Fukushima: radioactivity continues to threaten

Radio France International Life on the planet

March 11, 2019

Eight years after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the Japanese government ensures that Tokyo 2020 will be the Olympic Games of Reconstruction. However, many of the residents who fled the scene of the disaster refuse to return home. A report from Greenpeace Japan supports the fears of the population.

For Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the international sports event is an opportunity to show the world that the region has recovered after the deadly tidal wave (more than 18,500 dead) and the atomic disaster of March 11, 2011.

But Kazuko Nihei, who left his home in Fukushima (about 70 km from the center) with his daughters, does not want to hear about his return home, with or without the Olympics, although he has stopped to receive government grants.

"I do not doubt for a moment", says the woman at AFP in Tokyo, where she moved in 2011 with her daughters, aged 11 and 9 now.

– "Volunteers" –

After the explosion of the Fukushima Daichi power plant that led to the mbadive expulsion of radioactive substances, the government ordered the evacuation of a large area of ​​the surrounding region, populated with more 140,000 people.

However, residents of border towns, officially unaffected by these orders, also decided to leave, including Nihei. Instead, her husband and in-laws stayed in Fukushima.

For six years, Nihei benefited from paid housing with government subsidies, but support for the evacuees, whom the authorities call "volunteers," ended in March 2017.

Since then, he has moved to another house and it is now a pity to pay the rent of 130,000 yen (just over 1,000 euros) and let his daughters work seven days a week.

Life is hard, but she prefers to return to Fukushima, even though the government has certified it to be a safe area.

Nihei is worried "for girls' health, either because of an increased risk of cancer or genetic consequences."

"If we had the right to do a full annual health check, I might consider coming back, but what they are now offering is not enough because it only includes thyroid cancer detection.", accurate

The Japanese executive launched an ambitious program to decontaminate roads, fields, recreation areas and buildings and lift evacuation orders in most affected areas.

– Expensive Olympics –

A policy that is far from convincing public opinion. In a survey conducted in February by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun and television Fukushima, the KFB, 60% of the inhabitants of the region said they feared radiation.

Part of the mistrust arises from the decision to increase the acceptable level of radiation exposure to 20 millisieverts (mSv) per year (previously, it was 1 to 20 mSv / year in a post-Western situation). The current radioactivity will last for decades and NGOs like Greenpeace emphasize that no one should be exposed to these doses for as long.

This amount is within the limits set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, which establishes a maximum dose of 1 mSv / year in a normal situation and a range of 1 to 20 mSv / year in a post-western situation. However, experts warn that the current radioactivity will last for decades and NGOs like Greenpeace emphasize that no one should be exposed to these doses for so long.

"We are concerned that the reduction of subsidies will not provoke […] Suicides and leaving people on the street "because of the lack of work in the region," denounced on March 11, 2011 Daisaku Seto, general secretary of the Cooperation Center, an NGO that supports evacuees.

Some accuse the government of devoting money to the preparation of the Olympics instead of maintaining the subsidies.

"I think there is something else to do than to host the Olympics ", complains 57-year-old Noriko Matsumoto, who had to go in 2011 with her daughter from Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture.

Source