Around 150.000 people of Fukushima prefecture are still displaced. Of these approximately 50.000 are living outside the prefecture. However the authorities and companies responsible for the nuclear disaster are considering to drop the financial support for the victims in favor of making major investments in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. False promises that the evacuees can return to highly radiated areas quickly are made. The death toll amongst evacuees due to post disaster causes such as social alienation, marginalization, living in wait and uncertainty has topped the lives claimed by the earthquake and tsunami.
Fukushima: three years on
March 11, 2014 marked the third anniversary of the triple disaster in the Tohoku region. Visiting the major towns surrounding the exclusion zone today, everything seems to be back to normal. Streets are busy, kids are playing on schoolyards and public transportation is running on schedule. But walking down a few streets and one of the many temporary housing facilities will appear.
Around 150.000 people of Fukushima prefecture are still displaced. Of these approximately 50.000 are living outside the prefecture. However the authorities and companies responsible for the nuclear disaster are considering to drop the financial support for the victims in favor of making major investments in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. False promises that the evacuees can return to highly radiated areas quickly are made. The death toll amongst evacuees due to post disaster causes such as social alienation, marginalization, living in wait and uncertainty has topped the lives claimed by the earthquake and tsunami. Families are still separated and scattered throughout Japan because the government having no resettlement program in place for those fearing the long term consequences of radiation on their children.
In spring 2014 officials from Fukushima prefecture announced that after the latest health checks 70 children under the age of 18 where diagnosed with thyroid gland cancer. Despite the fact that this number tops the cases of thyroid gland cancer found in Ukraine and Belarus after the Chernobyl disaster in the same period of time, the Japanese government makes no effort to objectively study these findings further or even to compare these data with findings in other Japanese prefectures. Most of the major rural areas around the exclusion zone still show high radiation readings considered to be unsafe however not quite high enough to meet the evacuation threshold. Central and prefectural governments are making limited decontamination efforts but the lack of storage facilities in urban areas sees the people burying or storing radioactive waste on their private properties often just covered with a blue sheet.
Driving down further towards the crippled Dai-ichi plant reveals a deserted area in which most of the roadblocks have disappeared. The highly radiated land spreads out unprotected and accessible for everyone. The authorities have started decontamination work without having viable storage solutions for the radioactive waste. Huge stacks of bags filled with radiated waste are marking the landscape of Fukushima prefecture today. These stacks are supposed to be moved to a long term storage facility after a period of three years but these facilities are not available due to the opposition of local governments. Even though the authorities have spent and are spending trillions of Yen on decontamination efforts most of the areas still remain unsafe to return, leaving thousands of people in temporary housing facilities waiting in uncertainty and unable to start a new life.