Natural Disaster and Reconstruction in Asian Economies

A Global Synthesis of Shared Experiences

Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137364166
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Based on conference proceedings presented at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in November 2012, Natural Disaster and Reconstruction in Asian Economies offers leading insight into and viewpoints on disasters from scholars and journalists working in Japan, China, the United States, and Southeast Asia.

CHAPTER 1

THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR ACCIDENT AND THE PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON NUCLEAR POWER

Tanaka Yuki

THE MEGA ACCIDENT AND FAILURE OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE ACTIONS

On March 12, 2011, the day after a mega earthquake and a tsunami hit Japan’s main island of Honshu, Reactor Number One of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant exploded.1 Soon after, an evacuation order for the 77,000 residents from 28,000 households within 20 km of the power plant was issued. The majority of people did not receive this official command, however, as the earthquake had cut electricity and all communication lines. Nevertheless, rumor spread quickly that the radiation emitted by the explosion was so deadly that it would kill everyone in the vicinity unless they escaped immediately. Many people from within the 20-km zone, as well as a vast number of residents from outside the area, began to flee. It is estimated that, in total, more than 80,000 people evacuated. No one had anticipated a nuclear accident of this magnitude, and no one was prepared for the ensuing crisis. There was not enough drinking water, baby food, diapers, medicine, and other essentials. People did not have enough fuel to travel long distances, yet they tried to flee by car nevertheless. Traffic jams soon created further chaos, and in many areas, cars moved only 50 m an hour. Some people abandoned their cars in the middle of the road when fuel ran out, and many cars queued up to purchase fuel, further delaying the escape of those inside the affected zone and increasing their exposure to the radiation.

As a result of the earthquake and tsunami, many houses along the coastline of Fukushima Prefecture were destroyed, and 1,800 people went missing. Rescue teams searched for survivors in many spots, including some areas within the 20-km zone. When the evacuation order was issued in the afternoon of March 12, rescue teams had to leave despite their belief that some people were still alive under collapsed houses and rubble. Eventually it was confirmed that about 3,000 people died because of the tsunami in Fukushima Prefecture. Most of them were residents living within the 20-km zone, in particular, in Minami-Sōma City, where 972 people died.

Much later, elderly people, hospital patients, and the physically and mentally challenged were evacuated. There were seven hospitals and several old people’s homes within the 20-km zone. Approximately 850 patients were accommodated at these hospitals, and of these, about 400 were bedridden or required serious treatment, such as periodic dialysis. However, some of the hospital staff left before evacuating the patients, partly because of concern for their own family members, and partly due to of fear of irradiation. All seven hospitals were faced with a serious lack of staff.

To add to these problems, it took many hours to secure buses and cars to transport the patients out of the 20-km zone. In fact, it took four days, from March 12 to March 15, to separate all the patients into small groups and relocate them in various temporary facilities far from the power plant. Lack of suitable accommodation meant that they were transferred from one place to another and sometimes spent long hours in transit. Some were moved to large cities hundreds of kilometers away. For example, a group of thirty-four patients from Futaba Public Welfare Hospital, together with ninety-eight people from a neighboring old people’s home, left the hospital in a few buses and cars at 10:30 a.m. on March 14. The group was first taken to Fukushima City, about 70 km northwest of the Nuclear Power Plant. As there was no hospital that could accommodate them there, they were transferred to a high school building, which was being used as an evacuation shelter, in Iwaki City, 160 km southeast of Fukushima City. It was 8:00 p.m. when they eventually reached their final destination, 10 hours after traveling a total of 230 km. Three people died during this journey and eleven more died the following day at the evacuation shelter. By March 15, more than fifty elderly patients from the 20-km zone had died.

On March 14, Reactor Number Three exploded, and the ­following day, Reactor Number Two also exploded, causing anxiety among people in other regions of Fukushima Prefecture, neighboring prefectures, and even Tokyo. In addition, many people were still missing as a result of the tsunami, but high levels of radiation prevented search and rescue work. The bodies of these people have never been retrieved.

Six towns (Tomioka, Futaba, Ōkuma, Miharu, Naraha and Namie) and two cities (Iwaki and Minami-Sōma) neighboring the Fukushima Number 1 Nuclear Power Plant had been stockpiling iodine tablets to be distributed to residents in case of a major nuclear accident. Iodine tablets are effective in preventing thyroid cancer, which is caused by exposure to radioiodine, one of several types of radiation emitted by nuclear reactors during severe accidents. Children are particularly vulnerable to radioiodine. The use of iodine tablets in preventing ­thyroid cancer is well documented. Immediately after the accident at Chernobyl in 1986, for example, the Polish government distributed iodine tablets to 10.5 million citizens. Due to this prompt action, there have been no reported cases of thyroid cancer in children in Poland, although many cases of this disease have been found among both children and adults in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. Iodine tablets are only effective, however, if they are taken 24 hours before exposure to radioiodine or immediately after exposure.

It is claimed that shortly after 10:00 a.m. on March 13, a handwritten message was sent by fax from the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) to the medical team at the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters (NERH), ordering them to instruct local council offices of the above-mentioned towns and cities, as well as the Fukushima Prefectural Government Office, to distribute iodine tablets to all residents. Inexplicably, this message was never received by the medical team at NERH. Equally strange is the fact that an official order sent by the NSC was handwritten and that there is no copy available at either end. In any event, none of the above-mentioned local council offices ever received instructions to distribute iodine tablets.

Although no instructions were received, the town councils of Futaba, Tomioka, Ōkuma, and Miharu decided to distribute the tablets. The Tomioka town council distributed them to an unknown number of residents on the evening of March 12, after many of the residents had already fled. The Futaba town council gave the tablets to only 845 people who were staying at an evacuation shelter in the town of Kawamata, about 40 km from the power plant, on March 13. The Ōkuma and Miharu town councils did not distribute the tablets until March 15. In Ōkuma, only 340 people who moved to Miharu received the tablets. In many cases, the tablets were simply distributed without ensuring that they were consumed. The town councils of Naraha and Namie, as well as the Iwaki City council, were waiting for instructions from the prefectural government, and in turn, the prefectural governor’s office was waiting for instructions from the NSC. As indicated, these were never received. Thus, it was on March 13 or March 14 that the residents of Namie received the tablets, and it was in the afternoon of March 15 that the tablets were distributed in Naraha. In Iwaki City, it was as late as March 16 that the residents received the tablets. Minami-Sōma City decided on March 12 to distribute the tablets to the residents of Odaka Ward, which is located within the 20-km zone, but by then most people from the area had already moved out and so did not receive them.

One of the major obstacles that prevented these local council offices from making the decision to distribute the tablets was a total lack of information about the level of radiation in the atmosphere and the actual situation of the troubled nuclear reactors. NSC staff testified later that they deliberately did not release information on those issues, fearing that wide dissemination of such information would cause further panic. Another obstacle was over- concern about the side effects of the iodine tablets. Side effects that appeared among some of the Polish and Russian children who had taken the tablets after the Chernobyl accident led Japanese medical advisors for the NSC, like Dr. Yamashita Shunichi, to emphasize this aspect rather than the usefulness of the tablets even prior to the Fukushima accident. The staff at local councils within the 20-km zone was thus reluctant to distribute the tablets.

Many residents from the areas north of the power plant, such as Ōkuma, Futaba, Namie, and Minami-Sōma, fled further northwest to Fukushima City, because the city was relatively free from earthquake damage and there was a greater availability of emergency shelters. However, on March 15, radioactive plumes containing large dosages of iodine and cesium 134 and 137 reached Kawamata, Iidate, and Fukushima City. Strong winds and rain carried the plumes to the northwest inland regions of Fukushima Prefecture. Shortly after the radiation reached Fukushima City, the wind changed and turned south toward Tochigi Prefecture via Kōriyama City. The government Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MECSST) and the NSC both had this information from the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI). Yet, again, details were not released until March 23 in order to prevent “unnecessary confusion among the people.” MECSST did however inform the US military forces on March 14. Based on this information, on March 17 the US Ambassador to Japan, John Roos, advised American citizens living in Fukushima to move out of the 80-km zone around the power plant.

Unaware of this highly radioactive plume in Fukushima City, many people, including children, who had evacuated from the 20-km zone stood outside emergency shelter buildings, queuing for free food and water for long periods. In addition, many residents of Fukushima City also lined up in the streets to receive water from water wagons, as the local supply had been cut in many places due to the earthquake. Unfortunately, now, there is no way of knowing how many people were exposed to how much radiation in Fukushima City and elsewhere over the few days after March 11. One particular concern is the effects on infants, children, and pregnant women. The Fukushima Prefectural Government is currently conducting thyroid cancer tests for children under 18 years. To date, 80,000 of 360,000 children in Fukushima have been examined. Of these, 425 children have been found to have stiffness in the thyroid, and three have been positively identified as having thyroid cancer. Currently, seven more children are undergoing further medical examination due to suspected thyroid cancer.

In addition to the initial destruction, “hot spots”—places contaminated with high levels of radiation, such as the villages of Iitate and Kawamata—outside the 20-km zone continue to cause great concern. It is most unlikely that those who lived within the 20-km zone or in these hot spots will ever be able to return to their homes and resume their interrupted lives.

The Fukushima experience demonstrates that no evacuation plan could prepare a community for a major nuclear accident. Evacuation drills will never ensure order when a nuclear accident causes mass panic, because fear leads to confusion, disorientation, and irrational behavior. The Fukushima experience also teaches us how electric power companies and government authorities behave during a chaotic situation caused by a nuclear disaster of this magnitude and how incapable they are of protecting citizens from large-scale irradiation.

INCALCULABLE DAMAGE

Between March 1 and December 31, 2011, 21,000 people died in Fukushima Prefecture, 9,000 more deaths than in the previous year. Official reports put the number of deaths due to the earthquake and tsunami at 3,400. This raises the question of what caused the remaining 5,600 deaths. The official number of deaths does not include those that resulted from the effects of the aftermath of the earthquake and the nuclear accident, and it may be argued that these 5,600 deaths were caused by such aftereffects. Many people committed suicide, like the 64-year-old farmer who had produced organic cabbages for more than 30 years in Sugagawa, 70 km away. He took his life on March 24, 2011, leaving a note that radiation had destroyed his lifelong work of establishing an organic farm.

By the end of March 2012, the number of “earthquake-related deaths” in Fukushima officially acknowledged by the prefectural government was only 761. (These were apart from the 3,000 deaths immediately caused by the tsunami and earthquake.) This is because official acknowledgment can be made only when the deceased’s next of kin requests it. According to this official record, 433 of 761, that is, 57%, were identified as deaths caused by stress related to losing homes and long-lasting displacement, and most of them were from within the 20-km zone of the power plant. Scores of evacuees who moved into temporary housing units, that is, small, prefabricated houses provided by the government, continue to suffer isolation and depression, due to a completely changed lifestyle and lack of communication among the new residents. In addition, many suffer grief from losing family and close friends in the earthquake and tsunami. For example, a 66-year-old man from Futaba, Idogawa Norio, had to move eight times between different temporary housing units. He suffered from severe migraines and insomnia caused by stress and eventually died from a stroke in June 2012. Currently 1,323 people over 65 years old are living alone in these prefabricated houses in Fukushima Prefecture. It seems that many of them are suffering because of loneliness and despair.

Before the disaster, Fukushima Prefecture had 150,000 hectares of rice and vegetable fields and 80,000 farming households. It was the seventh largest agricultural prefecture in Japan, and 40% of its production was rice. Fruits such as peaches, pears, persimmons, and cherries made up the remainder. The area was also known for good-quality fish, as well as dairy farms and mushroom forests in the mountains. The nuclear explosion exposed the entire region to radiation levels equivalent to twenty times that inflicted on Hiroshima by the atomic bomb. Radiation still continues to permeate the surroundings. Damage to the agricultural and fishery industries is confirmed beyond doubt.

Various local farmers’ and fishermen’s cooperatives in Fukushima and neighboring prefectures have been negotiating compensation with Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). These negotiations have been based on the recommendation made in August 2011 by the Dispute Reconciliation Committee for Nuclear Damage Compensation. Some groups have already received a proportio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Session I: Reaction
• 1. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident and the People’s Tribunal on Nuclear Power
• 2. Them versus Us: Japanese and International Reporting of the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
• 3 The Evolution of Disaster Volunteering in Japan: From Kobe to Tohoku
• 4 Religious Responses to Natural Disasters: From Hurricane Katrina to the Great East Japan Earthquake
• 5 Chinese Reactions to Disasters in Japan: From the Great Kanto Earthquake to the Great East Japan Earthquake
• Session II: Recollection
• 6 Bombs Bursting in Air: State and Citizen Responses to the US Firebombing and Atomic Bombing of Japan
• 7 Searching Reality in Virtuality: Fantasy as a Way Out for Twenty-First-Century Japan
• 8 Who Killed Our Children?: The Anatomy of a Protest Film
• 9 The Unsettled Hearts and Souls: Aftershock of the Great Sichuan Earthquake
• 10 The Making of a Cantonese Popular Song amidst National Crises in China: From Jiang Jun Ling to “Once Upon a Time in China”
• Session III: Reconstruction
• 11 Reestablishing National Identity by Reevaluating a Nation’s Past—A University’s Effort to Recover from War in the Late 1990s Cambodia: An Ethnographic Account
• 12 From Typhoon Ondoy to the Unnamed Monsoon (2009–2012): Policy Reforms and Challenges in the Philippine Disaster Management System
• 13 Who Protects Our Lives?: Managing Crises and Social Security in Socialist Laos and Japan
• Biographies of Contributors
• Index