conditions. And then there’s the question of what to do with the waste… serious doubts about whether the cleanup can be completed within 40 years.”

“Although the Chernobyl accident was a terrible accident, it only involved one reactor. With Fukushima, we have the minimum [of] 3 reactors that are emitting dangerous radiation. The work involved to deal with this accident will take tens of years, hundreds of years,” Prof. Hiroaki Koide (retired), Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, April 25, 2015. “It could be that some of the fuel could actually have gone through the floor of the containment vessel as well… What I’ve just described is very, very logical for anyone who understands nuclear engineering or nuclear energy,” which dreadfully spells-out: THE CHINA SYNDROME.

According to the Smithsonian, April 30, 2015: “Birds Are in a Tailspin Four Years After Fukushima: Bird species are in sharp decline, and it is getting worse over time… Where it’s much, much hotter, it’s dead silent. You’ll see one or two birds if you’re lucky.” Developmental abnormalities of birds include cataracts, tumors, and asymmetries. Birds are spotted with strange white patches on their feathers.

Maya Moore, a former NHK news anchor, authored a book about the disaster: The Rose Garden of Fukushima (Tankobon, 2014), about the roses of Mr. Katsuhide Okada. Today, the garden has perished: “It’s just poisoned wasteland. The last time Mr. Okada actually went back there, he found baby crows that could not fly, that were blind. Mutations have begun with animals, with birds.”

The Rose Garden of Fukushima features a collection of photos of an actual garden that existed in Fukushima, Japan. Boasting over 7500 bushes of roses and 50-thousand visitors a year, the Garden was rendered null and void in an instant due to the triple disaster — earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown.

The forward to Maya’s book was written by John Roos, former US Ambassador to Japan 2009-13: “The incredible tale of Katz Okada and his Fukushima rose garden was told here by Maya Moore… gives you a small window into what the people of Tohoku faced.”

Roos’ “small window” could very well serve as a metaphor for a huge black hole smack dab in the heart of civilization. Similarly, Fukushima is a veritable destruction machine that consumes everything in its path, and beyond, and its path is likely to grow. For certain, it is not going away.

Thus, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) is deeply involved in an asymmetric battle against enormously powerful unleashed out-of-control forces of E=mc2.

Clearly, TEPCO has its back to the wall. Furthermore, it’s doubtful TEPCO will “break the back of the beast.” In fact, it may be an impossible task.

Maybe, just maybe, Greater Tokyo’s 38 million residents will eventually be evacuated. Who knows for sure?

Only Godzilla knows! ”

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Plan to end rent subsidies for some Fukushima evacuees under fresh fire — The Mainichi

” A plan to end rent subsidies for some evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear disaster has come under fresh fire, as it emerged that those subsidies are costing at most 8.09 billion yen this fiscal year.

The evacuees under consideration for having their subsidies cut — at the end of fiscal 2016 — are voluntary evacuees living in homes other than temporary housing structures built for evacuees. The total Fukushima Prefecture relief budget for disaster evacuees this fiscal year, including non-voluntary evacuees, is over 28.8 billion yen, so the subsidies being considered for being cut account for less than 30 percent of the relief budget.

One expert knowledgeable about evacuees says, “The reason that a plan to end these subsidies has arisen even though the financial burden is not large may be that government officials want to try and force voluntary evacuees to return to their homes, without respecting evacuees’ own judgments on the matter.”

Voluntary evacuees are people who evacuated from areas outside of those where the government ordered evacuations. Until November 2012, Fukushima Prefecture did not allow them to use emergency temporary housing set up for evacuees in the prefecture, and many voluntary evacuees moved outside of the prefecture.

According to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, for this fiscal year it allocated about 20.73 billion yen for the temporary homes of non-voluntary evacuees within the prefecture, and 8.09 billion yen for those of evacuees outside the prefecture. The evacuees outside the prefecture include non-voluntary evacuees, but the exact numbers are not known. A Fukushima Prefectural Government official says, “Non-voluntary evacuees have been using compensation for their lost real-estate to buy homes, and most of the people getting rent subsidies outside of Fukushima Prefecture are probably voluntary evacuees.”

Within the prefecture, voluntary evacuees live in around 300 homes, which are not temporary housing structures, but subsidies for their rent are included in the “out-of-prefecture” budget, so the 8.09 billion yen covers all voluntary evacuees from the prefecture.

According to the Cabinet Office, as of April 1 this year, there were evacuees living in 18,742 homes in Fukushima Prefecture other than temporary housing structures, and according to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, evacuees were living in around 10,000 such homes outside of the prefecture. Both numbers include voluntary and non-voluntary evacuees. Neither the Fukushima Prefectural Government nor the central government has yet released exact figures on the number of homes for voluntary evacuees other than temporary housing built after the disaster, nor have they released exact numbers for the total rent paid for them.

Currently, evacuee homes are set to be subsidized until the end of March 2016, with a decision on whether to extend this to be made soon after discussions between the Fukushima Prefectural Government and the Cabinet Office. A plan to end subsidies for voluntary evacuees would extend the deadline for one more year, to the end of March 2017, after which voluntary evacuees would no longer receive them. Although Fukushima Prefecture has money budgeted for subsidizing voluntary evacuees, this money is in effect all paid for by the central government. Tokyo Electric Power Co. has expressed reluctance to pay for voluntary evacuees’ rent, and so far the central government has not billed them for such.

Meanwhile, this fiscal year’s Fukushima Prefecture budget for radiation decontamination measures is 64.39 billion yen, up 13.35 billion yen from the previous fiscal year. The Ministry of the Environment released an estimate in December 2013 that the total costs for decontamination and mid-term storage for radioactive waste would be 3.6 trillion yen. ”

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Fukushima’s educational facilities — Akira Hino, Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center

” 1. Current State of Fukushima Prefecture

Four years have passed since the earthquake and nuclear accident, but almost no progress has been made toward Fukushima Prefecture’s recovery. In particular, the recovery of the Futaba area and its vicinity has just gotten underway. The reason for this delay in recovery has been radioactive contamination resulting from the nuclear accident. The radioactive substances are dispersed widely over Fukushima Prefecture.

Iwaki and Soma suffered damage from the tsunami, but were relatively less affected by radioactive contamination, and thus progress is being made little by little toward recovery in those areas. On the other hand, in the Nakadori region (middle third of the prefecture), where the cities of Koriyama and Fukushima are located, removal of radioactive contamination (decontamination and disposal of waste materials) is necessary for recovery, but that has not been completed yet. In some cases, even after decontamination, radiation doses rise again, so there is no end in sight. The reason this is happening is that no effort has been made to decontaminate the montane forests that cover much of Fukushima Prefecture, and radioactive materials are transported in from the forests by winds and rain.

Two towns in the Futaba area, Okuma and Futaba, have “agreed” to accept interim storage facilities, and the shipment of radioactive wastes into the area has begun. There has been almost no progress on acquiring land for this, however, and when shipments of waste started to arrive only 2% of the total planned area had been secured. Difficulties are expected in future negotiations with the more than 2000 land owners.

Although in these ways the recovery has made no progress, there has been a move toward allowing memories of the nuclear accident to fade away. Divisions among the citizens are being created regarding the question of radiation, and expressions of concern from people about the danger are being contained at the citizen level. There is a growing tendency to call those who talk about the danger “alarmists” or “troublemakers,” so it is becoming difficult for people to discuss it.

Moreover, there have been cases in which compensation paid to the evacuees has caused divisions. For example, a survey has highlighted the concerns felt by citizens of Iwaki City, where many people from the Futaba area evacuated, noting, “The citizens of Iwaki are trying to understand the nuclear evacuees, but they cannot accept the discrepancies in compensation from TEPCO.” 1) Iwaki suffered damage from the earthquake and tsunami. People whose houses were swept away by the tsunami are having to live in temporary emergency housing or rented housing, just like the nuclear disaster evacuees, but they have received no compensation at all, quite unlike the fact that the nuclear disaster evacuees are receiving compensation for their situation. Under such circumstances, it is understandable that many of Iwaki’s citizens feel strongly dissatisfied.

Prime Minister Abe keeps saying that Japan will not recover without the revival of Fukushima, but it is not the citizens of Fukushima that he has in mind, but rather companies and the economy. For example, can the restoration of National Highway 6 or reopening of the closed sections of the Joban Expressway be called “recovery”? These roads merely pass through the Futaba area, from which all of the citizens were evacuated. The people are not allowed to live in the evacuation zones, and there is still no outlook for the return of Futaba’s citizens to their hometown.

2. Educational Facilities Impacted by the Nuclear Disaster

(1) Futaba’s Schools Have Reopened, but…

Prior to the nuclear accident, the Futaba area had about 6,400 children studying at 28 elementary and junior high schools (17 elementary schools and 11 junior highs). After the accident, one by one, the schools gradually reopened in towns and villages throughout the prefecture, and currently 22 of Futaba’s schools have reopened (13 elementary schools and nine junior highs). However, no more than 657 students (as of the 2014 academic year) have returned to Futaba’s schools. Currently, no more than about 10% of the students have returned. Whenever a school reopens, the media report on it, but people feel suspicious about the media’s stance. There is conspicuous coverage giving the impression that reopening means a return to normal. The current reality is that they have barely reached the “starting line.”

(2) Problems with Facilities and Equipment

The existing school facilities include temporary school buildings and schools that had formerly been closed. In some cases, even factories have been converted into schools. When the schools were reopened, they had to start all over again from zero. The preparations for reopening began with arranging for desks and chairs, and through the efforts of the school staff to improvise educational materials and teaching tools, it became possible to provide a minimal level of educational activities. In the four years that have passed, a certain amount of teaching materials and tools have been obtained, but there are still schools lacking special purpose rooms or gymnasiums.

For the children to attend these schools, they have to take school buses from their places of refuge, and commutes of one hour each way are not unusual. Because the times of the buses need to be considered, there are insufficient opportunities to engage in after-school learning support or club activities. Ways have had to be devised to conduct school events in accordance with the small numbers of students along with the conditions of the facilities and equipment. Some of the schools have no incoming students or none graduating, and there have been years in which they were unable to hold entrance or graduation ceremonies, which are important school events. Such conditions are by no means “back to normal.”

(3) Evacuee Schools Outside of Futaba

There are also some elementary and junior high schools located outside of the Futaba area that were forced to move due to the effects of the nuclear accident.

The elementary and junior high schools of Odaka-ku, Minamisoma are currently holding classes in temporary facilities erected on the grounds of elementary and junior high schools in Kashima-ku. In contrast to the 1,091 students at the time of the earthquake disaster, the number had fallen to 258 students as of the 2014 academic year. In other words, no more than about 25% have returned.

The three elementary schools of Iitate Village have currently reopened in Kawamata, and the junior high school has reopened in Iino. About half of the children present before the earthquake disaster have returned. Almost all of them are commuting by school bus from the area around Fukushima City.

The elementary and junior high schools of Miyakoji-district, Tamura City resumed classes in 2011, using closed school buildings in Funehiki. After the national government’s evacuation order was rescinded, they returned to their original school buildings in April 2014, but when that happened about 20% of the students transferred to other schools. Although the facilities had been decontaminated, there were still major concerns about radiation.

Sad to say, one school has closed: Onami elementary school in Fukushima City. After the nuclear accident, the Onami district had extremely high radiation doses, and one family after another moved away for safety. The last remaining students graduated at the end of the 2013 academic year, and the school closed from 2014. No one could have predicted that such circumstances would arise in an area 60 km distant from the nuclear power plant.

3. Status of Students and School Staff

(1) Issues Affecting the Students

The children of the Futaba area are facing many problems. In particular, junior high school students reaching adolescence have been heavily affected by life as refugees due to the earthquake disaster and nuclear accident. Their parents or guardians who have lost their jobs continue to spend the day at home, there is no place they can be alone in the cramped temporary housing, and at home they have to listen to quarreling or other things they do not want to hear. As a result, there are children who have distanced themselves from their homes.

As a result of the evacuation necessitated by the nuclear accident, the number of families living apart and the number of households with divorced parents are increasing. Moreover, households where a parent or guardian has lost his or her job are able to get by somehow at this time by receiving compensation payments, but they continue to live with the fear that there is no guarantee of their ability to live in peace in the future.

It is best for children to grow up close to their important family, seeing their parents or guardians at work. There are a growing number of children, however, in the midst of circumstances that offer no view at all of what is ahead, who therefore cannot dream of their own future. The biggest victims of the nuclear accident are the children.

(2) Exhausted Teaching Staff

The schools’ teaching staff have been exhausting themselves on a daily basis caring for their students. Each day they seek emotional closeness with the children and improvise their educational activities.

The school staff themselves, however, are refugees. Living in a place to which they are unaccustomed is also a source of unease. In addition, some of them are caring for aging parents or dealing with emotional instability in their own children, making it harder for them to do well by their students. Moreover, each time they make temporary sojourns to visit their homes in the Futaba area, they find their houses are breaking down. It is quite a psychologically trying situation.

These days, society overall is attempting to return to its pre-earthquake state, as if the earthquake disaster and nuclear accident had never happened. While dealing with their own unsettled state of mind, the teaching staff are providing emotional care for their students while trying to meet society’s demands. This unjust situation has continued with no let-up since the earthquake disaster. Thus, there are concerns that the number of people taking sick leave due to psychological disorders will increase.

(3) Psychological Support for the Students and School Staff

Under these circumstances, school counselors have been assigned to all elementary and junior high schools in Fukushima Prefecture. However, they are allotted only one visit to each school per week, so they are unable to provide sufficient support. There are not enough counselors in Fukushima Prefecture, so in some cases the prefecture is having counselors from other prefectures (including the far-distant Kansai region) visit once a week. Fukushima Prefecture shoulders the costs of travel and lodging in those cases, so it is inefficient from a budgetary perspective. Rather than using the budget in that way, it would be desirable for the government to ensure a budget for continual allocation of staff who can meet with the children every day.

4. Current Conditions and Issues of Education in Fukushima Prefecture

(1) Decreasing Numbers of Children and Consolidation of Elementary and Junior High Schools

There are 13,308 children below the age of 18 (as of October 2014) who have evacuated away from Fukushima Prefecture. The number of child refugees has been decreasing, but they are still numerous.

Also, as the number of children has decreased, there has been an increasing tendency to consolidate schools in Fukushima Prefecture. Through the 2014 academic year, consolidations were occurring mostly in the Aizu region—the mountainous western third of the prefecture. From 2015, though, six elementary schools and four junior high schools will be combined into one of each kind of school (one elementary school and one junior high school) in Miwa district, Iwaki in southern coastal Fukushima Prefecture. In neighboring Ishikawa Town, six elementary schools and two junior high schools will be combined into one of each kind of school.

A draft of guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in January 2015 used the term “appropriate scale,” indicating an intention to promote consolidation of smaller schools. There are concerns that MEXT’s guidelines will affect cities, towns and villages, which are the entities empowered to establish schools. It is unacceptable for schools, which serve as the heart of a community, to be discarded so easily.

(2) Education Policies of Fukushima Prefecture

One matter of concern these days regarding school education is academic advancement. It is important to increase the students’ academic abilities. All of the faculty are striving day in and day out to help their students grow. Their academic advancement itself, however, is being strained by the demands of society.

With one new policy after another on academic advancement being served from above together with criticisms of poor results on scholastic achievement tests, the faculty have too many things to do and are unable to provide educational activities as they would like to. Both the faculty and the students wind up exhausted.

Calls for improving the students’ physical strength are also on the rise. The press has reported that the children of Fukushima Prefecture have been tending to gain weight. Radioactive contamination from the nuclear accident has caused a sharp reduction in chances for the children to play outdoors. In addition, to avoid exposure during travel to and from school, in many cases they go by school bus or their parents drop them off and pick them up.

Fukushima Prefecture maintains that under these circumstances, it is necessary to improve the students’ physical strength. To tell the children to go out like good kids and play in a decontaminated schoolyard, however, would be the height of irresponsibility.

The children’s parents worry that they could risk exposure to radiation if they were involved in activities outside or that their children might get thyroid cancer. Fukushima Prefecture is being called upon to take measures to eliminate these kinds of worries. Countermeasures are being sought such as creating indoor physical education facilities in each district so that the students can obtain exercise at ease without worrying about exposure.

(3) The Kind of Education Needed Now

The government’s meddling in schools, trying to force various policies on them, is in no way leading to improved academic abilities. Would it not be better for them to trust the faculty and give them more leeway? It is the faculty on the scene that best understands the children they see before them. Would it not be the faculty that could devise ways of guiding the children, bringing out the children’s own abilities and helping them achieve real academic ability?

What is important is to urge policies to be created that improve academic abilities, not to cram the children’s heads full of knowledge. It is necessary to get close to the children, meet their gaze and explain to them the importance of learning. It is important to teach the children how to study, so that years later, after they graduate from school, they will have the ability to continue studying on their own. That means nurturing the power to live.

Academic abilities that can be assessed quantitatively, as the Fukushima Prefectural Board of Education wants, are nothing more than one aspect of education. I think that educating the children in a way that does not nip their desire to learn in the bud leads to real advancement of their academic abilities.

It will also be necessary to provide education on radiation in Fukushima Prefecture, where the nuclear accident occurred. This does not mean instruction from the point of view that “radiation is all around us. It’s useful in many fields in today’s society,” as has been taught. The radioactive substances that were spread by the nuclear accident are dangerous for their harmful effects on the human body. For that, the faculty themselves need to study radiation properly. Then through radiation education, they must teach the children properly about the danger of radiation so that the children themselves can acquire the means to protect themselves from radiation.

Unfortunately, discrimination against people from Fukushima on account of radioactive contamination is actually occurring. We must teach the children the spirit not to allow discrimination or prejudice and the strength not to succumb to such things. We must include the perspective of human rights education as a part of education on radiation.
It is important that education on radiation and on human rights be promoted starting from Fukushima Prefecture, which has been affected by the nuclear accident. ”

Akira Hino is Director of Nuclear Disaster Countermeasures Fukushima Prefecture Teacher’s Union

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Survey: Large majority of Fukushima evacuees have family members with health problems — The Asahi Shimbun

” Nearly 70 percent of evacuees from areas around the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have family members complaining of physical or mental problems, a recent survey showed.

Released by the Fukushima prefectural government, the survey covering fiscal 2014 revealed that 66.3 percent of households that fled the disaster area–after the nuclear crisis triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami–have at least one member suffering health problems. The figure was 67.5 percent in the previous survey covering fiscal 2013.

In February, the prefecture sent questionnaires to all 59,746 households that evacuated for the latest study–the second of its kind–and received responses from 18,767 households, or 33.6 percent.

Of the respondents, 13,703 households, or 73 percent, said they were forced to evacuate, while 5,054, or 27 percent, said they voluntarily evacuated.

The survey covered about 20 categories, such as the state of the lives of the evacuees, their health conditions and their intent to return to their homes.

Asked about what bothers them, 57.9 percent said they cannot sleep well. While 56.6 percent said they are unable to enjoy their daily lives as they did before the disaster, 49.3 percent said they tire more easily.

Households that are still in temporary housing or rented apartments for evacuees accounted for 62.1 percent, a 10-percentage-point decrease from the previous survey. Meanwhile, 19.7 percent–10 points higher than the first study–said they live in their own homes.

Although in the fiscal 2013 survey, 40.4 percent hoped they would be allowed to continue living in temporary housing longer than originally planned, 48.7 percent hope so in the latest findings.

In the latest study, 55.8 percent said they hope to continue living in temporary housing because the evacuation order has yet to be lifted for their hometowns. While 42.1 percent said they are currently unable to rebuild their homes on their own, 40.0 percent said they do not have sufficient funds to leave temporary housing.

In March, the central government released results of its survey of nine municipalities ordered to evacuate since the onset of the Fukushima crisis. The prefectural survey asked evacuees from areas other than the nine municipalities where they hoped to reside in the future. The latest findings show 37.3 percent of households that are evacuees living within Fukushima Prefecture said they hope eventually to return to their homes. Those who want to settle where they currently reside accounted for 16.5 percent, and 11.7 percent said they have yet to decide where to live in the future.

In contrast, 31.6 percent of households that evacuated outside the prefecture said they have not determined where to live in the future, whereas respondents who want to settle where they now live or return to their hometowns accounted for 24.2 percent and 19.8 percent, respectively. ”

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