March 25, 2013

Mar 25, 2013 | Fukushima Accident Updates

  • PM Shinzo Abe visited Namie and Tomioka towns inside the government-mandated “no-go zone”. It was his second visit to Fukushima, but the first to bear witness to the conditions with evacuated communities. His first visit was to the F. Daiichi power station. During his visit, Abe said that a limited access to Namie will begin April 1 to allow refugees to make short visits to their homes and/or businesses. Tomioka town restrictions were eased on today. At both visits, Abe emphasized the decommissioning of F. Daiichi and decontamination of the exclusion areas is unlike anything Japan has ever done. He added that his government will do more to make recovery happen than his predecessors. Portions of both towns lie inside the 20km mandatory evacuation zone, and parts outside in the voluntary evacuation zone. The voluntary zone is where people were asked to leave due to radiation fears and given full mandatory-evacuation privileges. During his visit, Abe responded to nuke restart questions, saying, “Reconstruction will be hard without an inexpensive and stable source of power,” while vowing to dispel “harmful rumors” concerning the condition of the Fukushima Daiichi station. (Japan Today; Jiji Press; Kyodo News)
  • The restrictions on Tomioka Town refugees were relaxed today. 70% of the town’s radiation levels have dropped below 50 millisieverts per year, the mandatory evacuation standard. The portion of the area over 50 mSv will continue to exclude all visitations, affecting about 4,500 people, is now designated “Return Forbidden”. The central part of the town, with about 10,000 evacuees, is between 20 and 50 mSv, low enough to allow periodic public visitation, is now called “Residence forbidden”. The rest is below 20 mSv, now entitled “Preparation for Evacuation Cancellation”, and could allow the 1,500 residents to go home, but the local government will restrict full repopulation until 2016. It is hoped that all residents will be home by the end of 2017. Tomioka is the southernmost of the 11 exclusion zone communities and is host to the undamaged, currently-idled Fukushima Daiini power station. It is the eighth community to have the exclusion restrictions eased. Tomioka Mayor Katsuya Endo said, “Finally, we can start rebuilding the city’s infrastructure.” (Japan Times; Mainichi Shimbun, Japan Today)
  • On Sunday the Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second largest newspaper, said the F. Daiichi accident has not ended. They believe last week’s brief spent fuel pool power outage proves the accident in on-going, “The incident drove home the reality that even two years after the March 2011 disaster, the accident is still not over. Anxiety will continue until all fuel is removed. This is to be expected in a nuclear disaster.” Further, everyone was lucky Tepco re-energized SFP cooling systems before there were more meltdowns and hydrogen explosions, even though both are actually impossible for SFPs. In addition, contrary to all other news outlets and the photos posted by Tepco, the Asahi says “Although the cause of the blackout has yet to be established, the possibility has arisen that a small animal, such as a rat, short-circuited a switchboard.” Then, the Asahi takes a contradictory linguistic turn by saying, “We must learn lessons from the incident so that we can deal calmly with future emergencies.” First the Asahi creates a fearsome fantasy scenario, and then tells everyone we should learn from this in order to remain calm. That’s a contradiction. How long will it take for their readers to realize they are being misled by the newspaper?
  • The disposal of tsunami debris outside of Fukushima Prefecture has reached the half-way point. The 3/11/11 tsunami left behind 16 million tons of debris and 10 million tons of sand and sediment in Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures. At the end of February, 8.35 million tons of the debris had been disposed of, mostly through land burial. A little over 600,000 tons of the rubble is combustible, but less than 20% has been incinerated. In addition, 2.3 million tons of the washed-ashore sediments have been removed, but that accounts for only 22% of the total. While it took nearly two years of activity to handle 45% of the debris, 5% was disposed of in February alone. Thus, it seems the new Tokyo government has significantly improved the tsunami clean-up effort in Iwate and Miyagi. However, less than a million tons of debris has been removed from the Fukushima Prefecture coastline, which is only 20% of the total estimate of ~5 million tons. Fear of radioactive contamination has ham-strung the effort in Fukushima. The Environment Ministry says they no longer feel debris disposal will be complete by the target date of March 2014. (NHK World; Jiji Press)
  • An antinuke rally was held in Fukushima City on Saturday. Organizers say that about 7,000 attended, many from outside the prefecture. The speakers called for total abolition of nuclear energy in Fukushima Prefecture. The presenters were all prefectural residents who are now refugees. They feel the rest of Japan is forgetting their plight and vow to keep memory of the nuclear accident in the public mind. One 18-year-old student told the crowd that the sight of radiation monitors all over the prefecture is a constant reminder of their pain and suffering. (Mainichi Shimbun)