It was an email from an old friend that led me to the irradiated sunflower fields of Fukushima. I had not heard from Reiko-san since 2003, when I left my post as the Guardian's Tokyo correspondent. Before that, the magazine editor had been the source of many astute comments about social trends in Japan. In April, she contacted me out of the blue. I was pleased at first, then worried.
Reiko's message began in traditional Japanese style with a reference to the season and her state of mind. The eloquence was typical. The tone unusually disturbing: "It is spring time now in Tokyo and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. In my small terrace garden, the plants – tulips, roses and strawberries – are telling me that a new season has arrived. But somehow, they make me sad because I know that they are not the same as last year. They are all contaminated."
Reiko went on to describe how everything had changed in the wake of the nuclear accident in Fukushima the previous month. Daily life felt like science fiction. She always wore a mask and carried an umbrella to protect against black rain. Every conversation was about the state of the reactors. In the supermarket, where she used to shop for fresh produce, she now looked for cooked food – "the older, the safer now". She expressed fears for her son, anger at the government and deep distrust of the reassuring voices she was hearing in the traditional media. "We are misinformed. We are misinformed," she repeated. "Our problem is in society. We have to fight against it. And it seems as hard as the fight against those reactors."
She urged me to return and report on the story. Five months on, that is what I have tried to do. Driving around Fukushima's contaminated cities, Iwate's devastated coastlines and talking to evacuees in Tokyo, I've rarely felt such responsibility in writing a story. Reiko and other Japanese friends seemed to be looking not only for coverage, but for an outsider's judgment on the big question weighing on their minds: is Japan still a safe country?
The magnitude 9 earthquake that struck Japan on 11 March was one of the five most powerful shocks recorded; so powerful that it lowered the coastline by a metre and nudged Japan two metres closer to the United States. It was followed by a devastating tsunami – which rose to a peak of 40m – and accounted for most of the destruction. These two natural catastrophes left 20,000 people dead or missing and 125,000 buildings destroyed. They triggered a third disaster – the multiple meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that have together released more radiation than any accident since Chernobyl. Such was the magnitude of the catastrophe that Emperor Akihito delivered a televised address to his people. The almost archaically formal speech was so rare that it was compared to the historic radio broadcast by his father, Hirohito, that announced Japan's surrender after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 – and prompted an era of national reform and rebuilding. Six months on, the emergency is over. But another disaster is becoming apparent: a psychological crisis of doubt and depression that could prove more destabilising than anything that came before.
The streets are clear of debris, reconstruction is under way and evacuees are moving out of shelters. But millions of people are having to readjust to levels of ionising radiation that were – until March – considered abnormal. This is not a one-off freak event, it is a shift in day-to-day life that changes the meaning of "ordinary". But quite how is hard to determine. Low-level radiation is an invisible threat that breaks DNA strands with results that do not become apparent for years or decades. Though the vast majority of people remain completely unaffected throughout their lives, others develop cancer. Not knowing who will be affected and when is deeply unsettling.
This has happened before, of course. Twenty years after the 1986 reactor explosion in Chernobyl, the World Health Organisation said psychological distress was the largest public health problem unleashed by the accident: "Populations in the affected areas exhibit strongly negative attitudes in self-assessments of health and wellbeing and a strong sense of lack of control over their own lives. Associated with these perceptions is an exaggerated sense of the dangers to health of exposure to radiation." Russian doctors have said survivors were "poisoned by information". But in Japan, it would be more accurate to say that people are contaminated by uncertainty.
On my first morning in Fukushima, I was shaken awake by a magnitude 6 earthquake, one of the many hefty aftershocks that have wobbled eastern Japan since March. But that is not what plays most on the mind. Japan's population is accustomed to physical instability. This is, after all, the most seismically active nation on earth. For centuries, the nation's culture has been infused by a spirit of "mujo", or impermanence. It is at the core of the nation's identity and – until now – its resilience.
But this disaster is different. In a country long famous for safety, hygiene and raw food, millions of people are now being asked to accept a small but persistently higher health risk, long-term contamination of their homes, gardens, streets and schools; and food that is now deemed safer if it is prepackaged and from as far away from Fukushima as possible.
In other countries, people might want to put more distance between themselves and the source of the radiation, but this is difficult on a crowded archipelago with a rigid job market. Thousands have fled nonetheless, but most people in the disaster area will have to stay and adjust. Doing so would be easier if there were clear guidance from scientists and politicians, but here, too, contemporary Japan seems particularly vulnerable. The country has just got its seventh prime minister in five years. Academia and the media have been tainted by the powerful influence of the nuclear industry. As a result, a notoriously conformist nation is suddenly unsure what to conform to.
"Individuals are being forced to make decisions about what is safe to eat and where is safe to live, because the government is not telling them – Japanese people are not good at that," says Satoshi Takahashi, one of Japan's leading clinical psychologists. He predicts the mental fallout of the Fukushima meltdown will be worse than the physical impact.
Unlike an earthquake, he says, the survivors do not suffer post-traumatic stress symptoms of insomnia, shaking and flashbacks. Instead, the radiation "creates a slow, creeping, invisible pressure" that can lead to prolonged depression. "Some people say they want to die. Others become more dependent on alcohol. Many more complain of listlessness."
Sachiko Masuyama has suffered many of these symptoms as she has been forced to make life-or-death decisions for herself and her unborn baby. On 9 March, she found out she was expecting her third child. Two days later, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant – only 25km from her home – was jolted into meltdown. And since then her life has been turned upside down, first by a desperate escape from the disaster zone, then by a growing worry about the effects of the radiation on the foetus growing inside her.
Each time she goes to the hospital for a checkup, she is filled with anxiety that the ultrasound might reveal a deformity, so she counts and recounts the fingers and toes. The doctors have reassured her there is no sign of abnormality, but they won't know for sure until the birth in November – and perhaps not for years later. For Masuyama, the worry has become so all-consuming that she has considered abortion and suicide.
"For the first two months after the disaster, I was focused only on survival," the 29-year-old tells me in a Tokyo restaurant, "but since then I have had time to think and that has made me very depressed. I have been so worried that I stopped eating. I wanted to die."
There is nobody nearby to confide in. Her friends are scattered across refuge centres in Japan. Her husband – who chose to remain with his parents in Fukushima – wants her to return because the government and the power company say it is safe. But they have withheld so much information since the disaster that she no longer trusts them.
"When I watch the documentaries about Chernobyl, it is horrifying, but I have decided to give birth," she tells me. "I have three children: one inside me and two outside. I wouldn't kill my son and daughter because they were exposed, so how could I kill my unborn child?"
She'd like to return to her former life, but her home, Minami Soma, is in the midst of a major decontamination operation: the streets are being cleaned, every surface sprayed. Instead, she's chosen to remain in Tokyo, where she feels lonely but safe. The decision has not been easy. "I don't like it, but I have to choose. We Japanese like to follow each other, but this time it doesn't seem right."
Did she need to leave? Travel around Fukushima today and there is little evidence of disaster or trauma. In the cities, the streets throng with smart suited salarymen and office ladies. In the countryside, the paddy fields are heavy with rice. Watch the bullet train speed through a frame of distant mountains and sharp blue skies and this seems to be postcard-perfect Japan.
But look more closely and you will see that many families now own Geiger counters or dosimeters to check their exposure. DVD chain stores have started to rent them along with the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Inside hundreds of school playgrounds, bulldozers are scraping off the top 50cm of dirt to reduce contamination from the soil. Local newspapers and TV bulletins carry daily radiation updates with a breakdown for every neighbourhood.
Each day for most of the past six months, there has been a steady drip, drip, drip of worrying news: cesium found in the breast milk of seven mothers; strontium discovered inside the city limits; 45% of children in one survey testing positive for thyroid exposure. There are reports of suicides by desperate farmers and lonely evacuees, contaminated beef smuggled on to the market, and warnings that this autumn's rice crop may have to be abandoned.
At the Koriyama Big Pallette – a conference centre-turned-refugee shelter – in southern Fukushima, most people have moved into temporary shelters. The few that remain benefit from ample provisions, friendly volunteers and cardboard-and-curtain partitions designed by the world-famous architect, Shigeru Ban. But an electronic display inside the corridors shows a reading of 0.1 microsieverts – equivalent to one chest x-ray – per hour (becquerels, the quantitative measure of radiation, are converted to sieverts to offer a qualitative indicator of the impact on the body). The question of whether it will return to normal prompts a sigh from volunteer Michio Terashima. "Normal no longer means what it did. The nuclear disaster didn't turn out to be the cataclysm we feared at first and many things are getting better, but they will never be the same again."
But there's also an effort to decontaminate and lift spirits. Fukushima is distributing 20m sunflower seeds to suck up the cesium radionuclides that have permeated the soil. The towering yellow flowers now adorn gardens, farm fields and roadside plots. Although they brighten the landscape, their stalks and petals concentrate the radioactivity and will later have to be burned or left to decompose in a controlled environment.
The sunflowers are the brainchild of Kouyuu Abe, a Zen monk who owns a temple just outside Fukushima city and is committed to the "fight against radiation". He allows people to dump the irradiated soil from their gardens on the hillside behind his temple, where it will be buried and covered with zeolite. He is also planning to decontaminate the forests with high pressure sprays so the leaves are less of a hazard when they fall in the autumn.
His greatest concern is the mental wellbeing of his followers. "There is a lot of information but huge uncertainty. That makes everyone uneasy. The politicians, bureaucrats and academics cannot agree on anything, so how can people feel reassured? We need positive action, but we don't know what to believe."
Many locals are farmers, who are despairing about their contaminated soil. "Young people are leaving. In the past six months, there has been an increase in suicides. There will be more. If you don't give people hope, they lose their reason for living."
Adding to the problem is a trust deficit. Ministers have admitted holding back vital information in order to prevent a panic. Government spokesmen initially denied there was a meltdown and said the plant's problems posed "no immediate risk" to human health. Safety authorities ranked the accident as a mere four on the international scale of nuclear accidents. Not until a month later did it upgrade this to a maximum seven – like Chernobyl. The full details of what happened to the nuclear reactor are still emerging and far from complete.
The day after the earthquake, there was an explosion in the No 1 reactor building. Two days later, the No 3 reactor building blew its top. The following morning there were blasts at reactors two and four. These explosions released a plume of radiation, but the government withheld projections of its size and how it spread up and down the coast and inland to Fukushima city, Koriyama and Tokyo.
Nuclear and emergency workers were also in the dark. I drive to Iwaki, a coastal city south of the power plant, to interview one of the men involved in the clear-up operation. T-san was evacuated from Fukushima Daiichi plant after the earthquake struck and returned almost two weeks later to join the containment operation.
"They didn't tell us anything," says T-san, who has asked to remain anonymous. "Nobody mentioned a meltdown. We didn't get any critical accident training or instructions. But we all knew the situation was very bad. I thought this might be my final mission. I know it sounds a little silly, but I felt like a kamikaze who was prepared to sacrifice everything for my family and my country."
Since March, he estimates he has been exposed to 50 millisieverts of radiation. Under the government's previous guidelines, this was the maximum allowed for an entire year.
He is not alone. By Tokyo Electric's own figures, 410 workers have, like T-san, been exposed to more than 50 millisieverts since the disaster. Another six have received a dose above 250. But in an emergency move, that became legal in March, the government has increased the permissible dose for nuclear workers from 100 to 250 millisieverts.
"They changed it so suddenly and dramatically that we didn't know what was dangerous, what was safe," T-san says. "We were confused. Had the government been too strict before, or was it suddenly being too lax? We didn't know what to believe."
It is a common refrain. Since March, the government has relaxed radiation targets for food, nuclear workers, school playgrounds and discharges into the sea. What was considered dangerous a year ago is now deemed safe and legal. Close to 2 million people in Fukushima are living in areas where the annual radiation dose exceeds the one millisievert per year safety target set by the government for the general population. Even in downtown Tokyo – 240km from the reactor – levels have risen close to the point where they would have to be marked with a "Radiation Hazard" warning if they were found in a workplace.
According to the WHO, the average background radiation people are exposed to worldwide is 2.4 millisieverts per year. A single chest x-ray adds 0.1 microsieverts, a six-hour transatlantic flight 0.5 and a whole-body CT scan 12 microsieverts. However, in these cases, the radiation is predictable, external and relatively easy to deal with. The fallout from Fukushima was far messier and likely to enter human bodies, where radiation does more damage.
After the explosions, the radionuclides scattered like the debris from a firework display, according to wind direction and the weight of the particles. Each has a different impact on the body. First and farthest to spread was gas-light iodine 131, which tends to accumulate in the thyroid gland – it was quickly detected as far away as Tokyo. Next came particles of cesium 134 and 137, which affects the bladder and liver with a half-life of about 30 years – this contaminated the soil, water and trees of most of Fukushima as well as chunks of Miyagi, Chiba and Tokyo and remains the biggest problem. Strontium, which tends to accumulate in the bones and cause leukaemia, is heavier and spread less widely, but it has been found in 64 locations, including Fukushima city. The heaviest radionuclide, plutonium – with a half-life of tens of thousands of years – has been detected in small quantities inside the plant perimeter and may have been leaked or discharged into the Pacific Ocean along with more than 10,000 tonnes of heavily contaminated water.
The overall radiation release from the plant is staggering – 770,000 terabecquerels in the wake of the accident and a billion becquerels still being added each day while engineers struggle to seal the broken containment structure. Most of the iodine – with its eight-day half-life – has since decayed and the cesium and other radionuclides have been diluted and dissipated. But much has seeped into the soil, contaminated the leaves in the forests and is being passed through the food chain to cattle, fish, vegetables – and humans. As more details become apparent, people in Fukushima are trying to work out what dose they have received. They look back at where they were on the peak day of 15 March and calculate how long they were outside, whether it was snowing and what they were wearing. Then they consider what they have eaten and drunk since and whether it was from a safe source.
There is not much they can do about it. Full-body scans – promised by the government – will take time. Checking the radiation in every item of food is almost impossible, but one group is trying to help out. The Citizen's Radiation Monitoring Station in Fukushima – which has been set up by the journalist Ryuichi Hirokawa – offers free grocery checks. It is a slow process. Each item must be peeled, ground or grated, bagged and then placed in an LB 200 Becquerel Monitor for 20 minutes.
Akiko Sakuma drove from two hours away to test the potatoes in her allotment. "It's terrifying. I think about the radiation every day," she says and shows me a notebook in which she meticulously records the doses to which she is exposed. When it snowed after the explosion on 15 March, the level was over 100 microsieverts per hour – equivalent to 1,000 x-rays. She said she suffered headaches and nosebleeds. "I want to run away to Tokyo, but there is no work. I could never understand why people in Chernobyl didn't flee, but now I'm in the same situation."
Yet it is also not hard to find people who are fatalistic. Several tell me there is a greater risk from stress and upheaval than from the radiation. The divergence of opinion has led to divisions among families, generations and communities. "Should I stay or should I go?" is a question that weighs heavy on countless minds. It is why hotels in north-eastern Japan are struggling to attract tourists. It explains the rash of postponed visits by foreign dignitaries to Tokyo. And it is a particular worry for those whose DNA is most vulnerable to change: expectant mothers and young children.
Among them is Mari Ishimori, another pregnant evacuee in Tokyo, who is struggling to balance health concerns for her unborn baby and pressure from her in-laws to return to her husband in Fukushima. It is a conservative rural area, but many wives, she said, are now arguing with their husbands.
As soon as she heard about the accident at the plant, she fled. "I love my husband, but I will never return to Fukushima," she says over a coffee. "I want my child to have a normal childhood. But if we are in Fukushima, I will have to say, 'You can't touch the ground or touch the leaves or go in the river.' I want my child to grow up without worrying about that, just as I did. That's hard. I'm not sure if my husband and I will live together again."
Ishimori has more reason than most to fear radiation. She grew up in Hiroshima, the city that was the target of the world's first atomic bombing. During her childhood, her grandmother and great-grandfather recounted the horrors of the US attack and the fallout that followed. She has seen the prejudice suffered by "hibakusha" – nuclear survivors – whose children are sometimes treated as though they bear the contamination in their genes. The discrimination is well documented. Some are refused employment. Others are rejected as marriage partners because of medically unproven fears that their offspring may be born with deformities. But the hibakusha are also revered as survivors and repositories of knowledge about the very real risks or radiation. After the disaster, they were among the first to demand a greater sense of crisis even as the government was offering soothingly ambiguous words about there being "no immediate health impact".
Due to give birth next month, Ishimori is now alone. She avoids eating fish, meat or eggs, and is deeply sceptical about official safety assurances. "I don't trust anything they say. Tokyo Electric and the government have told us so many lies."
Behind much of the anxiety and suspicion is a lack of clear guidance about the health risks. But the fact is that no one is capable of setting a totally safe level of radiation. Masao Tomonaga, the director of Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Disease Hospital, has been studying the effects of radiation for 40 years. Based on the survivors of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he has proven that for every rise above 100 millisieverts of radiation exposure, there is a corresponding increase in the likelihood of cancer. It is assumed the same linear pattern applies at lower levels, but the change is too small to measure with accuracy.
"We cannot give people data to prove that five millisieverts is very safe or 10 is very safe. There is no clear evidence," Tomonaga says. "With the atomic bombs, the survivors received a massive dose of radiation over their entire bodies in a short space of time. In Fukushima, people are getting a very small dose every day. This is an important difference."
Chernobyl offers a closer comparison. The accident in the former Soviet Union left 134 cleanup workers with acute radiation sickness. Twenty-eight died within a year. Millions more were exposed to lower doses and a wide area of Belarus and northern Europe was contaminated. In a follow-up study 20 years later, the WHO concluded the accident caused an additional 4,000 cancer deaths – about 4% higher than the normal rate – among the 626,000 most highly exposed people. For those exposed to lower levels of radiation, it estimated that cancer fatalities would rise by about 0.6%. The organisation also noted Russian studies showing increased risk of heart disease and cataracts, but it found no evidence of an impact on fertility, miscarriages or birth defects.
Given that Fukushima has released a tenth of the radiation of Chernobyl and taken greater steps to prevent contamination through milk, this would suggest Japan must brace for hundreds – rather than thousands – of extra cancer cases and births may not be as much of a problem as many believe.
That ought to ease the minds of expectant mothers like Masuyama and Ishimori, but they – like many in Japan – are sceptical of official reassurances. They are aware of alternative studies of Chernobyl, which suggest the number of extra cancer cases caused could be 30,000 to 900,000. They know, too, that population densities in Japan are 10 times higher than in Belarus. There are suspicions that politicians put economic cost above public health when they withheld projections about the spread of radiation. In Namie – the worst-affected area outside the exclusion zone with readings 200 times the permissible level – locals have described this as "murder". There is also a growing awareness of the influence of the nuclear industry, particularly Tokyo Electric, which is one of the country's biggest advertisers, campaign donors and science graduate employers.
Watching the obfuscation by Tokyo Electric and the slow response of the government, some people have become depressed. Others have been radicalised.
Ryuichi Hirokawa, a photojournalist, covered Chernobyl and was one of the first reporters independently to measure radiation near the Fukushima nuclear plant after this year's accident. He believes the industry is once again in the process of a cover-up because the investigation into the health impacts of the disaster is being led by academics who, he says, have long served as cheerleaders for the power companies.
"These are the same people who initially said there was no impact from the Chernobyl accident," the veteran reporter tells me in his Tokyo office. "They treat people like guinea pigs. They collect information, but they don't share it with the individuals. There will be no results and no treatment."
To counter this threat, he's raised money to buy advanced monitoring devices – including ¥3.5m (£28,000) whole-body monitoring devices – that are being used for free at the citizen centres. "I am worried about the government's health survey," he says. "That is why I have provided these machines. They want as few people to be recognised as radiation victims as possible. We have to fight that with information. That way we can ensure people are better aware of the risks and they can get the medical treatment they need."
Some see this new questioning of authority as a chance to shift industrial and political baselines for the better. Tetsunari Iida is a former nuclear engineer who has been advocating a shift towards solar, wind and geothermal for more than a decade. His Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies was marginalised until 11 March, but after the meltdown, Iida's call for nuclear power to be phased out has gained traction. Opinion polls suggest 70% of the public support the idea.
Iida is now working with Masayoshi Sun – the founder of SoftBank and one of the country's most respected entrepreneurs – to generate more funds for clean energy. This week they will launch the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation in which Sun has promised to invest a billion yen. Businessmen, politicians and celebrities are more critical of the nuclear industry, which would once have been career suicide, and the country's top news programme has stopped taking sponsorship from the power company.
The shift has been noted in Nagatacho, Tokyo's political heartland. After Chernobyl, the Soviet edifice collapsed within five years. The main parties are calculating how far they must change to avoid a similar fate. Former prime minister Naoto Kan called for an end to the use of nuclear power in Japan – and promptly lost his job. His replacement, Yoshihiko Noda, is far more cautious, suggesting the momentum for change is slowing. Even the Liberal Democratic party – which gets much of its funds from the industry – is promising to reduce the country's reliance on this energy source. But for anyone to do that, they will first have to regain public confidence.
I meet the politician charged with rebuilding the disaster area – reconstruction minister Tatsuo Hirano – and ask what needs to be done to restore trust.
"Until now, we have tried to help people who have been directly impacted by the disaster," he says, "but we must also help those who are having to live for the first time with radiation." The government has earmarked ¥23 trillion (£181bn) for reconstruction over the next 10 years, but it has yet to calculate the cost of the radiation clear-up. That is partly because the full extent remains unknown.
To relieve public anxiety, Hirano – who is from the disaster area – says the government must find out whether it was the earthquake or the tsunami that destroyed the reactor's cooling systems and clear up other remaining mysteries. It has launched a detailed study of the radiation inside the 20km exclusion zone, a long-term programme of health checks for Fukushima residents, and established an expert panel to set definitive radiation standards. A food safety commission recently proposed a new lifetime maximum radiation dose for Japanese citizens of 100 millisieverts, excluding natural background and medical radiation.
Ultimately, he would like to see a restructuring of the power industry, including the steady phasing out of Japan's 54 reactors, starting with the oldest first. The nuclear industry is certain to put up a fight, but Hirano predicts voters will insist on change. "In the next election, politicians will not be elected if they support nuclear expansion in exchange for personal benefit."
But does Japan have the dynamism to denuclearise, decontaminate and regain confidence? The country has bounced back in the past, but this time it has a shrinking, ageing population, an economy in the doldrums and a putrid political system. A new start will be difficult, but some are already making a move.
On my final day in Fukushima, I wake up at 5am on a drizzly morning to see off Masami Takano, who is leaving his home of 30 years and his job as a chef.
He wants to leave early as he has a 10-hour drive to Shiga, a mountainous prefecture on the other side of the country, where he plans to make a new life far from the radiation leak. As his mother sobs, he packs his Honda with boxes of clothes, the noodle-making equipment he will use to find a job and a few Lady Gaga CDs for the journey.
He has already bid farewell to his friends: "I told them straight: 'I'm worried about radiation so I'm running away.' Some of them disagree. I understand, it's difficult to leave – I have been here almost all my life – but it's not safe here."
The government, meanwhile, is urging evacuees to return. Officials insists the area is safe. Radiation levels have fallen in the past two months from 1.2 to 0.7 microsieverts per hour. But there is still concern about food and Takano is taking no chances. "Moving will be stressful, but at least I won't have to wear a mask or fear that I am being exposed to more radiation every day."
Over a final cup of coffee, he watches the morning news. The top story reveals that radiation inside the nuclear plant is still at a lethal level of 10 sieverts per hour. This is followed by an item on a nuclear cover-up by Kyushu Electric.
"Nowhere is completely safe," Takano says. "Japan is not a big country, but we have so many reactors. There is a power plant near my new home. I want to tell the local people what a risk they are taking," he says. "My internal organs have been irradiated. That will continue to affect me for many years. So even after I move, the worry won't completely go."
It is time to leave. He gets into the car and, as his mother and their elderly neighbour Sato-san look on, he motors down the narrow driveway, past the cracks caused by the earthquake. As the car turns out of view, his mother is red-eyed and speechless. Sato-san seems unsure what to say.
"He's gone," she starts, then changes the subject to her garden. "Look at these sunflowers. I planted them to soak up the cesium. I can't believe how big they have grown."
Before publication, I sent Reiko a draft of this article. Her reply was polite, but I felt she was disappointed. "Maybe you can find the answer. Maybe it is too much to ask. If so, just forget it. Even though I am much louder than other Japanese, I feel I am lost. My life here requires me to be normalised, to behave like we used to. I have to work, I have to eat. After five months of struggling, I am getting tired of worrying. It is much easier to give up pursuing reality. What bothers me most is being torn in this conflicting situation with no answer, every moment."
I sympathise immensely but regret that I cannot offer the comfort of clarity. The nuclear disaster has been terrifying, but not as expected. If someone had told me a year ago that three reactors would melt down simultaneously, I would have assumed an apocalypse. Yet Japan today is not like any doomsday I imagined. Instead, there is a kind of slow decay. After three visits to Fukushima, I am less afraid of radiation than I was a year ago but more worried about Japan.
Comments in chronological order (Total 94 comments)
10 September 2011 12:18AM
Nice article.
10 September 2011 12:38AM
Seriously good article on a country I have deep affection for.
10 September 2011 1:10AM
Great article. I live near Tokyo and I've been waiting for something like this from the foreign media for ages. People here don't trust what the local media or officials say, and with good reason. However, the result is that rumour, paranoia and conspiracy theory have a field day.
Based on the wide reading I did after the disaster, I'm reasonably confident that the risk from radiation in the Kanto is very low - I suspect Reiko-san's biggest danger is simply worrying too much. But I also know that the data on prolonged exposure to low doses of radiation is sketchy and that we all have to make the decision for ourselves.
10 September 2011 1:24AM
And therein lie most of the problems. The people don't think for themselves because Japan was set up like a machine. The idea of an electorate with real oversight just never emerged and technocratic corporatism is entrenched. I see no hope.
10 September 2011 1:40AM
Excellent article... finally we have some comprehensive news on how people's lives are being effected by this disaster. My heart goes out to the Japanese people. They really are the most obedient culture around, it's tragic how their government is deceiving them about the dangers. For God's sake shut down every single one of those reactors! It's a crime against humanity to have built them in the first place let alone to keep them going! Earth changes are here, I anticipate further changes in the future... the writing's on the wall!
10 September 2011 1:45AM
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10 September 2011 1:53AM
Good article but you need to get your radiation units right. A chest x-ray is about 0.1mSv. A radiation level of 0.1µSv/h is equivalent to 9 chest x-rays per year not 1 per hour
10 September 2011 2:06AM
Congratulations Jonathan, this is the best article I've yet read about the aftermath of Fukushima.
10 September 2011 2:18AM
Absolutely superb article.
Do you just pretend to know what you're talking about?
10 September 2011 2:25AM
Yeah. ABOUT FUCKING TIME. It took you SIX months to pick this up again? FFS.
10 September 2011 2:59AM
On a recent visit to Fukushima and Miyagi, I noticed some of the same things that Jonathan Watts noticed, for example the sunflowers everywhere but no answer to my question what was to be done with the stalks in the Fall.
I also saw many repercussions that have nothing to do with the physical destruction or at least not only with that destruction. Take kids as an example:
- friends/relatives/family lost
- parents probably lost cars, house, livelihood
- initial stay in evacuation centre not exactly uplifting
- now in temp housing that is often far-removed from friends and public transport, but parents without cars as compensation/aid is only trickling
- schools reduced to 30% enrollment
- can't play outside because of radiation.
These conditions are likely to last for 1-3 years and will certainly mark this generation of children.
Well written, Mr. Watts, and great reporting!
10 September 2011 3:09AM
This is a good article, thank you. I'm another Kanagawa Mancunian (which is a bit spooky), and I have a daughter in kindergarten here. We've seen a lot of people get very worried about radiation and move out of Tokyo, but most of them have now come back. My daughter's kindergarten is doing it's own monitoring here in Kawasaki, and constantly getting the result that there are no problems. It also has an active policy of taking children who have evacuated to this area from Fukushima, so the prejudice against people affected by radiation is not universal.
We visited Aizu Wakamatsu and Inawashiro, in western Fukushima, a couple of months ago, in western Fukushima, and there were a lot of evacuees in the ryokan where we stayed. Talking to the taxi drivers, the biggest problem for the evacuees was the lack of anything to do. That region does not have a strong economy in the first place, so there are no jobs for the evacuees. That's why a lot of them are not moving out of the evacuation centres into private accommodation: the government provides food and such to the evacuation centres, but not to the temporary accommodation. The people evacuated to hotels have nice places to stay, and apparently the first couple of weeks were fine for everyone, but after six months... (We were on holiday.)
I'm more optimistic about the future of Japan than Mr Watts, possibly because I spend most of my time talking to people who were not directly affected by the disaster (at least not seriously). That would be my only criticism of the article, actually: it's not a picture of Japan, it's a picture of the people most directly affected by the nuclear disaster, but it would be easy for people outside the country to think that everyone and everywhere is like that. (This is a minor criticism, obviously; Mr Watts couldn't realistically interview everyone.)
I think the country will manage to pull together and get through, and as direct evidence I would point to the fact that there were no blackouts this summer. Everyone did cut their electricity consumption by 15%, so the supply always, if sometimes only barely, exceeded demand. This is exactly the sort of cooperation that's supposed to be the most difficult: it requires real sacrifices from individuals (anyone who's been in a Tokyo summer will understand), one individual's actions make no real difference to the total, and there's no practical way of catching individual defectors. Nevertheless, people did cooperate.
I do think Japan will go non-nuclear, though. Local communities that had been accepting money from the central government to prepare for new power plants have recently (last week) started refusing it. I can't see any new build happening in the next couple of decades, by which time the country will have had to sort out how to live without nuclear power. There's a real chance that Japan will be effectively non-nuclear by next May: if I recall correctly, that's when the last currently-operating plant is due to shut down for a regular service. No plant has been restarted since March, and it's not clear whether that will start happening, in the face of local opposition.
As to whether it will shake up Japanese politics: we can but hope.
Once again, a very good article. Thank you.
10 September 2011 3:37AM
It is good journalism to let the voice of those concerned to be heard. It is sad what is happening in the affected region. All help to those affected! I overall thought the article was OK...
However, some points of the article are misleading, even counterproductive if the rest of the world should support Japan... Quote: "Even in downtown Tokyo – 240km from the reactor – levels have risen close to the point where they would have to be marked with a "Radiation Hazard" warning if they were found in a workplace." - end Quote....This is sensionalism! What levels are the journalist refering to? The air levels (around 0,1 uSv/h or mostly less) which are about two times LOWER than the one in London (not even speaking of Cornwall), or is he refering to waste treatment facilities, where due to concentration in sludge, level MAY be higher -sure... or potential contamination in beef; where EU levels for wild meat, berries, mushrooms (after Chernobyl) is set at 1500 Bq/kg, compared to the 500 Bq/kg level of Japan.... Unfortunaly, this and a few other out-of-substance comments, I think do not serve the purpose of the article well..
10 September 2011 3:59AM
The new PM "graduated" from the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, set up by the founder of Panasonic with the aim to "nurture leaders who can promote new styles of managing the nation.". It really amounts to a technocratic corporatist madrassa. Even the idea of "nurturing leaders who can promote new styles of managing the nation," has a certain technocratic and corporatist ring to it. "Managing"? Not inspiring the nation, or having visions for the nation or even changing the nation. It is as if the goals and methods are already decided and these "leaders" only have to tweak the knobs or apply a smooth polish. The exporters like Toyota and Panasonic themselves will hollow out the country one way or another by demanding more taxpayer handouts - which the country cannot afford - by threatening to move production overseas. They had first priority for so long they will not give it up and the people be damned. But the people have been taught to believe that their interests and Toyota's are the same. It is like GM and Americans in the 1950s and where did that lead? But at least America had a 1960s. Japan never did.
10 September 2011 4:06AM
Minor point I just noticed: It's normally Masayoshi Son, not Sun.
10 September 2011 5:07AM
The way the world's media - including the BBC and the Guardian, both of whom should know better - covered the tsunami and its aftermath continues to be utterly shameful and one of the most obscene failures in the history of journalism. It's also been a great argument for the banning of science reporting by journalists who don't have a science background.
10 September 2011 5:07AM
And Jonathan, reactor one is a melt through, there is a Corium mass sat underneath it, sat on its concrete mat probably eating it away. Plus, storage pool four is still structurally in a precarious state. It is loaded to the gills with fuel rods that should have been taken off site, some near a decade ago.
10 September 2011 5:23AM
The following is from an article in today's Mainichi Shimbun by Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute:
10 September 2011 5:33AM
From another article, also in today's Mainichi Shimbun:
10 September 2011 5:40AM
...And from today's Asahi Shimbun:
10 September 2011 5:49AM
Keeping a sense of perspective is very important. The article reports:
In it's report to the UN General Assembly on the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, UNSCEAR stated that 300,000 "liquidators" received an average dose of nearly 150 millisieverts with some individuals receiving much more.
Using standard risk estimates, the number of excess cases of cancer expected among the Fukishima workers could be counted on one hand. Individual risk of incurring a fatal cancer may be increased by perhaps 1% for those of the above group with the highest dose.
This message should be stated loud and clear so that the workers can get on with their lives without the burden of fear of adverse health consequences that in all likelihood will never happen. There is a very real possibility of fear of radiation doing a lot more harm than the radiation itself.
Exactly the same should apply to the general population. Individual risk is very small and fear may well be the number one public health problem. Efforts to confer a permanent status of victim with all the adverse consequences that implies, on evacuees from Fukushima, are contemptible.
The magnitude of the risk is put into perspective by this paper that compares mortality risk from a major radiation accident to other environmental mortality risk. Air pollution in Tokyo may very well pose a bigger risk than radiation in Fukushima.
Are passive smoking, air pollution and obesity a greater mortality risk than major radiation incidents?
10 September 2011 6:02AM
Sunflowers will only redistribute the radiation and is a joke, if they are burned the radiation will travel further, if they are buried the radiation will end up in ground water. The disaster is getting worse, radiation hot spots are to be found throughout Tokyo and far to the south west. Anyone interested in the latest can listen to Dr. Helen Caldicott interview Arnie Gundersen on rising radiation levels in Japan and government denial, posted on Sept 2 here: http://fairewinds.com/content/arnold-gundersen-fukushima-update-aileen-mioko-smith-rising-radiation-levels-japan-and-gover (It begins with talk on the earthquake near Washington and the shutting down a plant there but soon the discussion goes to the latest on Fukushima).
10 September 2011 7:21AM
Just a very small point, but actually, the Emperor's address was delivered in fairly ordinary, yet polite Japanese, (with some slightly archaic sounding bits). This differs greatly from the incomprehensible Japanese (closer to classical chinese in its literary composition than Japanese itself) that Hirohito used in his speeches. It rather more echoed the Showa emperor's speech more in that it was delivered at all, rather than language used. I believe it had been quite a long time since the Emperor had so much as addressed the people.
10 September 2011 7:31AM
In some ways its just beginning.After appalling neglect of the issues by the UK media,perhaps a longer,radioactivity. attention span can develop
Sea discharges:
More than 15 quadrillion becquerels of radioactivity are estimated to have been released from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the sea between March 21 and April 30, according to a preliminary analysis by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and other institutions.
That is more than three times the initial estimate of marine contamination by the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which said only 4.72 quadrillion becquerels had been leaked. A quadrillion is 1,000 trillion.
Population movements...its not unjustified fear:
According to an Asahi Shimbun survey based on Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications statistics, the number of people who moved out of the Tokyo metropolitan area (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama prefectures) exceeded the number who moved into the area in June and July.
As a result, the total population in the metropolitan area decreased by about 4,000 in the two months. In Tokyo alone, the population dropped by about 6,400.
Actual exposure levels begin to be counted:
Residents from a 30-kilometer radius of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were exposed to up to 50 millisieverts of radiation for two months after the onset of the crisis, according to researchers at Hirosaki University.
When including exposure after they were evacuated, some are expected to have readings of 68 millisieverts a year, or more than three times the figure set by the central government when it ordered the evacuations.
Japanese government's reckless endangerment:
Violation of the Human Rights of the Children of Fukushima
This submission concerns the violation of the human rights of the children of Fukushima
Prefecture, Japan. These children have been continually exposed to radioactive contamination
since 11 March 2011, the start of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, and
urgent measures are needed to reduce this exposure.
Both the Japanese government and Fukushima Prefecture continue to expose people,
including children and pregnant women, to unhealthy radiation levels that can be
prevented by these authorities, thus making this exposed population bear unnecessary
health risks. Both the national and prefectural governments are unwilling to undertake
feasible remedial measures to mitigate this radiation exposure.
Fukushima prefecture has a population of 2,030,463, of which 385,940 persons are
under 20 years of age.1 This paper addresses the human rights and the right to
evacuation (right to relocate) of all non-adults and pregnant women.
http://http://www.foejapan.org/en/news/110819.html
10 September 2011 8:17AM
@SMOGBAD
The population of the Tokyo metropolitan area is approximately 30,000,000. A 4,000 drop in two months is hardly a sign of mass desertion; it's a little over 0.01%.
@alienaberration
Yes, the simple fact that the speech happened at all was the remarkable thing. It was, apparently, distributed to the TV stations along with strict instructions (from the Emperor) that if something urgent happened while it was being broadcast, they were to interrupt it for the warnings and emergency information. It's significant that this didn't go without saying.
10 September 2011 8:51AM
Thank you for writing about this. It must not be swept under the carpet. The human cost is the most important, and often overlooked, thing.
10 September 2011 8:57AM
No nuclear power apologists appearing here today, then? We know it's a cover for producing weapons grade nuclear material and now here is abundant proof of the dangers when it all goes wrong.
Japan has now been nuclear bombed and nuclear disastered. When will we learn the lesson?
10 September 2011 9:22AM
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10 September 2011 9:32AM
This is a very disappointing article that illustrates why so many people have deserted the mainstream press in favour of the alternative media
Amongst the interesting stories this article has overlooked: -
Radioactive hot-spots in Tokyo
The expanding contaminated zone
Contaminated sewage sludge, from sewer connections to Fukushima
Incineration of sewage sludge, spreading airborne radioactivity
Still births
Censorship of news by the Japanese authorities
Nascent plans to move Japanese government from Tokyo to an emergency location
and of course, the big one
They still have not got the reactors under control
Radioactivity is still escaping
There is no plan to bring the situation under control
10 September 2011 9:48AM
This is an excellent article, but there are two small factual errors I noticed, and one point that I consider systematically misleading (though others seem not to).
1. As someone mentioned above, the name of the Softbank/Vodafone entrepreneur is Masayoshi Son, not Sun. Interestingly, he is ethnically Korean, not Japanese, and Son is a Korean name. At one point, Koreans were forced to take a Japanese family (and given) name when taking Japanese citizenship, but this was challenged in court, and is no longer the case - although most who keep (or have reverted to, as is the case of Son, whose Japanese family name, according to Wikipedia, was Yasumoto) a Korean family name still use a Japanese given name.
2. Jonathan Watts refers to the 'Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Disease Hospital' but there's no such place. It is the '(Japan Red Cross) Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Hospital'. The Japanese word for 'Hospital' translates literally as, 'Disease Institution', so maybe there has been a slip of the pen, though I would have thought Jonathan's Japanese is far too good for him to make this mistake.
Although the hospital was originally set up in 1958 for A-bomb victims, it became a general hospital in 1961. In its present location (since 1982), it's a very large general hospital.
The main research on A-Bomb effects was done by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. The Nagasaki University Hospital (Nagasaki had the first western medical institution in Japan, and the University Hospital was destroyed by the A-Bomb) also does a lot of research.
I am sure that the doctors at the A-Bomb Hospital collect data on irradiated people (who are, of course, now mostly dead, as the bomb was 66 years ago), but I don't think this hospital has any special licence to research A-Bomb effects and A-Bomb victims are not obliged to use it. And anyway the effects of the A-Bomb would show up in increased incidence of certain illnesses, not in specific A-Bomb illnesses (the mistaken name in the article gives the impression that there is/are 'Atomic Bomb Disease(s)'. Research can indicate that an increased rate of certain illnesses was likely caused by the bomb, but not that specific individual's illness was so caused.
Both the mistaken version of the hospital's name in this article and the correct name give a misleading impression that there is a hospital in Nagasaki devoted to illnesses caused by the A-Bomb, even 66 years later (many or most Japanese who hear the name also think this). This is not the case. It was only set up thirteen years after the bombing, and was a special hospital for only three years (ending in 1961, perhaps because in the thirteen years since the bombing, bomb victims had made other arrangements, and so it was not financially viable as a specialist institution - just my guess).
3. In posts on other articles, I have taken issue with the lazy use of the becquerel unit. Jonathan's use is better than in other articles, but still gives a misleading impression, in my opinion.
A becquerel is an amount of a radioactive element which leads to one emission of alpha, beta or gamma per second. As a given quantity of the substance decays (i.e. emits radiation) the becquerel count goes down. If the substance has a very long half-life, like plutonium (24,000 years), or even caesium (30 years), then treating the emission rate of a given quantity as constant is fair enough, because the reduction is tiny in relation to the whole. But in this case, much or most (I don't know) of the radiation is iodine, with a half-life of eight days, and the becquerel total Jonathan gives is quite misleading.
Jonathan says that a billion becquerels are added each day, but doesn't make clear whether this is net or gross (but I think he means gross). He punctiliously says the iodine will have mostly decayed away, but doesn't state clearly or directly that this means the number of becquerels in the wider environment will have decreased accordingly, and with it the sievert rate (and I think many non-scientific readers will miss these points).
He doesn't give an estimate of the amount of radioactivity (becquerels) remaining now, or its composition (percentage caesium, plutonium, strontium, iodine and so on), or rate of change. Maybe no-one knows, but it would have been an interesting if there are figures available. And does 'in the wake of the accident' mean immediately after the accident, or the cumulative total up to now?
10 September 2011 9:54AM
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/07/fukushima-cover-up-unravels.html
Fukushima Cover Up Unravels
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/04/04/radiation-study-estimates-200k-cases-cancer-fukushima-nuclear-fallout-13880/
Radiation Study Estimates Over 220,000 Cases Of Cancer From Fukushima Nuclear Fallout
http://nuclear-news.net/2011/07/24/japan-about-to-censor-internet-news-on-nuclear-radiation/
Japan about to censor Internet news on nuclear radiation?
On June 17, 2011 the Japanese Parliament passed “The Computer Network Monitoring Law” ... that ... will enable the police to monitor anyone’s internet activity without restriction.”…
http://enenews.com/huge-spike-in-us-infant-mortality-in-the-four-months-after-chernobyl-video
“Huge spike” in US infant mortality in the four months after Chernobyl vs. Is “dramatic increase” in US baby deaths a result of Fukushima Fallout?
http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-northwest-sees-35-infant-mortality-spike-postfukushima-20110617,0,5968165.story
[Canada] Northwest sees 35% infant mortality spike post-Fukushima
10 September 2011 10:01AM
I detect complete despair and no hope: fertile ground only for evangelists.
10 September 2011 10:35AM
I wouldn't believe any government in the world about radiation levels - all governments, no matter their political perspective treat their citizens like sheep.
You also don't mention that 1,000s of mortgage holders of destroyed houses in Japan cannot cancel their mortgage payments and cannot pay for new accommodation, so they are trapped in poverty for the rest of their lives now.
The government should write off their debts.
10 September 2011 11:44AM
Is it just me, have I missed something, or does it seem like there was concern about highly radioactive water being released into the ocean in large quanities come some June deadline (around the 20th if I recall correctly) - but then the date came and went and there was just no information forthcoming about it.
It was like we had all this build up to the event and then...silence, talk about something different, change the news cycle.
What happened back in June? Am I wrong to feel like something is being covered up by omission?
10 September 2011 11:56AM
@Sisyphus2
You are quite correct and the Chinese have protested about the ocean dumping.
The ongoing accident is not being reported in much detail in the mainstream media.
You can follow what is happening at enenews.com
10 September 2011 12:02PM
@Sisyphus2: There was plenty of information about it in Japan; it was the top story every day on NHK. Tepco managed to get things under control in time, although it was close, so as far as we know the highly radioactive water didn't leak into the ocean. I suspect this is basically the truth, because given what was being said about that water, I don't think they could have hidden it if it had leaked in any significant quantities. If it did leak and wasn't detected, then it wasn't as contaminated as they thought.
As someone mentioned above, it's simply not possible to cover up large releases of radioactive material. It's too easy to detect, and a fair few of the people monitoring have no interest at all in keeping Tepco's secrets.
(This is assuming you are talking about the water under the reactor buildings, which was the water that had been poured through the reactor cores to cool them, and thus was really, really radioactive. Tepco managed to get all of the reactors on to closed cycles just in time, although that involved some careful regulating of the amount of cooling water being used.)
10 September 2011 12:06PM
@quokkaZ
As I understand it, the so-called "liquidators" were called up from all parts of the then Soviet Union and after their ration of radiation, returned to their homes. It would appear that the follow up of their health post-Chernobyl would therefore be very difficult, but not impossible until the break up of the Union, when the monitoring would be just coordinated, if at all, in the individual states.
Monitoring has continued in the Ukraine, so perhaps if quokkaZ has access to any national or more supranational surveys he could report back on the fate of the "liquidators".
When I was in Kiev in the early '90s the sediment from the River Dnieper was being buried under new high-rise apartment blocks to sequestrate it, like the sunflowers, because long term contamination of river irrigation water was a consideration. In the aftermath food and milk was rouitinely tested for contamination, but maybe this has lapsed.
Can anyone update us on the Ukraine situation now?
10 September 2011 12:09PM
@ dchart
Au contraire. NHK reports: Radioactive release into sea estimated triple
10 September 2011 12:10PM
Thanks Zerocrop - I did a quick search and managed to pick this up by China:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV2CdLaGd3A
If it wasn't for China I think we would be completely in the dark. I hope they are continuing to collect samples.
10 September 2011 12:14PM
@dchart
That doesn't quite ring true.
At the No. 1 reactor, there's a chance that melted fuel has burned through the bottom of the pressure vessel, the containment vessel and the floor of the reactor building, and has sunk into the ground. From there, radioactive materials may be seeping into the ocean and groundwater.
10 September 2011 12:18PM
Jesus wept! Look, if you're going to post links, use the bloody Link button, It's not there simply for decoration.
10 September 2011 12:26PM
I would have expected prominent reporting about HOW they successfully avoided having to dump large amounts of highly toxic water in the Pacific ocean because they had no more space to store it.
We knew we were facing a spillage of high levels of contaminated water into the ocean by the 20th of June if they couldn't get things under control. Then it was reported that they had to halt water decontamination on 18th of June due to a rapid rise in radiation levels.
What impact did this have on the 20th of June prediction? It would seem to have been a negative development.
I can't find any clear information about this - it just doesn't seem to address this, yet this was the most obvious focus to continue with. It's absence screams.
10 September 2011 12:33PM
@zerocrop: If you actually read the NHK report, you'll see that the estimate is for March to April, and thus not relevant to what happened when the trench was at risk of overflowing in June. Similarly for the report of a melt-through; the risk in June was not of seeping radioactivity, but of a flood, and from a different direction.
The plant isn't under control yet (and it's worth noting that neither Tepco nor the Japanese government have said that it is, although they both continue to claim, rather optimistically, that it will be by January), but the specific crisis that was feared in June didn't happen.
10 September 2011 12:42PM
dchart - was just going to also mention that those triple sea levels were for March to April, which makes me particularly interested to see what data, if any, is available for post June 20th.
The question remains, how did they avoid that particular disaster in June, if avoiding that disaster was predicated on being able to decontaminate the water and the decontamination process was halted two days prior to the deadline?
Can you point me to an article to makes clear how that was avoided?
If there is no clear and official statement about how that was avoided then expect to hear in a few more months about something along the lines of XXXX times higher than expected levels based on readings in the June to August period.
I suspect the horror data will only be presented when there is a positive turn for the better to juxtapose it against...
"A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, in the most delightful way"
10 September 2011 12:51PM
China collected data up to July 4th - results show much higher contamination than that reported by the Japanese Government:
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/08/18/china-finds-100000-sq-mile-radiation-pacific-ocean-300-times-higher-normal-61131/
10 September 2011 12:53PM
Sorry - far wider.
10 September 2011 1:07PM
@Sisyphus2: Do you read Japanese? Because I don't have articles in English. Basically, the purification system started working at the end of June, and then had a number of teething troubles through and August, where it kept being stopped for a few hours and then restarted. A new bit of system was added in mid-August, which didn't work quite as well as hoped.
As of three days ago, Asahi Shinbun was reporting (in Japanese) that the purification system was now working at 90% efficiency. If this keeps up, they expect to get the water down to a safe level in a couple of weeks, as long as they don't get heavy rain.
Basically, the reports suggest that the purification system was kept working, barely and with the use of duct tape, just well enough to stop the water overflowing. It hasn't dropped off the news in Japan, although it has moved down the agenda a bit, and there hasn't been a period of silence. If a typhoon starts heading for the Fukushima coast, however, I expect it to move sharply up the news agenda again.
10 September 2011 1:25PM
NickRouse
Both the article and your correction seem inaccurate on radiation doses, so I'll quote sources to clear up confusion.
However it is clear that radiation is a bigger danger than psychological concerns about radiation. In Fukushima Prefecture the legal safety level for children was raised to 20 milli-sievert per year after the disaster, the equivalent to 3.8 micro-sievert per hour. Bear in mind children are about ten times more susceptable to radiation induced diseases than adults.
The typical CXR effective dose is about 0.06 mSv; ... a helical CT of the chest results in about 8 mSv
Frequent flyers on transatlantic flights are exposed to the equivalent of 170 chest X-rays a year...The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) says that aircrews are exposed to 4.6 millisieverts (mSv) each year, compared to nuclear workers who are exposed to 3.6mSv Pilots are more likely to get colon, rectal, prostate and brain cancers, while flight attendants are twice as likely to suffer breast cancer.
10 September 2011 1:27PM
Thanks dchart. Sorry, I don't read Japanese. Surprised the western media didn't report so well on this. So we can take it that no highly contaminated water overflowed into the Pacific at all during the period June through to early September 2011? That is good news indeed.
10 September 2011 1:31PM
SMOGBAD
Tokyo Metropolitan area has a population of 35 million -so your worry about population movement is about a 0.001% movement. Less than the number of people going to a base ball match actually.
I live in Tokyo and monitor have a Geiger counter (bought from Amazon) on my balcony, The radiation levels are consistently between bugger all and naff all and usually less than the background radiation in London.
This article makes a very power description of the effect of the disaster on the people most affected by it. BUT, nearly all Japanese people I know do not behave in the ways described in the article.
Of course they are worried, but mainly about the economy, and about how they will recover, they are not worried about the long term effects of radiation outside the effected areas and rightly so in my opinion.
The Japanese are a tough and cheerful bunch as a rule. I have enjoyed my two years here and made many very good friends and I have come to admire the Japanese enormously and to love the country, culture and language.
I am 100% sure they will bounce back.