Fukushima: the return of residents worries

It was six years ago. A magnitude 9 earthquake on the Richter scale followed by a tsunami caused one of the most serious nuclear accidents in history. On March 11, 2011, this disaster hit the Fukushima Daiichi power station, in northeastern Japan, and a few days later hit the core of its reactor.

Six years later, everything remains to be done to decontaminate the site, repair its damaged reactors, remove its radioactive waste and its million cubic meters of contaminated water. In the containment of Reactor 2, the radioactivity reached 650 sieverts per hour, a dose capable of killing a human in 30 seconds. The Herculean site will span decades.

Contaminated flora and fauna

Gradually, the government is organizing the return of residents to decontaminated areas. At the end of March, the inhabitants of the commune of Itate, located about forty kilometers from the Fukushima power station, will thus be allowed to return to their homes.

Although quite far from the site, this town of 6,000 inhabitants was heavily contaminated by radioactivity. It was evacuated in April 2011 and the government now considers it habitable. By law, the exposure of the population must be less than 20 millisieverts per year.

In the press, however, experts raise concerns. Because if the homes and places that will welcome the public will be effectively decontaminated, the rest of the environment remains very affected. Moreover, the media underline the strong reluctance of the inhabitants to return to the region.

“The Japanese government has absolutely not decontaminated the forests, and we know that the Fukushima region is a very agricultural area with many forests with biotopes that are particularly sensitive to radioactivity. It settles at the feet of trees and is transferred to mushrooms, wild berries, game which eats these berries and these mushrooms ”, reports Jean-René Jourdain, from the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), questioned by France Info.

Radioactive boars

In fact, the presence of heavily contaminated wild boars in the evacuated regions confirms the lasting impregnation of the environment. Hundreds of animals carrying cesium levels 37,300 times higher than the recommended average rate have been identified.

In addition, if certain areas are decontaminated, they are nonetheless located next to municipalities which, for their part, have not been. Thus, the radiation level in the town hall of Namie stood on February 28 at 0.07 microsieverts per hour, a rate similar to that of the rest of Japan. But in the neighboring town of Tomioka, the dosimeter read 1.48 – thirty times more than in central Tokyo.