Thursday, 14 November 2013

Future for Fukushima evacuees is not certain 福島原発避難者:将来への不安


….In August, the number of people in Fukushima who have died since the accident from illnesses related to prolonged evacuation rose to 1,539, nearing the prefecture’s tsunami death toll of 1,599….

By Mia 14/11/13
The government said they are going to support the evacuees with a new proposal. I am concerned because:
Evidence of 50 mSv/y dose limit;
年間積算放射線量が50ミリシーベルト超の「帰還困難区域」について、帰還まで長 期の時間がかかることを明確にした上で、移住先で住宅を確保できるよう賠償金を手厚くする.....
Those residents in the area more than 50mSv/y will get sufficient financial help from the government, but those in the remaining area are not going to be financially supported.
Where are those residents in 50mSv/y going be housed? They could be offered to live in 20mSv/y zone in Fukushima prefecture as the government considers it safe. 
Maybe people outside Japan think that those 860,000 evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear accident were evacuated into a safe area from the Fukushima prefecture, but the most of them had been evacuated just outside 20km radius of the crippled plant where radiation level is anywhere between up to 20mSv/y. 
Those husbands among the evacuees who had lost jobs from the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear accident have ended up working as Tepco clean-up workers and have been even more exposed to radiation. Other help offered by the Japanese government was announced for pregnant women and children to be provided free accommodation if they decide to come back to Fukushima prefecture. In my opinion, this is a disgrace.  Also, they would advise the residents to use dosimeters because it reads even lower than the public monitoring posts.  
 
*Pregnant women offered free houses if they return to Fukushima 
妊娠している女性や子供が、福島に帰還すると住居費が無料になる

*Japan’s plan to make radiation readings come out looking better -Plan to lower radiation readings OK’d 日本政府は住民の被爆を低く見積もるよう仕組んでいる。  JIJI NOV 12, 2013
(Source) http://nuclear-news.net/2013/11/13/japans-plan-to-make-radiation-readings-come-out-looking-better/#more-59479
It was proposed by the regulatory commission’s secretariat at its meeting Monday and gained broad-based consensus.
Dosimeter readings tend to be less than half of those using the existing method based on air dose rates, which assume that residents stay outdoors for a total of eight hours a day, according to the NRA Secretariat.
The proposal comes as the government is aiming to lift the evacuation advisory for areas where annual radiation doses are estimated at 20 millisieverts or lower.
The new method is expected to help promote the return of evacuees as well as reduce costs for decontaminating areas tainted by radioactive fallout from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant.

[Mia`s note - Correction to main stream media published figures] The number 160,000 is reported as a number of evacuees in the most of Japanese and English news except for a few reports, but I think it is figure of total evacuees who were affected by Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima accident in Tohoku region.  After searching the regional information concerning refugees, I think seems 86,000 is about right for the Fukushima disaster evacuees. The Japanese government evacuated only the residents in the areas 20km radius of the Fukushima Nuclear power plant and also from Iidate village, Kawauchi village and some from Minami-soma city. Total population in those areas was about 86,000.)
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"For many Fukushima evacuees, the truth is they won't be going home" by Sophie Knight and Antoni Slodkowski Iwaki, Japan Mon Nov 11, 2013 (Reuters)  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/11/us-japan-fukushima-idUSBRE9AA03Z20131111

The government is also considering a proposal floated earlier this month to offer new compensation to residents in the areas of highest radiation who have no prospect of returning home, officials involved have said.”

For many of Japan’s oldest nuclear refugees, all they want is to be allowed back to the homes they were forced to abandon. Others are ready to move away, severing ties to the ghost towns that remain in the shadow of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.
But among the thousands of evacuees stuck in temporary housing more than two and a half years after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, there is a shared understanding on one point – Japan’s government is unable to deliver on its ambitious initial goals for cleaning up the areas that had to be evacuated after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster......
..Lawmakers from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s coalition parties on Monday recommended the government step back from the most ambitious Fukushima clean-up goals, and begin telling evacuees that a $30 billion clean-up will not achieve the long-term radiation reduction goal set by the previous administration. “The government and ruling party will act as one and deal with this firmly,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, adding that Abe would consider the proposal seriously.
The government is also considering a proposal floated earlier this month to offer new compensation to residents in the areas of highest radiation who have no prospect of returning home, officials involved have said.
FRUSTRATION, RESIGNATION 福島原発避難者:不満とあきらめ
.... Social workers report an increase in domestic strife, alcoholism and illnesses such as deep vein thrombosis from lack of exercise. In August, the number of people in Fukushima who have died since the accident from illnesses related to prolonged evacuation rose to 1,539, nearing the prefecture’s tsunami death toll of 1,599.
Among those who remain, there is frustration, resignation and a sense that the hardest decisions remain ahead……… No matter how hard they try to decontaminate, radiation isn’t going down. So even though we have decided to go back, we can’t,” said Keiko Shioi, a 59-year-old housewife from Naraha, near the nuclear plant. …..“No matter how much they decontaminate I’m not going back because I have children and it is my responsibility to protect them,” said Yumi Ide, a mother of two teenage boys from Tomioka……








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