Japan Press Weekly

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2015 July 8 - 14 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Mayor of nuclear-disaster-hit town criticizes gov’t for ignoring reality of Fukushima

Akahata on July 11 ran an interview with Baba Tamotsu, mayor of Fukushima’s Namie Town, regarding the government’s plan to lift an evacuation order on municipalities hit by the 2011 nuclear meltdown and stop payments of compensation to the victims.

Since the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant four years ago, all residents of Namie Town have been forced to live as disaster evacuees. The town, located about 10 km away from the crippled plant, is deserted due to the state evacuation order. The Abe Cabinet in mid-June approved a plan to lift the evacuation order on most of the town area and allow Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Fukushma NPP’s operator, to discontinue paying compensation to residents who were evacuated from the area.

Following is an excerpt of the mayor’s interview:

In 2013, the Namie town government and the national government agreed to conditions for cancelling the current evacuation order, including obtaining local consent before the cancellation; cancelling the evacuation order after the rebuilding of social infrastructures such as medical and nursing care facilities and transportation; reducing radiation levels sufficiently to avoid health hazards to the townspeople, especially children; and giving residents continuous entitlement to government support measures and TEPCO’s payment of compensation after the cancellation.

Even among the nuclear disaster-affected municipalities in Fukushima, the extent of damage and the progress of recovery vary widely. In Namie, government-led radiation decontamination projects are far behind schedule. The central government should pay more attention to the reality at Namie. The government tells us that we can go back to Namie, in fact, we cannot go home as essential infrastructure has yet to be rebuilt.

The nuclear disaster deprived the Namie residents of their normal everyday lives, jobs, local communities, and family ties. The number of disaster-related deaths in Namie has reached 363. Nuclear accidents cause damage different from natural disasters. The hardships associated with the Fukushima nuclear disaster should not be forgotten.