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From staff

The Year 5 Memorial Service of the 2011 Disaster was held at Southwark Cathedral, London, on February 6th, 2016

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below written and arranged by Heeday, based on the original Japanese
The English edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

Program book of the Year 5 Memorial Service of the 2011 Disaster
Program book of the Year 5 Memorial Service of the 2011 Disaster

The Year 5 Memorial Service of the 2011 Disaster of Eastern Japan was held 0n February 6th, 2016, at Southwark Cathedral, located close to London Bridge.

06022016_Memorial-054906022016_Memorial-0550(Photos by Shu Tomioka and Shin Adachi)

At the service, Kay Ikezumi, the secretary general of the Project on Nuclear Power and Radiation, was a guest speaker. She described how the areas and refugees hit hard by the 2011 meltdown of Fukushima Daiichi were presently doing.

A booth was set up within the cathedral where the Project presented what it is doing. Photos showed how many of those affected by the March 2011 disaster and volunteer helpers have befriended each other. Also, tea towels imprinted with the words “Let Us Walk Together” were displayed. The towels were also imprinted with comments by both those affected by the disaster and volunteers who help them.

This was the second memorial service held to remember the disaster. The first one was held in 2013. Five years after the tragedy, in Great Britain, far from the site of the disaster, many people came together for the memorial service to remember those affected by the disaster and their families. The service was proposed by both Britons and Japanese nationals living in the UK.

While Ms. Ai Ito, a soprano living in Paris, was singing, Bishop Michael Ipgrave began the memorial service.

Click here for the bishop’s homily ➡　Original / Japanese translation

After the homily, while the organist played a tune well-known to many Japanese called “Furusato (hometown)” on the pipe organ, all the participants tied a tag, in the shape of a cherry blossom, onto two trees beside the altar. This moving event was led by Mr. Motohiko Kato, the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at the Japanese embassy to the UK, and the Mayor of Southwark.

Trees of prayer

The cherry blossom tags were distributed to all the participants before the service began. Each tag carried the name of a place where the 2011 disaster had claimed one or more human lives. It was a seal of the promise to remember every life lost, his/her family, and every person who was affected by the tragedy and is still experiencing hardships.

The fully ornamented trees were illuminated to represent the hope of rebuilding those hard-hit areas.

The February 6th, 2016, edition of a British newspaper, “Church Times,” covered the service.
The February 6th, 2016, edition of a British newspaper, “Church Times,” covered the service.

Events around the worship
Before and after the service, meetings to report on the harm the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown had caused and what the Project was doing to counteract that harm gathered at several places.

At one of the these meetings, someone from a network named “JAN UK” greeted us. It is a network of individuals voicing their opposition to nuclear energy here in the UK, a country which still hosts nuclear power plants. Many of the network members are Japanese nationals.

To visit the website of JAN UK, click here ➡
To tweet, click here To tweet, click here ➡

Since August 2012, the network’s members have been gathering in front of the Japanese Embassy in the UK to protest against nuclear energy. Since October of the same year, they have been active before the London office of TEPCO as well.

JAN UK is a network rather than an organization. It has no representative. Under its banner, those concerned about nuclear power get together, as much as they can. One female participant said, “Doing nothing would be giving unspoken approval to nuclear power, which stands upon the sacrifices of many, as well as upon the socio-economic system that builds nuclear power plants. In serious agony, I am looking for what I can do to change all that.”

teatowl

Tea towel of wishes
These tea towels carry messages from both those involved in the Project and from people at “Support Center Shinchi Gangoya.”

It was Yuki Johnson, an Anglican currently living in the UK, who produced the tea towels. Her wish is that, five years following the 2011 disaster, Fukushima remain in people’s minds.

The towel sold for ₤4.5 apiece and, after deducting production costs, Yuki kindly donated the money raised to the Project .

 

The Japanese author’s wish
We are now witnessing the sad fact that the 2011 disaster and the consequences of the nuclear meltdown are gradually disappearing from the minds of many. Still, as shown above, our Project has been and still is supported by warm help from many concerned people. Our gratitude extends to all those who so generously help us.

 

 

Quotes from Papers

Fukushima Daiichi’s “ice walls” are there, but the water-blocking walls are blocked from use

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below written and arranged by Heeday, based on the original Japanese
The English edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

Articles from the February 10th, 2016 editions of the Fukushima Minpo, Asahi Shimbun, and Akahata newspapers

▼Click each image to read an English summary of the Japanese article.

In its struggle to contain the contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), TEPCO has resorted to building “ice walls*.” Presently, the walls are there, and yet the power company cannot start the final “freezing” of the walls. Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) refuses to give the wall freezing a go-ahead, pointing out that rather than containing such water, as claimed by the power company, the water-shields could lead to further leakage of contaminated water. On February 9th, TEPCO announced the wall building work was done. Still, no one knows if the NRA will ever approve the walls for use.

(*) What are the “ice walls”?
At the Fukushima Daiichi NPP, under the reactor buildings where the melted nuclear fuel has fallen to the ground, underground water has been running into contact with the melted fuel, creating highly contaminated water. To counteract this, TEPCO announced a plan to surround the underground portions of reactors 1 through 4 with “ice walls,” 1,500m (0.93 mile) in total length. TEPCO installed numerous freezer pipes, 1,568 in number, 30m (33 yards) below the ground surface, with two pipes 1m (1.1 yard) apart from each other. The plan is to circulate a liquid coolant, 30C below the freezing point (22F below zero), through those pipes to freeze the soil surrounding the pipes. There is no precedence for such gigantic ice walls, however, and no evidence that the power company can maintain the frozen walls until 2020, as it claims to be able to do. Naturally, many are voicing their concerns over the ice wall plan. TEPCO is spending some JPY34.5 billion on the walls, which could well prove to be a huge extravagance.

What is wrong with the “ice walls”?
The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) of Japan must give approval to the walls, yet the NRA has been doubtful about their effectiveness since the very beginning. If the underground water level goes below the ice walls, some of the highly contaminated water from the reactor buildings could leak into the soil outside the walls.

The NRA’s committee to determine whether or not the walls can function safely has asked the power company, over and over again, why it insists on the ice walls among so many other options. The committee’s chairperson, Mr. Shunichi Tanaka, even went on to say, “TEPCO’s grave error is that it is spreading the false belief that the ice walls, once built, can eliminate the whole issue of contaminated water,” in the spring of 2015.

Can be serious —
In fact, TEPCO held a trial freezing of the walls in 2015, and discovered the underground water level was lower than expected in some places. The levels differed from one location to another, and much remains unknown about the water flow rates and directions. Those walls, once frozen, take 2 months or so to melt. Thus, in case a problem is detected, no quick fix exists.

TEPCO vs NRA
The Fukushima Daiichi premises now hold more than 700,000 t (1,543,234 lb.) of processed yet still contaminated water, and it is hard to build more water tanks to accommodate it. Thus, TEPCO is insistent upon cutting down the volume of new contaminated water, while the NRA is determined to prevent any leakage of such water. In-spite-of these differences, wall building work was almost completed in December 2015, when the NRA made an exceptional written “suggestion” to TEPCO that they should “partially freeze” the ice walls to reduce the risk of some contaminated water leaking out of the reactor buildings. Still, the power company is determined to completely freeze the entire walls, although it is considering the NRA’s “suggestion.”

Quotes from Papers

Decommissioning the Monju Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) could cost some JPY300 billion — the Japan Atomic Energy Agency estimated in 2012

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below written and arranged by Heeday, based on the original Japanese
The English edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

Articles from the February 16th, 2016 editions of the Fukushima Minpo and the February 17th editions of the Fukushima Minpo and Akahata newspapers

▼Click each image to read an English summary of the Japanese article.

It has been learned that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the operator of the Monju FBR (Tsuruga, Fukui Pref., Japan, some 62 miles NNE of Kyoto), estimated that decommissioning the FBR could take some 30 years and some JPY300 billion.about  The Agency made the estimate in 2012, the year after the 2011 Fukushima meltdown. Said the Agency, “Back then there was a debate on whether or not to let Monju survive, so we made an internal estimate.”

Goliath can die, but —
This discovery, made public for the first time, about how much it could cost to decommission the FBR, makes clear that it will costeveral time more than decommissioning an average light water reactor. The non-operating breeder reactor has been a goliath money-eater, eating up more than JPY1 trillion with almost no power generated. Restarting it, instead of decommissioning it, could cost more than JPY100 billion for repairs, etc. Whether it is left alive or put to death, the goliath will remain a gigantic money-eater.

What is a FBR?
Monju is a fast breeder reactor, which runs on mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, a mixture of plutonium and uranium, and uses “fast” neutrons to cause nuclear fission. (Common light water reactors use slow neutrons.) A FBR generates more plutonium than it consumes for power generation, assuming there is power generation by the plant. Thus, it is called a “breeder.” Japan’s government, calling it the “dream reactor,” treated it as an indispensable component of the nation’s “nuclear fuel cycle,” which also requires a reprocessing plant for used nuclear fuels. Thus, the government has so far spent more than JPY1 trillion of tax money on FBR research and development. In spite of this megabuck spending, the FBR history has been a series of accidents and serious problems. Seldom has it produced any power. In 2012, it was discovered that an equipment checkup at Monju failed to cover many important items. The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA,) in May 2013, gave an in-effect stoppage order to the FBR.

So, why has this money-eater been around so far?
The question should be, in fact, why have they not been able to decommission it? Japan already has more than 47 t (103,617 lb.) of plutonium, which can be used to produce several thousands of plutonium warheads. International society allows Japan to have the plutonium, on condition that Japan uses all of it for peaceful purposes—power generation at Monju, etc. Decommissioning Monju would, therefore, cause many in the outside world to suspect that Japan is building nuclear weapons.

They need a “lavatory”
Yet another reason is that the Japanese government wants to build a “lavatory” for used nuclear fuels. A FBR was intended to recycle used nuclear fuels. Now, after all those never-ceasing accidents and problems, the “lavatory” has proven to be non-existent. Still, if the government gave up on this nuclear fuel cycle, it would mean, in effect, that it is admitting that there is no nuclear fuel “lavatory.” Not just the government, but reactor builders and power companies who want to restart existing nuclear power plants want to keep alive the myth that a “lavatory” can be built.

The Japanese author’s wish
Letting Monju survive is obviously just putting off till tomorrow what we should be taking care of today. Japan’s government should not waste any more tax money on this fruitless FBR project. I hope they have the courage to decommission Monju as soon as possible.

Quotes from Papers

Waste from decontamination has nowhere to go — only 1% of the needed land acquired so far for intermediate storages

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below written and arranged by Heeday, based on the original Japanese
The English edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

Articles from the February 13th and 17th, 2016 editions of the Fukushima Minpo and the February 14th edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspapers

▼Click each image to read an English summary of the Japanese article.

Much of the land desired for intermediate storage of radioactive waste from the meltdown of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), surrounds the NPP. This land is in the “no return zones,” where radioactivity is high and citizens are not permitted to enter without special permission. The Fukushima Prefectural Government, and the municipal governments of Okuma and Futaba towns, decided to store radioactive waste from the decontamination work almost a year ago. Japan’s Ministry of the Environment has been carrying out a pilot (trial) transfer of some radioactive waste into temporary storage facilities built on such land. The transfer should end sometime in March 2016.

Sounds fine so far, but —
The land acquisition negotiations for intermediate storage sites are in the doldrums. Currently, therefore, no one knows how soon the building of such storage facilities can begin, or when the full transfer of radioactive waste can begin. So far, after all those difficult negotiations, less than 1% of the needed land has been acquired. Yes, such storage sites are indispensable as Fukushima tries to rebuild itself. Still, the Ministry has a serious shortage of negotiators, while many land owners are reluctant to “give up the lands their ancestors have left for them.”

Where can it go?
At the same time, the Fukushima Prefectural Government says the existing temporary storage facilities are almost full. While the complete transfer of radioactive waste into intermediate storage has yet to begin, the decontamination work is still in progress, creating more and more waste. The obvious result is that heaps of collected radioactive waste are piled up close to houses and offices that have been “decontaminated.”

Part of our everyday life
I am a resident in Koriyama, Fukushima, and every day I see piles of waste along the streets. At many houses, waste from the decontamination of the house is simply buried under the garden. True, the decontamination reduced the radioactivity of the house a bit, but it is creepy to know that some radioactive waste lies beneath the yard. Living here means that you will never be free from radioactivity.

Collected radioactive soil, packed in vinyl bags and then in concrete pipes, are lined up just outside an apartment house in the neighborhood of our Project’s office.
Collected radioactive soil, packed in vinyl bags and then in concrete pipes, are lined up just outside an apartment house in the neighborhood of our Project’s office.
Workers digging a hole in a house yard to bury radioactive waste from decontamination.
Workers digging a hole in a house yard to bury radioactive waste from decontamination.

The Japanese author’s wish

To rebuild Fukushima, we have to decide soon where all the radioactive waste will go. No future generation should have to live among heaps of radioactive waste. I do wish for intermediate storage for all the hazardous waste as soon as possible so that our children and their children can live in safety. Yet at the same time, many land owners are reluctant to sell their land for intermediate storage sites, knowing their own life stories are in the land. This issue has no easy solution.

From staff

Kindergarteners playing in the snow during an outing on February 10th, 2016

Original Japanese written by  staffer 
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA 

On Wednesday, February 10th, 2016, the kids of St. Paul’s Kindergarten went on an outing to play in the snow at a facility called “Kokuritsu Bandai Seishonen Koryu no Ie” (National Youth Fellowship House of Bandai) located in Inawashiro Town, in northern Fukushima.

When they arrived, they found more snow drifts than they expected and were overjoyed. The snow storm soon ended, thank heavens.

Two of the kindergarten classes, Sakura (Cherry) and Tanpopo (Dandelion), made snowmen and “played mommies” using the kindergarten’s shovels.IMG_2392

Two others, Momo (Peach) and Hikari (Light), rode sleds and played with playground equipment shaped like a tube, a rounded triangle, and etc. Some of the kids had wild slides down a slope.IMG_2780

They had a snowball fight too. They grabbed some snow and threw it at each other, having great fun.IMG_2786

The older boys were absorbed in making “snow sculptures.”IMG_2790

This program provided them with a very happy time as they played in the snow with their instructors under the clear blue sky. Exhausted, the kids were all fast asleep on the bus ride home.IMG_2795

Quotes from Papers

Power companies count on nuclear power plant restarts as they try to rebuild their business

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeda
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the February 8th, 2016 edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspapers)

(▼Click the image to enlarge it.)2016年2月8日朝日

Almost five years have passed since the meltdown began at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). While the disaster and its aftermath are far from over, TEPCO is busy in some areas of Niigata Prefecture, some 150 miles NNW of central Tokyo. Why? The power company is striving to restart its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP, one of the NPPs with the greatest power generation capacity in the world.

— At the central control office of a NPP. Two red lamps turn on, saying “High earthquake acceleration” and “Reactor scram.” “Check it out,” shouts the manager. The NPP’s director issues a state of emergency at the NPP’s emergency office, the center of command in case of an accident. Outside the reactor building, workers are busy starting up emergency power supply equipment. Other workers connect hoses to fire trucks and start pumping water. The workers, nine in number, promise they will “be thoroughly trained to handle whatever situation might arise.” —

This is a description of a TV commercial run by TEPCO only in Niigata. It first went on the air in June 2015, and there are five versions of the commercial, including this “training version.” In short, the commercial claims that the power company is doing everything it can to restart the NPP safely. It goes on air some 240 times every month. This is rather exceptional in that TEPCO has not been releasing TV commercials since the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in the Kanto Region.

When the commercial began to circulate around Niigata, TEPCO’s employees were going around there as well – in Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village, two municipalities hosting the Kashiwazaki Kariwa NPP. “Please take a look at the safety measures we take at the NPP, and rest assured.” Those employees, 115 in number, took four months or so to visit almost every household in the two municipalities, some 40,000 in all.

What makes TEPCO so desperate to restart Kashiwazaki-Kariwa? It is obvious. Without this NPP in operation, the power company is unable to rebuild its business. The company claims that every reactor restarted saves the company spending on fuel and thus helps it improve its balance sheet by some 14 billion yen every month. TEPCO’s business rebuilding plan presupposes restarts of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s Units 6 and 7. Thus, the power company is in desperate need for consent to the restarts from the relevant municipalities.

The one holding the key to such local consent is the governor of Niigata Prefecture. The current governor, however, still distrusts TEPCO. His prefectural government has set up a technical (accident investigation) committee of nuclear experts, independent of its counterparts in the national Diet and government. The Niigata committee is investigating the Fukushima meltdown, independently of the national government.

Now, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, has five boiling water reactors (BWRs), the type installed at Fukushima Daiichi, and two advanced BWRs. Together, the seven can produce more than 8.21 kW of power each hour This is among the largest power generating capacities of NPPs across the world. In case a major accident hits such a gigantic reactor, the resulting hazards would be much worse than those of Fukushima Daiichi.

The governor of Niigata has a pet phrase: “I will never discuss a restart (of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa) unless the Fukushima disaster is fully examined and the examination comes to a conclusion.” In the fall of 2015, TEPCO, responding to a request from the Niigata committee, interviewed its former CEO and some 30 employees relevant to the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, and reported the results to the committee. Still, the governor has not permitted a restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.

Irritated by the governor’s reluctance to permit a restart, the national government is applying pressure to the prefectural government of Niigata – “permit a restart, or we’ll cut the national subsidy to Niigata.” (For further details on this, please read the article titled “RESTART THE NUCLEAR PLANT, OR —“, dated February 12 on this website.)

This coming fall, Niigata has a governor election. The municipal assemblies of Kashiwazaki and Kariwa already adopted a petition for an early restart of the NPP. So, how will TEPCO’s home-to-home operation affect the election? We will soon find out.

Shortly after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown, all the NPPs across Japan stopped operating. Though this brought some tension to the power supply, we have been doing without any serious power problem these five years.

With all the ten power companies of Japan combined, the peak power demand in summer 2015 diminished by approximately 13.5% from the summer of 2010, the year before the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown. Many businesses and households learned to save power, while supply increased from new power suppliers. The existing power companies, however, held on to their old NPP-dependent business model.

A NPP brings its operator more profits the longer the plant runs. Though a NPP requires a huge initial investment, its fuel, uranium, is less expensive than fossil fuels. Thus, its running cost is smaller than that of a typical thermal power plant. The three restarted reactors, namely Units 1 and 2 of the Sendai NPP and Unit 3 of Kansai Electric Power’s Takahama NPP (located in Fukui, some 40 miles north of Kyoto), are 30 years old, counting from the year when they first went into operation. The other 26 reactors for which an application for a restart permission has been submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) are 25 years old, on the average. These reactors are, in short, at the place where their operators are collecting returns for the initial investments. Those operators hope to make stable profits out of them. Though those operators made more than JPY2 trillion of investments in additional safety measures to their NPPs, they say their NPPs, if restarted, can make up for the 2 trillion yen. However, the NPP regulations established after the 2011 meltdown require more investments in equipment and safety measures than ever before, whether an operator builds a new NPP or extends an existing NPP’s life beyond the basic age for decommissioning, 40 years. Today, the world’s economy is slowing down and the crude oil price is coming down, bringing down the price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as well. Thus, currently, thermal power is becoming less and less costly and the NPPs’ advantage in lower running costs is only temporary. They could well be money losers for their operators, and those operators have yet to discover what to do if that happens.

 

 

 

Quotes from Papers

“One disposal in each prefecture for the ‘specified waste’” now in a deadlock

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the February 5th, 2016 editions of the Asahi Shimbun and Fukushima Minpo newspapers)

(▼Click each image and read the summary.)

As of the end of 2015, some 170,000 t (374,782,000 lb.) of “specified” waste is being stored, distributed in 12 prefectures. Six of them, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, and Chiba, have especially large volumes of such waste. The Ministry originally meant to gather the waste at a single disposal location in each of those prefectures. Fukushima decided to collect the waste into a privately-owned disposal site for industrial waste. In the other five prefectures, the relevant authorities, who tried to build new disposal sites, met with protests from residents around the candidate sites. Meanwhile, now almost five years after the 2011 disaster, some radioactive substances have naturally decayed and some waste has gone below the 8,000 becquerel threshold.

According to the Ministry’s new regulation regarding lifting the specification, first it must be confirmed that the particular waste has gone below the threshold. Then, the Ministry consults with the relevant municipal government over whether or not to lift the specification. Once the specification is lifted, if the municipality treats and disposes of the waste, the expense is to be covered by the national government.

In Ibaraki, the prefectural government said it was planning to enhance leakage prevention measures at current storage sites for such waste and then keep the waste there for years to come. The prefecture once tried to build a new, single, large disposal site inside the prefecture, but faced protests from residents living around the proposed site. In response, the Ministry asked the mayors of the relevant municipalities what they wanted to do with such proposed disposal sites, and the majority of them said that they wanted to keep the waste in current storage locations.

There are now only ten such disposal sites in Ibaraki, all of them on the premises of public facilities, such as water treatment plants. For prefectural governments, storage of waste within such premises is easy to take care of. Governor Hashimoto of Ibaraki said, “This was the only feasible choice, as we wanted to take measures as soon as possible to safely store such waste.” However, some estimate that 25 years from now, still up to 0.6 t (1,322 lb.) of radioactive waste will remain above the 8,000 becquerel threshold.

Meanwhile, Tochigi (some 70 miles north of central Tokyo) has much more specified waste kept in many more storage sites. Its governor, Tomikazu Fukuda, expressed his concerns over the Ministry’s new policy. Most of the specified waste within his prefecture consists of straw and is temporarily stored at farming houses. Over the last several years, the prefecture has experienced many tornados. In addition, in September 2015, a downpour hit Tochigi, as well as some other areas of southern Tohoku and Kanto. Under such weather conditions, the specified waste can disperse and/or run out of its temporary storage. The prefecture’s Governor Fukuda believes the specified waste should be gathered into a single storage, as soon as possible.

Though the Ministry’s intention in this policy change was to facilitate the reduction of specified waste, there is no guarantee that the treatment and disposal of “formerly specified” waste will work without any obstacles. True, the waste is not “specified” any longer, but it still contains radioactive substances. Therefore, many municipalities could face protests from residents around a candidate disposal site for “formerly specified” waste. And such residents’ fear is not groundless. In the near future, some containers of this waste could be damaged which would create serious treatment problems. Also, in the long run, those prefectures will have more uninhabited houses, which will add more combustible waste with radioactivity.

The Ministry of the Environment is planning to win consent to this new policy, saying that “we have scientific and technical knowledge that waste below 8,000 becquerel can be safely treated together with common (non-radioactive) waste.”

* Specified waste:
If any waste contaminated with radioactive substances from a nuclear power plant disaster is found to contain more than 8,000 becquerel of radioactive cesium, the relevant municipal authority reports it to the nation’s Minister of the Environment, who specifies the waste as “specified waste.” The cesium concentration in such waste decreases year by year, since Cs 134 has a half-life of 2 years and Cs 137 30 years.

etc

Since the meltdown, chronic diseases have been on the rise in the two cities of Soma and Minamisoma

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA 

(Based on an article from the February 6th, 2016 edition of the Fukushima Minpo newspapers)
▼Click the image to enlarge it.

2016年2月6日民報
A survey team consisting of a physician at Soma Central Hospital, Dr. Tomohiro Morita, and Drs. Masaharu Tsubokura and Akihiko Ozaki of Minamisoma Municipal General Hospital, along with other medics, published, on February 5th, their survey results on chronic diseases in the cities of Soma and Minamisoma, before and after the meltdown of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi. The team found increases in diabetes and hyperlipidemia after the meltdown among both evacuees and non-evacuees.

A survey team of medics published, on February 5th, 2016, survey results on fluctuations in occurrences of some chronic diseases among the citizens of two cities in Fukushima, Soma and Minamisome, before and after the meltdown of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi. The survey discovered that, among both evacuees and non-evacuees, the number of diabetes and hyperlipidemia patients has been on the rise since the meltdown.

The survey covered a total of 6,406 citizens of the two cities, aged 40 to 74, who received a “medical checkup for seniors” both before and after the meltdown. The survey team divided the samples into two groups, those within the evacuation zones and those outside. The medics compared chronic disease occurrence rates during the three years following the 2011 meltdown, 2012 through 2014, with those during the three years before, 2008 through 2010. Those figures are shown in the table.

【Chronic disease increase rates after the meltdown】

Inside evacuation zones Outside evacuation zone
Diabetes
2012 X 1.21 X 1.11
2013 X 1.55 X 1.33
2014 X 1.60 X 1.27
Hyperlipidemia
2012 X 1.16 X 1.03
2013 X 1.30 X 1.12
2014 X1.20 X 1.14

* With “1.00” being the average over the three years immediately preceding the meltdown, for each disease

（Prepared by Heeday for the Project, based on the table in the newspaper article above）

With the average occurrence rates before the meltdown as the baseline, the samples within the evacuation zones showed a rise in diabetes by 1.21 to 1.60 times, and an increase in hyperlipidemia by 1.16 to 1.30 times. Those residents outside the evacuation zones also showed similar rising trends, 1.11 to 1.33 in diabetes and 1.03 to 1.14 in hyperlipidemia. The rates of increase tended to be greater among the residents of the evacuation zones than among those outside the zones.

Based upon those results, the survey team explained that “those rises in chronic diseases have to be, at this point, ascribed to changes in the residents’ lifestyles, social situations and environments.” The team also said, “After a major disaster, control of long-term, chronic diseases is a major issue.”

Following the Chernobyl disaster, we heard about increases in many diseases, not just those related to the thyroid. Compared to figures before the disaster, during the two years following the Chernobyl accident, cases of diabetes, chronic bronchitis, ischemic cardiac diseases, nerve system problems, stomach ulcers, chronic respiratory problems, and other diseases doubled to quadrupled among adults around the nuclear power plant. (This is based on a report made by the then Minister of Health of Belarus, at an unofficial meeting of the IAEA that convened in 1989.)

Today, more than 29 years after the Chernobyl disaster, many diseases are still on the rise. Some doctors in the region say that, in the current stage of related studies, especially with cancer cases, it is still too soon to make conclusive remarks on the actual health damage done to citizens by the disaster.

Then、with only some five years since the Fukushima tragedy, we are only seeing the beginning of the history of health damages from the meltdown. It will probably be decades before we can come to any conclusions about the cause-effect relationship between the meltdown and health hazards. So, facing this tough reality, what should we be doing now?

Quotes from Papers

What is happening in Minamisoma, Fukushima, as told by Yu Miri, a writer resident there

Original Japanese written by  staffer
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

(Based on an article from the January 25th, 2016 edition of the Akahata newspaper)2016年1月25日赤旗

(Excerpt from the newspaper article)

“A friend of mine, living in Minamisoma, Fukushima, has a daughter whose favorite pastime is taking photos of car license plates from many places in Japan. Said the daughter, ‘Before the 2011 disaster, I had to go to the parking lot of Disney Land, close to Tokyo, to take these photos. Today, I just visit a neighborhood supermarket and I see cars from all over Japan there.’ This daughter’s dad, a friend of mine, smiled ironically.

“During the New Year holidays, most of the license plates I saw said “Fukushima” or “Iwaki” (part of Fukushima Pref.) This was because most of the construction workers at work in Fukushima, who come from all over Japan, returned to their hometowns during the holidays. (A few workers were not able to do so, though.)

“After the 2011 disaster, large vehicles have been running around here, and some residents sarcastically call their own neighborhoods “dump truck Hollywood.” Yes, there are so many, and when I walk down a sidewalk, I often feel the wind caused by such trucks.

“Now, on October 14th, 2014, a certain girl, a 10th grader of Haramachi High School, was killed by a truck on the day right before a school trip. My son was a student of that High School as well. Tears —-. The truck driver was a construction worker, aged 74.”

According to a story from a local construction business within 20km (12.5 miles) of Minamisoma, the decontamination work joint venture led by Takenaka Corporation was planning to hire 200 more workers by this coming March. 300 more would be hired by another decontamination joint venture led by Taisei, another general contractor. Another 200 would be hired by Shimizu, yet another general contractor, who takes care of the decontamination of farms.

Meanwhile, in the Tokyo region, construction workers are busy building facilities for the 2020 Tokyo Olympiad and working on the accompanying renewal of infrastructure. Thus, the demand for construction workers is overheated.

In a situation like this, those working on reactor decommissioning and field decontamination, as well as the rebuilding of areas devastated by the 2011 disaster, are day laborers and currently homeless workers from a prefecture where the minimum legal wage is lower than that of Fukushima.

Some of those workers are aged and have serious health problems, such as diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, hypertension, alcoholism, etc. Some of those workers become ill or injured at work, are carried to a hospital by ambulance where it is discovered that they have no coverage from Medicare-type public insurance, no money and no relative to help. We have seen many such cases.

In one such case, a certain construction worker passed away while working on the rebuilding of areas devastated in the 2011 disaster. The Minamisoma municipal government contacted his supposed relatives in what was thought to be his hometown. They found a person with his supposed name who was still alive. It was a pseudonym. Thus, the deceased worker was cremated as a “person who died on a journey” (a John Doe) as defined by the relevant Japanese law, and his bones are stored at a Buddhist temple in the municipality.

In 2014, Fukushima’s prefectural government declared an “emergency of fatal labor incidents.” Almost five years have passed since the 2011 earthquake and reactor meltdown, and I honestly wish the 2020 Olympiad was not going to be held in Tokyo. In a national election shortly after the 2011 disaster, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan promised to “rebuild Japan.” OK, then why not rebuild Fukushima, rebuild Tohoku first? The Tokyo Olympiads are a fantasy that should come after Fukushima and Tohoku.

Today, in Minamisoma, we are seeing crimes being committed by some of the workers hired for the rebuilding, decontamination, and work related to the nuclear power plant. Still, many people do not want to make this criminal activity public, since that would discourage refugees from returning to the city even more. At the same time, however, ignoring the issue would turn the city into a smaller scale Detroit.

In the coming years, as more evacuation orders are lifted, we will have even more workers from outside coming here. Many of us here are experiencing how tough it really is to rebuild a town or city devastated by radiation into a place where people can live in peace and with ease.

 

 

 

From staff

St. Timothy’s Kindergarten had an outing to Civic Center, Hitachi, Ibaraki

Original Japanese quoted from the weblog of St. Timothy’s Support Center
The English below translated from the original Japanese by Heeday
The English translation edited by Rev. Dr. Henry French, ELCA

On Friday, January 22nd, St. Timothy’s Kindergarten held an outing to the Civic Center, Hitachi, Ibaraki (some 110 miles NNE of Tokyo). Financed by donations collected to help children affected by Fukushima Daiichi’s meltdown, this outing was held in addition to the kindergarten’s regular outings, to enable the children enjoy a good retreat from all the negative impacts of the meltdown. The large bus carrying the kids stopped before the railroad station in Hitachi, and the kids exited the bus with excitement.1月22日シビックセンター1

The Civic Center lets visitors learn through the experience of science, especially physics and chemistry. One attraction was a bubble show. As bubbles, small and large, as well as combinations of bubbles, appeared on the stage one after another, the children cheered aloud.1月22日シビックセンター2

On another stage, an industrial robot made drawings of the mascot character of Hitachi City. The children waited in a long line to receive a drawing made by the robot, which they wanted to take home.1月22日シビックセンター3

The happy ending came too soon. On the bus ride home, most of the children were fast asleep. Once they were back at the kindergarten, however, they woke up and cheerfully told their parents about their happy experiences at the Civic Center.