” It may seem surreal, but as work continues to decommission damaged reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant–a project that involves 7,000 or so workers–tours of the complex by outsiders are becoming increasingly popular.
By the end of last September, or four-and-a-half years since the nuclear accident triggered by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami disaster, some 16,000 people had visited.
Initially, visitors to the stricken facility were mainly politicians and specialists. But more recently, ordinary citizens are taking part as radiation levels have fallen at the plant site.
Nineteen university students took a tour last November. The bus they rode took them past large tanks holding contaminated water as well as a massive piece of equipment attached to a reactor building to extract nuclear fuel. Throughout the visit, workers wearing protective clothing and face masks could be seen.
The tour was organized by a group called AFW, which stands for Appreciate Fukushima Workers. Led by Akihiro Yoshikawa, 35, a former employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the stricken plant, the group began escorting tours by residents living along the Pacific coast of Fukushima Prefecture from 2015. A major objective of the tours is to show residents what decommissioning involves.
“If ordinary citizens abandon interest, the plant site will be further shut off from the rest of the world,” Yoshikawa said.
He said that 140 or so people had participated in the seven tours organized to date.
Iwaki resident Kaori Suganami, 39, took part in a tour last June.
Because of the core meltdowns at the No. 1 to No. 3 reactors, high levels of radiation continue to be emitted. This makes it very difficult to approach those three reactors.
Elsewhere, though, rubble that was strewn throughout the plant grounds due to the tsunami generated by the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake has been removed, and radiation levels in many areas have dropped significantly. Ground surfaces have been paved and trees felled, which has also helped lower radiation levels.
According to TEPCO, about 900 people visited in the first year after the nuclear accident. Since then, the annual number of visitors has continued to increase. Local residents joining the tours also grew in number. About 3,700 people visited the plant in the first half of fiscal 2015. Of that number, about 250 were from Fukushima Prefecture.
Unlike workers at the plant site, visitors are not required to wear heavy protective gear. The basic getup is cotton gloves, disposable face masks and special footwear. Visitors are required to carry dosimeters. To reduce radiation exposure, visitors remain on the bus for large parts of the tour. Radiation exposure after an hour is in the range of 10 microsieverts, which is about 1 percent of the maximum additional radiation exposure of 1 millisievert established for the general population.
In April 2014, TEPCO established a visitation center at the Fukushima plant and two to three groups consisting of individuals 18 or older are allowed in daily. But not just anyone is allowed on the tours. “An overall assessment is made after considering such factors as the objective of the visit,” said a TEPCO official.
The decommissioning work is expected to take decades.
” FUKUSHIMA–Fukushima Prefecture’s population has declined by 5.7 percent since 2010, its largest recorded drop and the cause of a widening gender gap in some areas, according to national census figures announced on Dec. 25.
The population drop is mainly due to ongoing evacuations following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, according to the preliminary figures released by the prefectural government.
The prefecture lost 39,715 men and 75,743 women, a decrease of 4 percent and 7.3 percent from 2010, respectively. The difference is thought to have been caused partly by the majority male presence in reconstruction efforts.
The national census figures are the first released by the prefectural government since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, which triggered the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Fukushima prefecture’s population as of Oct. 1 stood at 1,913,606, down 115,458, or 5.7 percent, from the last census in 2010.
Among the six towns and villages where the entire population has left under evacuation orders, four towns recorded zero inhabitants: Okuma and Futaba, which co-host the nuclear plant, and nearby Tomioka and Namie.
The village of Katsurao had 18 people who have returned to their homes after being evacuated. They are recorded as temporary residents, but the central government is working to make their resettlement permanent. Katsurao’s evacuation order is scheduled to be lifted next spring.
Naraha, where an evacuation order was lifted on Sept. 5, also experienced a massive decrease in its population, with 976 people living in the area, down 6,724 people, or 87.3 percent, from 2010. The figures illustrate the fact that few evacuees have opted to return home.
The town of Hirono, where a large portion of the population is involved in nuclear reactor decommissioning work, tallied a male population of 2,746, up 2.3 percent from 2010. The female population, on the other hand, was about half that figure at 1,577, down 42.3 percent.
The population figures are based on the number of people living in the prefecture as of Oct. 1, irrespective of whether they are registered as local citizens.
” Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant, has opened a rest area and canteen for cleanup workers, more than four years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Tokyo Electric has been widely criticized for its treatment of workers and handling of the cleanup, which is expected to take decades. A Reuters investigation in 2013 found widespread labor abuses, including workers who said their pay was skimmed and spoke of scant scrutiny of working conditions at the plant.
“We have taken various steps to cut accidents, including Tokyo Electric itself working more with contractors on the ground,” Akira Ono, Fukushima plant manager, told Reuters.