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Japan's Nuke Refugees Face Uncertain Fate
KUSATSU, Japan - Tadanori Anzai and his wife Michiko left their town in Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture, more than a month ago to escape the radioactive contamination spewing from the earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant located close to their home and tiny eatery.
An official checks a visitor at a radiation screening center in Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture. According to disaster experts, the lack of a national vision to steer a future for Japan’s first post-war nuclear refugees illustrates this country's shocking unpreparedness to deal with a nuclear crisis. (AFP/File/Go Takayama)
Along with sixty others, the Anzai couple and their grandchild travelled by bus to this snowy hot spring town 150 kilometres west of Minamisoma on Mar. 25, after the local government invited them over.
"I survived the terrible earthquake and tsunami that hit Fukushima that fateful day. But today, I feel my situation is far worse than those who have lost everything in the natural disaster," said the 58-year-old Anzai.
Referred to popularly as nuclear refugees, the Anzai family are among thousands of people who have left radiation affected areas, some still crammed into hastily prepared evacuation sites, in line with the Japanese government’s new regulation to clear the 30-kilometre area around the nuclear plant.
The Anzais and another family arrived at Nakamura Ryokan, one of the oldest inns in Kusatsu, a small town with a population of 7,000. "We have been warmly welcomed by the owners and extremely grateful to have a place to live. Still, the terrible situation is that I cannot return and we are starkly aware that we cannot live here for ever," said Anzai.
Kusatsu local government official Takashi Nakazawa agrees. In an interview with IPS, he explained the invitation to accept displaced communities from radiation-affected Minamisoma aimed to provide a temporary home until they could return.
"Kusatsu is not a wealthy town that has the necessary infrastructure to accept newcomers who need jobs and other support. We are doing what we can for now but resources are poor and will not last long," he said.
According to disaster experts, the lack of a national vision to steer a future for Japan’s first post-war nuclear refugees illustrates this country's shocking unpreparedness to deal with a nuclear crisis.
"There are no lessons that can be drawn because the nuclear accident is leading to displacement of large populations who cannot return for many years at least," pointed out Professor Yoshiteru Murosaki, head of the disaster research dept at Kwansei Gakuin University.
Murosaki, who led a research project on the rebuilding of towns and communities after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, explained that successful resettlement is not only about providing new homes but also including such important aspects as employment similar to their former occupations, which is what the newcomers seek.
"Moreover, communities in Japan are traditionally averse to remaining divided and one solution would be more temporary housing close to their original homes, another key for effective resettlement," he said.
Murosaki said current policies have missed these crucial aspects entirely. "The government is still scrambling to deal with a dire situation on a temporary basis and has no answers for the long-term," he said.
Experts are calling for financial subsidies to local governments that have accepted the nuclear refugees as well as a more concentrated effort by the authorities to listen to the displaced to find out their concerns and ideas.
Professor Ikuo Kobayashi said his work with reconstruction of local towns after the Kobe disaster also clearly indicates the urgent need to deal with displacement in a more humane manner.
"Unlike natural disasters, the displaced from radiation-affected areas live with no prospect of returning. Naturally, emotions are tense and explosions from frustrations can grow against a situation that can offer them very little long-term relief," he said.
One-third of the estimated almost 75,000 new temporary housing units needed for disaster resettlement will be set aside for people moving out of the contaminated areas.
Meanwhile, Anzai and his hosts in Kusatsu are working hard to develop closer ties as they ponder the future.
Innkeeper Hiromi Nakamura said she is happy to play the role of host and feels "deeply for the loss faced by Anzai and the other family in my care."
Kusatsu is now providing financial support for 210 people from Minamisoma. They live in the famous hot spring resort and are extended meal coupons and other benefits.
Anzai said he and his fellow nuclear refugees share their deep anxiety of how they can manage to move out soon and start living independently.
"My eatery is closed. The parents of my grandchild live closer to our homes because they have to work. Not until we are able to live together as before will I be able to sleep well again," he said.
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30 Comments so far
Show All("Anzai said he and his fellow nuclear refugees share their deep anxiety of how they can manage to move out soon and start living independently.")
Anzani and his fellow nuclear refugees are not going to move out soon to return to live in their original homesite or property. They won't be alone in that respect, that large area of land is essentially "dead" and will be for (at least) a hundred years.
And it is far from over, the land which will be unsafe for life will expand as the melting down reactors continue to emit a variety of isotopes of deadly radioactive poison for the forseeable future. There is no way anyone will ever be able to "stabalize" the Fukushima one power plant.
It is a bit strange to me the very serious health hazards for (at least) 80,000 people were not mentioned in the article and that many thousands of people there were exposed to inhaling radioactive isotopes and their continuing health has been seriously jeapordized, especially so for any pregnant mothers and children.
Finally what is so ironic is they are currently living at a "hot springs" resort. The entire nation of Japan is sitting on readily available geo-thermal energy, safe, clean and very cost effective energy, which could supply the entire nation with all of their electrical needs forever,, and ever__ amen.
"splitting atoms is a hell of a poor method to boil water" ~~ Albert Einstein~~
Well Al, so is burning coal and oil, there are much better options.
Wayne,
"...16 geothermal power plants in the 14 geothermal power station sites...are currently operating in Japan. Total authorized rated output reaches 530 MW, or 0.2% of the whole Japanese power capacity of 250 GW...Japanese geothermal power generation capacity accounts for 6% in the world and ranks sixth, following USA, the Philippines, Italy, Mexico and Indonesia...."
from www.nef.or.jp/english/new/pre_geo.html This web page is undated and elsewhere cites a 1999 statistic so this information may be out of date.
Bill
Yeah Bill, It is unfortunate they didn't go 100% with geo-thermal instead of nuclear power with more than 90% nuker and the deadly results.
Wayne,
METI is the major governmental organization that decided that electrical power needed to be nuclearized several years ago after an oil price spike. (The Japanese electrical infrastructure has much more central planning than the US.) About 25% of electricity in Japan was from nuclear. The rest is primarily a mix of hydroelectric and fossil. They were in the process of expanding their nuclear generation before the accident (Fukushima-I was supposed to get a 7th reactor) but that plan will probably be revisited because of the accident.
My guess is that going nuclear rather than geothermal was an economic decision. The front end cost of geothermal can be much higher than nuclear. Geothermal is like nuclear in that it needs water cooling (and needs more of it per megawatt than nuclear) and the good geothermal sites may not be near to cooling water.
When you speak of deadly results, the only fatalities from the nuclear plants are the 3 workers who where killed by the EQ and T. Some of the employees are at increased risk of cancer but, according to the press releases, the general population has not been significantly exposed to radiation. The accident has inflicted a great deal of dislocation and economic loss but nobody has been killed by radiation and no civilians have been seriously exposed.
Bill
It does not matter one bit who decided to build the nukers. It is unfortunate they didn't use ger-thermal instead is my argument. Before this is over they may lose a third or more of their country. If no one ever dies from it, thousands of square miles of land are (already) now uselss for up to a hudred or even more years.
And to say no one has been killed from the continuing emissions from Fukushima plant number one is not so. You or I, or 180,000 others could have been there within thirty to fifty miles of that plant for a few hours, or days and if we (inhaled) any of the cesium-137 isotopes that were and are loading the air, it would most probably insure we would develop cancers somwhere in our bodies.
Then if anyone tested us for radiation contamination, those (inhaled), microscopic isotopes of (deadly) poison, would (not be detected) amd those cloth face masks are useless for filtering out those microsopic isotopes. So they could say no one was in serious danger and no one has died. You don't die right away from that Bill.
I'll very humbly add __ ("the lack of a national vision to steer a future for Japan’s first post-war nuclear refugees illustrates this country's shocking unpreparedness to deal with a nuclear crisis.")
Perhaps someone can tell us which country on Earth is "prepared" to deal with a nuclear crisis.
i would say none.................who/what can fight radiation?
You would be correct "dancing" gal.
Good to see you back, been away at mj. WayeWR
i'll look you up at mj...............(sf)
USA, USA, USA,
Haven't you heard? We're number 1.
This crisis is far from over, though you wouldn't think that from the near total news blackout. Come on, 4 damaged reactors, one, possibly two core meltdowns, loss of containment storage for tons of fuel rods that are undergoing intermittent criticality.
Half the island of Honshu will be evacuated before this finally plays out. Millions more cancers, stillbirths, worldwide (which will never be directly traceable to Fukushima). But in this country, full speed ahead for the nuclear renaissance. 39 billion for the nuke industry this year, but let's cut granny's medicare. Madness.
I'll bet the USA has no plans for what to do with the "nuclear refugees" if a disaster occurs either. At lest the Japanese did place these people and quickly. They showed far better integrity than the US government during Katrina.
I'd guess that the plans for 'nuclear refugees' is the same as the plan for dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane was... Something along the lines of [bend over and kiss your ass goodbye]
You shouldn't worry.
Bill Gates is a big proponent of Nuclear Power.
I am sure that we would all feel confident having the split second decisions required in a Nuclear Power plant controlled by Windows Vista. What could go wrong?
LOL
A Windows based nuclear power plant-now THAT is a scary proposition. I think I would rather take my chances with the STUXNET virus. You really don't want the blue screen of death when your running a nuke reactor.
Bill
Hopefully Windows Vista is not used directly in running the nuclear plants, but "desktop" Windows is used extensively in substations for the monitoring and control of the distribution of electric power. And Windows-CE is used in a lot of devices including medical devices. The blue screen of death could have a double meaning in those cases...
I experienced the "blue death" screen once. Got a fun message that read, ("Windows is experiencing a problem and has to shut down") Huh? The screen immediatly turned "blue". Then a short mesage in yellow letters read (" begining dump"). And withn ten seconds it totally dumped. I lost everything on it and sheet my pants.
Lukily it was still under warrenty and H/P picked it up, fixed it and returned it within four days. Glad It wasn't cotrolling anything connected to a nuker.
There is very little information on the total number of displaced persons from either the nuclear accident or the tsunami. (Of course there are some people that would fit in both categories). As near as I can find, there are about 170,000 total refugees. Of those about 80,000 are evacuees from the nuclear exclusion area.
It appears that the Japanese are coping with their displacement problem better than the US did from Katrina. (Being better than a total mess is a low goal however).
Bill
I just came across an interesting item in the Japanese news dateline 5/5:
"Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan says his government will determine early next year whether evacuees who live around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will be able to return home."
Bill
Well that's just swell news. I will offer this opinion since the Prime Minister of Japan is offering his.
As things now stand based upon the fact they will never be able to stabalize the three reacotrs which are melting down, that it is far more likely none of the refugees who lived within 20 miles of the plant will ever see their homesites again much less move back there and it is just as likely that many thousands more will have to eventually be evacuated as millions are now in areas that aren't half safe to be in.
I'd say that would be the "best case" scenario.
And of course we all know what happened there can happen here in the US at any time and it is quite likely that someday it will. Meanwhile; every day a brand new dose of deadly poisons is arriving via the jet stream. As the radioactive poisons accumulate during the following months and years, people are going to become very upset. It's sort of like being bit by a mamba, one can get upset but there isn't a lot one can do about it. The mamba bite would be a quick death, inhaling the radioactive poisons are a slow death.
Why do you work for the nuclear industry? You never comment on any other stories, just a professional nuke booster?
Stiv,
I post primarily on nuclear power issues for a couple of reasons:
I believe passionately that the world needs to replace fossil power electricity generation with nuclear power as quickly as possible because of global warming. I believe that global warming is the greatest peril facing humanity. I also believe that renewables cannot do the heavy lifting of replacing base load fossil fueled electricity.
I believe that, because of my education, training and experience, I have a greater familiarity with the technology and issues of nuclear power than most readers on CD and that I can make a positive contribution to discourse on the subject.
I have posted occasionally on other subjects but generally do not post unless I can make a positive contribution to the conversation. (I have been posting on CD for several years but under my current name only since March.)
I am not paid to post although I am frequently accused of such. I post because, at least theoretically, the citizenry in this democracy have a strong voice in government and social policy and I want to influence that citizenry's opinion.
Bill
Unfortunantly you have tunnel vision Bill, like all nuclear power advocates, you cannot appreciate the fact that nuclear power is a very dangerous way to create electrical power and there are better alteernatives to nuclear coal and oil fired power plants. Without government subsudies for nuclear we would have geo-thermal, tidal and, hydro power.
I don't have any problem with you posting your comments and one sided opinions, but you certainly aren't winning any converts here and you make it convenient to reply to you and show that you are wong to support nuclear energy.
You aren't worng with your "technical" information which is actually of lillte interest due to the potential and real dangers of a nuclear reactor or spent fuel rod storage pond melting down.
Tell us Bill. How many nuclear power plants would we have to build in the US to replace the coal and oil fired plants?
Wayne,
There are very few oil fired power plants operating in the US. There are several that are dual fuel oil/natural gas that now run on natural gas because of comparative costs.
Based on the electricity generated by fossil generators in 2010, it would take about 275 nuclear reactors to replace that much power (based on the current Westinghouse reactor which is probably going to be the only new reactor built in the US in the next 6 or 7 years).
I don't know how many fossil fired generators we have in service but it is more than 1600 plants. (The only number I could find was 1573 units that have one or another environmental control. There are many older units from before the Clean Air Act that do not have any controls on them but I could not find a count.)
Bill
Tell us one other thing Bill, how are you going to find the fuel to power all of those nuclear power plants? Not to mention where are you going to put the waste...
Saturnalia,
If we were going to seriously convert to 80% nuclear like France, I would hope that we would develop and deploy more fuel efficient reactors than the light water reactors we currently use in the US (and most of the rest of the world). The reactors we use now burn less than 1% of the uranium extracted.
If we only burn about 1% of the uranium mined, about 99% ends up as waste, much of it mixed with the fission fragments from the 1% that does get burned. Based on volume, most of that waste is depleted uranium which is not a serious disposal problem. It is the used fuel that poses the real disposal questions.
In the used fuel, the unburned uranium is the major ingredient by weight. In addition to the uranium there are, in two broad categories, the fission fragments and the transuranic elements. If the used fuel is processed and separated into 3 piles we can deal with them individually.
The unburned uranium is, like natural uranium and the depleted uranium, not a serious hazard and can be converted to a stable chemical form and buried in a landfill.
The fission fragments are a real safety hazard and they need to be safely isolated from society. This is necessary for a 300 to 500 year period. Very few fission fragments have a half life greater than 30 years.
Dealing with the transuranic elements (primarily plutonium, cerium and americium) is the real long term safety issue. My preferred method of disposal for these would be a nuclear incinerator. This is a reactor designed to burn them. This type of reactor is not currently available but there are no technical reasons why such a reactor cannot be built. In the US, it would have to be either government operated or funded because it is not an inherently profitable thing to do.
Sorry to be so long winded but waste is a very complex question and I have just scratched the surface.
Bill
Since we are asking questions? How are we going to shut all the plants down if there is ever a global catastophy such as a super volcanic eruption, a meteorite or a global financial meltdown? Do we just trust the people in charge?
Where ya at Bill? Com back Bill, we need you.
See; you have opened the discussion for lots of interesting things to think about and discuss. Glad you are here Bill.
Here's another question. Since the radiation levels in the reactor's # 1 and # 3 are now up to 1,200 milliservants an (hour)!!!! Workers in Japan nuclear plants are only allowed a radiation level of 250 milliservants a (year), which is about five times higher than is allowed for workers in the US.
The question is. __ How are they ever going to be able to stabalize those two reactors?
The robots who took those reading last week haven't even been able to get into the # 2 reactor's inner containment room to measure the radiation level. Even robots are subject to dying with very high radiation levels.
It will not be possible for anyone to reasonably enter those rooms for the next several years. At TMI it was seven years before they could send a robot in to see what damage had been done to the reactor. They discovered it has come within ten minutes of a full meltdown. Woo-hoo-ee if it had.d, so long half of Pennsylvania, Md, Del, NJ andparts of NY. . Maybe even worse?
So Bill, how are they ever going to stabalize the plant? They estimated (six to nine) months two weeks ago, when the radiation levels were less than a hundred milliservants an hour. Wonder what they are today?
Wayne,
Your post was after 3 in the morning. I was dreaming of feeding nuclear waste to the sugar plum fairies.
TEPCO workers went into reactor #1 today wearing full breathing gear. I believe I read there were 3 sets of workers going in for 10 minutes each. They were going to install part of an air filtration system to reduce the risk and radiation exposure for subsequent work.
Bill
Yeah, I read that Bill and TEPCO chiefs are lying about the radiation level there in unt 1. That is not going to do any good, it's a propaganda ploy by TEPCO. Hell, the robots can only be in there for a short periood of time, they arein't going to do anything to stop the cores from melting down.