The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 10 | Issue 9 | Number 4 | Feb 22, 2012

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Crippled Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant at One Year: Back inthe Disaster Zone　　福島原発事故より一年−−ふたたび危険区域へ

David McNeill

Crippled Fukushima Nuclear PowerPlant at One Year: Back in theDisaster Zone

David McNeill

David McNeill revisits Japan’s northeast andthe crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant a year after it was battered by the tripledisaster of March 11 and finds a region stillstruggling to emerge from its huge shadow.

“The world is heavy on us,” says SakuraiKatsunobu, recalling the day that its weightalmost crushed the life out of his city. On themorning of March 11 last year, Minamisomaand its mayor were struggling with the samemundane problems as many other small ruralcities across Japan: a declining, greyingpopulation, creaking public services and afaltering local economy. By nightfall, anexistential disaster had engulfed MayorSakurai’s office, one from which it has yet toreemerge.

It began with the huge quake that struck offthe coast of the city of 71,000 at 2:46pm. Lessthan an hour later, Sakurai was on the roof ofthe city office, squinting toward the sea aboutsix miles away. “We could see this huge cloudof dust rising into the air from the Pacific. Iasked someone, ‘is that a fire?’ Then werealized it was the tsunami.” Even as he spoke,the deluge was inundating hundreds of homes,drowning old people and children; sometimeswhole families. By evening, corpses were beingbrought to a makeshift morgue in a local

college.

The March 11 quake and tsunami took 630lives in Minamisoma, including 100 children.For days, Sakurai wondered if his elderlyparents were among the casualties. Butinstead of looking for them he was dealing withthe crisis that would define his city. On March12, an explosion blew apart the buildinghousing reactor 1 at the Daiichi nuclear plant,23km south of his office. Operator TokyoElectric Power Co. (Tepco) and the centralgovernment were s i lent on what washappening. Public television said there was noneed for panic. Minamisoma’s citizens made uptheir own minds and began to flee fromrumours of radiation.

Flag on the wall inside Minamisoma City Office

Within a few days, the town had almostemptied of people. Twenty-seven thousand – athird of the population – have yet to return ayear later. “They’re scattered all across Japan,”says Mr. Sakurai. “We know of some families inAmerica too. Who knows if they will ever come

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back?” About 150 of his city’s 830 employeesare expected to quit this year, what he calls a‘municipal meltdown’ brought on by the stressof last year’s calamity. “We had to workeverything out for ourselves because there wasno help from the central government. We’reseeing the results of that now.”

Today, the power plant is officially “in a state ofcold shutdown” according to Tepco. The 20kmexclusion zone that surrounds it runs into thesouthern border of Minamisoma and swallowsup Mayor Sakurai’s small farm. Police officerswith dosimeters pinned to their chests preventlocals from going through a roadblock, even theMayor who runs the city. Reporters andcitizens who venture inside through back roadscan be arrested.

Checkpoint on the outskirts of Minamisomainto the 20km exclusion zone (photos DavidMcNeill)

Inside the zone, life has frozen in time. Homeshave been abandoned and reclaimed by weedsalong a route that emptied on a bitterly coldnight 12 months ago. Thousands of farmanimals and pets have been left to die. Carswait outside supermarkets where their ownersleft them in Tomioka, Okuma and Futaba, onceneat, bustling towns that now take their placealongside the Ukrainian nuclear ghost town ofPripyat. Even birds have deserted this area, ifthe latest research is to be bel ieved.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bird-numbers-plummet-around-stricken-fukushima-plant-6348724.html Roughly 80,000people who once lived here have not been toldwhen, if ever, they can return.

The reason is signaled by a symphony ofbeeping noises from dosimeters aboard our buson the way to the plant. A party of about 40journalists, including five foreigners, has beengranted a restricted tour. As we drive througha police checkpoint and into the town ofTomioka, about 15 km away, the radioactivityclimbs steadily, hitting 15 microsieverts perhour at the main gate to the nuclear complex.At the other end of the plant, where the gapingbuildings of its three most damaged reactorsface the Pacific Ocean, the radiation level is100 times this high, making it still toodangerous to work there.

Inside the plant’s emergency coordinationbuilding, the air is filled with the sound ofhumming f i l ters laboring to keep thecontamination out. Hundreds of people workhere every day, many sleeping in the makeshiftbeds and cots scattered throughout thebuilding. Workers in radiation suits and full-face masks wander in and out. Some are young,shaven-headed, tough-looking men who eye uswarily. Several reporters have claimed(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami-in/9084151/How-the-Yakuza-went-nuclear.html)that subcontractors at the plant employ Yakuzagangsters, an accusation not denied by Tepco.“There are so many subcontractors here thatit’s not impossible,” said a Tepco spokesman. Alarge digital clock showing the currentradiation reading inside the building dominatesthe wall of the central control room, whereofficials in utility suits huddle aroundcomputers.

“Our main challenge now is to remove thenuclear fuel from the reactors,” explainsTakahashi Takeshi in his first interview since

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he took over as plant manager two months ago.“It’s a technically very difficult problem, but wecannot hurry and we want to take it step bystep.” His predecessor Yoshida Masao wasforced to quit in December after beingdiagnosed with cancer – unrelated to his work,insists Tepco. Takahashi too looks drawn andexhausted. But he is satisfied with the progressbeing made in bringing the plant to a state ofcold shutdown, meaning that radiation releasesare under control and the temperature of itsnuclear fuel is consistently below boiling point.

The term is considered controversial.Engineers have only a rough idea of whereexactly the melted fuel lies inside the damagedreactors, or of its exact state. The fuel is beingkept cool by thousands of gallons of water thatTepco pumps onto it every day and which it isstruggling to decontaminate. Engineers arefrantically working to build more water tanks,and create space to store them. On a ridgeabout 20 meters from the reactors is a hugefield of gleaming 1000-ton water tanks – about100. A building crew is leveling land next to thetanks to make way for more. “In April theexisting tanks will be full so they are trying tomake more space,” admits a Tepco official.

We are told to wear our full-face masks for theclimax of the visit – a tour of the six reactors.Every inch of our bodies is covered and even inthe subzero temperatures of Fukushima inFebruary, it is unbearably hot. Thousands ofmen worked through last year’s summer heatof over 30 degrees Celsius in this protectivegear, struggling to clear debris from the quakeand tsunami and bring water to the reactors.“They were dropping like files in the heat,” saidone worker who spoke anonymously. “But theyjust had to keep going. They had no choicebecause no one else could do it.”

McNeill on the beat

“The worst time was when the radiation was250 Millisieverts (per year – the maximum,temporary government limit) and we couldn’tfind people to do the work,” explains SakamotoKazuhiro, an onsite subcontractor. “We couldonly work in two-minute bursts, when we wereextracting cesium from contaminated water.”

Some of that work is clear onsite. The concretebuilding housing reactor 1, which was blownapart in the first explosion on March 12, is nowcompletely covered with a tarpaulin designedto contain its radioactivity. As our bus drivesslowly by the building, the beeping dosimetersclimb to100 microsieverts an hour. But as themost badly damaged reactor 3 looms into sight,its mess of tangled metal and steel gives off astartling reading of 1,500 microsieverts. Itscargo of lethal fuel includes plutonium and theroof of the building housing the reactor wasblown off the second explosion. “It’s still toodangerous for workers to enter reactor No.3,”admits engineer Hibi Yasuki.

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Fukushima Daiichi reactor 3 (left) and 4 (right)

The state of reactor 2, meanwhile, sparkedsome panic recently after Tepco reported thatthe heat of the fuel inside was climbing andapparently resisting efforts to bring it down.The nightmare scenario of another out-of-control reactor was briefly conjured up by themedia before Tepco banished it by claimingfaulty equipment. “We’ve identified theproblem as a broken thermometer,” says plantmanager Takahashi in response to repeatedquestions about the reactor. “I’m terribly sorryto everyone for causing so much concern.”

Tepco officials constantly apologize, drawingon the most profound Japanese mea culpa inthe dictionary, which literally translates as‘there is no excuse for what we have done.” Theapologies have become perfunctory andritualized, failing to douse public anger overthe scale of the disaster, or some of thecompany’s sharp-elbowed tactics since itbegan. Compensation has dribbled into thepockets of evacuees who have lost everythingand are stuck in legal limbo, without homes orclear futures. In one now infamous incident, theutility argued against a compensation claim bya golf course operator, saying that radioactivematerials from the nuclear plant belong toindividual landowners, and are not thecompany’s responsibility. Lawyers for theSunfield Nihonmatsu Golf Club, 45 kilometersw e s t o f t h e p l a n t , s a i d t h e y w e r e“flabbergasted” by the argument.

Radiation from the Daiichi plant has blanketedeight percent of the entire country, accordingto the government.Nearly all of the 23 milliontonnes of rubble from the tsunami and quake isstill piled up around the coast because it iswidely believed contaminated and thegovernment can’t persuade local authorities todispose of it.

Much of the worst radiation damage wasinflicted on March 14 and 15, when a plumefrom the plant was carried by winds northwestand over pristine farming land in Fukushima,one of Japan’s key food baskets. “It rained onthose nights and the rain brought the radiationdown on top of us,” says Ito Nobuyoshi, afarmer in the mountain village of Iitate, 40 kmfrom the plant and a half hour scenic drivefrom Minamisoma. For reasons that remainmurky, the government delayed releasing datathat would have shown the radiation’s path andsaved many from heavy exposure. Hundreds offamilies unknowingly evacuated into the mostirradiated areas. “It was a crime and thepeople in government who made that decisionshould go to jail,” says Ito.

Outside Minamisoma Village Office, Feb. 2012

He is among a tiny number of farmers whohave ignored a government directive toevacuate from this area. The directive hasemptied once thriving towns around the plantwhose population numbered 114,000 people,

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including over 6,000 from Iitate. An unknownadditional number, anywhere from 50,0000 -120,000, according to observers, has movedvoluntarily because of radiation fears, ignoringofficial claims that life inside or aroundFukushima Prefecture is safe.

Cleaning up the contamination and convincingpeople to return is a mammoth task. Across theregion, workers in boiler suits and masks havedescended on towns with power hoses, tryingto scour the Daiichi plant’s toxic payload fromplaygrounds, parks and other public areas. Theworkers have removed most of the mostdangerous contaminant – cesium - from thegrounds of Minamisoma Middle High School,says its principal Hamano Shinichi. Like otherpublic buildings here, the school has planted alarge dosimeter outside its front gates showingthe current radiation in large digital letters inan attempt to reassure local parents – withlimited success. Only half of its 360 studentshave returned since last year, PrincipalHamano admits. Outside IItate Village Office, Feb. 2012

A radiation readout outside the MinamisomaMiddle High School, 2 km from the exclusionzone

“I don’t know if we will ever recover to what wewere before March 11 but we are certainlyimproving,” he says, pointing to the flashingred dosimeter outside, which reads 0.2microsieverts. Last March, radiation was tentimes that high here, a level that exceededcentral government guidelines of 1 millisievertof radiat ion a year. In response, thegovernment controversially hiked the limit to20 millisieverts, sparking bitter protests forplacing children at risk. Many children havesince reported low immunity and other healthproblems, though nobody has proved a link tothe nuclear plant. Hamano says that hisstudents are still limited to two hours playoutside a day, and are told to stay on the mainroads when walking home and avoid ‘hot spots’around the city. By April, he expects the

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radiation to have fallen enough to allowunlimited outside play. “We will survive thishorrible event, I believe.”

Outside the zone, the government isdecontaminating hundreds of thousands ofacres of farmland and forest by scraping off a 5cm-layer of topsoil, an operation it estimateswill leave a pile of nuclear waste almost 29million cubic meters high – enough to fill one ofTokyo’s largest stadiums 80 times. Across theFukushima countryside, trucks trundle to‘temporary’ dumps with their cargo of poisonedclay past mask-wearing security guards, a planIto and others insist is doomed to failure.“They’re just moving the radiation from oneplace to another,” he says. “Who is going totake it when they’re finished? Fukushima willstay poisoned for decades to come.”

Workers' beds inside the Daiichi Plant

Cleaning up and compensating for the tripledisaster will add to Japan's already groaning

debt burden. Although its powerful economy isshowing signs of life after contracting in 2011,the nation faces profound long-term structuralproblems, notably a looming demographiccrisis. In January 2012, the health ministryforecast that the population of 128 million willfall by 30 per cent in the next half-century,while soaring life expectancy will furtherburden the state. The shrinking and ageingpopulation means the government will struggleto cope with ballooning social welfare costs andthe aftermath of March 11, while trying to payoff Japan's public debt – at $12 trillion, theworst in the industrialized world.

Mayor Sakurai and other observers fear thatthe central government may have backed offfrom the more radical changes needed to guidethe country through what former PrimeMinister Kan Naoto called Japan’s worst crisissince World War II. Mr. Kan became a convertto alternative energy before being dumped byhis party last year. His successor, NodaYoshihiko, has signaled business as usual fornuclear power and little else in the way of newinitiatives, except for a hike in sales taxes topay for recovery. “I think we can recover, butwe need leadership and I see little of that,”says Sakurai.

At the Daiichi complex, the task is clearer andless clouded by politics. Plant managerTakahashi must somehow cool the uranium fuelinside its reactors, locate and remove it andmake the plant safe to dismantle. Work here ishard, unrelenting and in the long term possiblyfatal. Takahashi says he is motivated above allby one thing: “We will try to allow people toreturn to their homes as early as possible.”

It is a mammoth task. Japan’s government hasadmitted that dismantling the reactors and its260-ton payload of nuclear fuel will take up to40 years. Many people believe the governmentand Tepco will eventually be forced torecognize that the people who fled from thisplant a year ago may not return for decades. In

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the meantime, the work at Fukushima Daiichigoes on. And on. . .

David McNeill is a Tokyo-based correspondentfor The Independent, The Irish Times and TheChronicle of Higher Education. He is an Asia-Pacific Journal coordinator.

R e c o m m e n d e d c i t a t i o n : D a v i dMcNeill, 'Crippled Fukushima Nuclear PowerPlant at One Year: Back in the DisasterZone,' The Asia Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 9,No 4, February 27, 2012.

Articles on related subjects

• Hiroshi ONITSUKA, Hooked on NuclearPower: Japanese State-Local Relations and theVicious Cycle of Nuclear Dependence(https://apjjf.org/-Hiroshi-Onitsuka/3677)

• Gayle Greene, Science with a Skew: TheNuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl andF u k u s h i m a(https://apjjf .org/-Gayle-Greene/3672)

• Nishioka Nobuyuki, Toward a PeacefulS o c i e t y W i t h o u t N u c l e a r E n e r g y :Understanding the Power Structures Behindthe 3.11 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster(https://apjjf.org/-Nishioka-Nobuyuki/3669)

• Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Fukushima andOkinawa – the “Abandoned People,” and CivicE m p o w e r m e n t(https://apjjf.org/-Satoko-NORIMATSU/3651)

• Hirose Takashi, A Farewell to Nuclear Power– a L e c t u r e o n F u k u s h i m a(https://apjjf .org/events/view/120)

• Koide Hiroaki, Philippe Pons, and Paul Jobin,N u c l e a r I r r e s p o n s i b i l i t y(https://apjjf.org/events/view/122): KoideHiroaki Interviewed by Le Monde

For a complete list of APJ articles on 3.11 andnuclear power see Nuclear Meltdown:Radiation and its consequences for People andEnvironment in Japan and the World(https://apjjf.org/Japans-3.11-Earthquake-Tsunami-Atomic-Meltdown#I2)