By Rachel Mealey via abc.net.au / March 7, 2016 / The town of Futaba lies six kilometres from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. There is an eerie feeling there. Shoes sit in the doorway of houses, as they do in houses across Japan — neatly placed together, waiting for feet to walk them out the door. Bicycles rest against fences — waiting for the next journey. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake … Continue reading →
Continue readingTag Archives: evacuees
By Makoto Takada / Asahi Shimbun / September 24, 2015 / Local government officials, evacuees and students are saving personal documents and other historical materials from destruction in a municipality rendered a virtual “ghost town” by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The Tomioka town government, which now operates from Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture, has asked residents for help in the preservation project, saying materials kept at a museum alone cannot show … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Youtube / September 24, 2015 / This documentary on the Fukushima Art Project chronicles artist Ai Weiwei’s investigation of the site as well as the project’s installation process. In August 2014, Ai Weiwei was invited as one of the participating artists to originate artwork for the Fukushima Nuclear Zone by the Japanese art coalition Chim↑Pom， as part of the project they initiated called Don’t Follow the Wind . Ai … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia rte.ie / September 5, 2015 / The Japanese government has lifted the evacuation order for the first town near the crippled Fukushima reactors, more than four years after ordering mass relocations near the tsunami-wrecked nuclear plant. Among communities where the entire population was forced to evacuate after the nuclear crisis started in March 2011, Naraha is the first town to allow all of its residents to return home permanently. It … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Ian Fairlie CounterPunch.org August 20, 2015 Official data from Fukushima show that nearly 2,000 people died from the effects of evacuations necessary to avoid high radiation exposures from the disaster. The uprooting to unfamiliar areas, cutting of family ties, loss of social support networks, disruption, exhaustion, poor physical conditions and disorientation can and do result in many people, in particular older people, dying. Increased suicide has occurred among younger … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia DW / July 21st, 2015 / In a bid seen by critics as aiming to speed up reconstruction, the Japanese government is preparing to declare sections of the evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant a safe place to live. The ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to revoke many evacuation orders by March 2017, if decontamination progresses as hoped, meaning that up to 55,000 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / July 21st, 2015 / Around 3,100 residents in the city of Fukushima are demanding ¥18.3 billion in damages related to the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, lawyers said. A total of 3,107 residents of the Watari district want an out-of-court settlement for their psychological distress, including health concerns due to radiation exposure. The demand was filed Tuesday with a public … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Telegraph.co.uk / July 8th, 2015 / The government announces September 5 as the date 7,401 residents of Naraha town in Fukushima prefecture can return home for the first time since the 2011 nuclear disaster. More than 7,000 residents from a Fukushima town completely evacuated following the 2011 nuclear crisis will be able to return home permanently from September, the Japanese government has announced. The 7,401 residents of Naraha will … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Robert Hunziker / ukprogressive.co.uk / July 8, 2015 / Because of Japan’s unconscionable open-ended new secrecy law, it is very likely journalism in the nation has turned tail, scared of its own shadow. Nevertheless, glimmers of what has happened, of what is happening, do surface when brave people come forward. On May 22nd 2015 Hiromichi Ugaya, a photojournalist who is well-informed, insightful, and engaging, was interviewed about what he … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / June 30, 2015 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Tuesday was again held responsible for a suicide linked to the 2011 nuclear crisis and ordered to pay damages. The Fukushima District Court ordered TEPCO to pay ¥27 million to the family of 67-year-old Kiichi Isozaki, who committed suicide in July 2011 after being forced out of his home near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / June 15, 2015 / Some 7,000 people in Japan’s Tochigi prefecture have sought $297 million in compensation over the Fukushima nuclear disaster. They are also demanding a decontamination fund, health checks, and an apology from the plant’s operator. The residents’ lead lawyer, Koji Otani, said it is “irrational” for his clients to be treated differently than Fukushima residents, as the same amount of radiation was detected in … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia reuters.com / May 29, 2015 / Japan’s ruling coalition will recommend lifting evacuation orders for most people forced from their homes by the Fukushima nuclear disaster within two years in a bid to speed up reconstruction, a draft proposal shows. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s party and its governing partner will also press local governments in the disaster zone to shoulder more of the reconstruction spending now being borne by … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Keisuke Sato / The Asahi Shimbun / May 19, 2015 / Nearly 70 percent of evacuees from areas around the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have family members complaining of physical or mental problems, a recent survey showed. Released by the Fukushima prefectural government, the survey covering fiscal 2014 revealed that 66.3 percent of households that fled the disaster area–after the nuclear crisis triggered by the March 2011 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Press TV / March 10, 2014 / A fresh report in Japan shows the number of deaths by radiation from the country’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in 2011 increased by 18 percent last year. The report published on Tuesday by the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun said figures from authorities in Fukushima Prefecture showed a total of 1,232 deaths in 2014 were linked to the nuclear disaster. The highest … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia channelnewsasia.com / March 11, 2014 / Muneo Kanno left his village to avoid radiation contamination after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan four years ago. But that has not stopped the evacuee from making daily trips back home. The 64-year-old farmer is on a mission to reclaim the village he called home for most of his life and he has started a number of projects to achieve this … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia fukushimaminponews.com / February 13, 2015 / The number of Fukushima residents who remain evacuated as a result of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, including those who have evacuated voluntarily, totaled 118,862 as of January this year, falling below the 120,000 mark, according to figures announced by the prefectural government on Feb. 12. The number of evacuees staying within the prefecture … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia latimes.com / November 7, 2014 / More than 3 1/2 years after a 50-foot tsunami rushed up the Kitagami River, inundating houses and farms and destroying everything in its path, the road to this city’s port remains unusable. Farmland, tainted by a massive influx of seawater, is still being restored. Hundreds of people remain in shabby temporary housing, with no exit in sight. The only business that really seems … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Taiga Uranaka and Antoni Slodkowski / trust.org / October 31, 2014 / Thirty billion dollars in funding for roads, bridges and thousands of new homes in areas devastated by the tsunami in Japan three and a half years ago is still languishing unspent in the bank. That means Keiko Abe is heading into a fourth winter of sub-zero temperatures in a cramped, temporary dwelling that is succumbing to the … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Victoria Craw & Nick Whigham / news.com.au / October 21, 2014 ONCE pristine rice paddies overgrown into forests. Wild animals roaming the streets of eerie towns with an uncertain future. That’s the scene described by Australian teacher Jessica Hellamy who recently had the chance to see inside the 20km exclusion zone created after the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai’ichi powerplant in 2011. “Time had stopped. In the main … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia therakyatpost.com / August 26, 2014 / A Japanese court has ruled that Fukushima nuclear operator Tokyo Electric was responsible for a woman’s suicide after the March 2011 disaster and must pay compensation, in a landmark ruling that could set a precedent for other claims against the utility. The civil suit by Mikio Watanabe claimed that Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (Tepco) was to blame for the July 2011 death … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Clint Richards / The Diplomat / July 30, 2014 / After months of attempting to negotiate with local residents in Fukushima, the Japanese government has abandoned its attempt to purchase land to store nuclear waste from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi reactors. Storing nuclear waste and preventing groundwater from entering the disaster site continue to be persistent problems for the government, with no clear solution. This inability is a key … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Asahi Shimbun / April 29, 2014 / Nearly half of households that evacuated following the Fukushima nuclear disaster have been split up while close to 70 percent have family members suffering from physical and mental distress, a survey showed. The number of households forced to live apart exceeds the number that remain together, according the survey, the first by the Fukushima prefectural government that attempted to survey all households … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / April 27, 2014 / Residents of the 20-km hot zone around the meltdown-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant have been allowed to stay overnight at their homes after progress with decontamination. Previously, the residents from the village of Kawauchi Village, Fukushima Prefecture (pictured), were allowed to spend only the day inside the evacuation zone. The change means the residents will be free to spend entire days … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / April 21, 2014 / Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba, a town near the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant, is warning his country that radiation contamination is affecting Japan’s greatest treasure – its children. Asked about government plans to relocate the people of Futaba to the city of Iwaki, inside the Fukushima prefecture, Idogawa criticized the move as a “violation of human rights.” Compared with Chernobyl, radiation levels … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Shinichi Sekine and Miki Aoki / Asahi Shimbun / April 16, 2014 / The Japanese government withheld findings on estimated radiation exposure for Fukushima returnees for six months, even though levels exceeded the long-term target of 1 millisievert a year at more than half of surveyed locations. Individual radiation doses were estimated to be beyond 1 millisievert per year, or 0.23 microsievert an hour, at 24 of all the … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Patrick J. Kiger / National Geographic / April 2, 2014 / For the first time since Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power disaster three years ago, residents of a small portion of the surrounding restricted area are being allowed to return home, even though radiation levels remain elevated At midnight on March 31, the Japanese government officially lifted an evacuation order for a portion of the Miyakoji district of Tamura, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Zero Hedge / March 31, 2014 / As reported last night, Japan’s economy may once again be relapsing into a slowing phase, perversely well in advance of the dreaded sales-tax hike which many expect will catalyze Japan’s collapse into another recession as happened the last time Japan had a tax hike, but that doesn’t mean its population should be prevented from enjoying the heavily energized local atmosphere buzzing with … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Graham Land / Asian Correspondent / March 11, 2014 / Three years on and the extent of the environmental, human and economic repercussions of the Fukushima incident continue to reveal themselves. Fukushima “fallout” is both literal in terms of radioactive materials, and figurative on a global scale. The politics and opinions around the nuclear issue are far from settled. In Japan anti-nuclear sentiment runs high, with protesters recently marking … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia greenpeace.org / It is now three years since the Fukushima nuclear disaster began in March 2011. Here are the stories of five of the victims who have struggled over these three long years to rebuild their lives. Like tens of thousands forced to flee the second biggest release of radioactive particles in history, they have been ignored and abandoned by their government and TEPCO, owner of the disaster site. … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Matthew Carney / ABC.net.au / March 11, 2014 / A nuclear industry insider has told the ABC that the situation at the stricken Fukushima reactor is still not under control, three years after the disaster there. Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe has announced he wants 30,000 residents to return to their homes and the reactors to be switched back on within two years. But a Fukushima insider and two … Continue reading →
Continue readingJapan Times / March 1, 2014 / Hundreds rallied Saturday in Tokyo to protest a decision by prosecutors to drop charges over the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns, meaning no one has been indicted, let alone punished, nearly three years after a calamity ruled “man-made.” Official records do not list anyone as having died as a direct result of radioactive fallout after tsunami unleashed by the 9.0-magnitude quake of March 11, 2011, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Voice of Russia / January 13, 2014 / A number of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) employees, the operator of the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima nuclear plant, accuse the company of demanding their families to return the compensation money for their evacuation during the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011. One particular employee’s family has received a letter from TEPCO, demanding that they return the 30 million … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Reuters / November 11, 2013 / 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 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia EX-SKF / Sep 23, 2013 / As Japan celebrates “recovery” (at least in the stock market), 2020 Tokyo Olympic, maglev bullet train that will run under Japan Alps, there are still 100 people from Futaba-machi, Fukushima still living in the abandoned high school building in Saitama Prefecture, more than two and a half years after the earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear accident struck Tohoku and Kanto. Time has … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / Sep 11, 2013 / More than 215,000 people are still living away from home in 3 Japanese prefectures 2-and-a-half years after the March 11 disaster. On this day 30 months ago, a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan. The National Police Agency says 15,883 people are confirmed to have died in the disaster and 2,654 remain unaccounted for. The Reconstruction Agency says 2,688 people fell … Continue reading →
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