The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 15 | Issue 7 | Number 1 | Article ID 5024 | Apr 01, 2017

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Reconstruction Disaster: The human implications of Japan’sforced return policy in Fukushima 復興災害：福島の強制帰還政策が意味すること

Suzuki Yūichi interviewed and with an introduction by Katsuya Hirano withYoshihiro Amaya and Yoh Kawano

Transcription and translation by Akiko Anson

Suzuki Yūichi, Photo by Kawano Yoh

Suzuki Yūichi (56) was born to a farming familyin Namie, Fukushima in 1960. Namie was oneof the areas most devastated by the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear disaster, as well as the Tōhokuearthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011.B e s i d e s 5 6 5 d e a t h s f r o m t h eearthquake/tsunami, because the town waslocated within the 20 kilometer exclusion zonearound the damaged nuclear power plant, theentire town was evacuated on March 12. Thegovernment of Namie continued to operate inNihonmatsu-city 39 kilometers from Namie. Atthe time of the nuclear accident, Mr. Suzuki

was working in the Citizens’ Affairs Division ofNamie and was immediately assigned to theDisaster Management Division established toassist citizens in finding missing familymembers, locating temporary housing, andevacuating families. Suzuki was subsequentlyresponsible for decontamination efforts, returnpolicies, and establishing clinics for prospectivereturnees. In the summer and the winter of2016, I visited Namie with my colleaguesProfessor Yoshihiro Amaya of NiigataUniversity and Yoh Kawano, a PhD candidate atUCLA, to interview Mr. Suzuki. Mr. Suzukicontends that the majority of former residentsof Namie are unlikely to return to the towneven after the Japanese government lifts therestriction on residency in certain areas onMarch 31, 2017. Many families have alreadysettled in new villages, towns and cities in andoutside Fukushima and continue to fearinternal radioactive exposure and otherdangers associated with decommissioning thedamaged reactors. As a city official who leddecontamination efforts and return policy,Suzuki remains skeptical of Japanesegovernment programs for “reconstruction” or“revival” of the affected areas. He anticipatesthat the area will become a “no man’s land”after the elderly returnees pass away. Namie’spopulation was 21,400 at the time of thenuclear accident. He estimates that 10 percentor less will return. The interview is animportant testament to the ongoing rift and

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dissonance between Tokyo and Fukushima overthe policies and slogans of “reconstruction” and“return”. K.H.

The Japanese government has announcedthat it is lifting evacuation orders in thegreen and orange zones on March 31,2017. This image is taken from the websiteof Fukushima Prefecture.

Hirano: Mr. Suzuki, thank you for agreeing todo this interview. You have been promotingdecontamination work as a town official untilrecently since the 2011 disaster at theFukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

It is said that even after decontamination iscompleted, the radiation level will rise again.Do you think that "residents’ return (kikan, 帰還)" and "reconstruction (fukkō, 復興)" arepossible under such conditions? For example,through experimental planting of rice andvegetables, the possibility of revivingagriculture has been explored in Namie. Howmany people do you think plan to return here toresume agriculture?

Suzuki: I used to work in the decontaminationcontrol division, and as far as I know from whatI learned there, once decontamination work iscompleted, radiation levels should not return tothe high levels prior to decontamination effort.However, I have heard various doctors voicingconcerns about whether the dose rates, evenafter decontamination, have actually droppedto safe levels, so I personally feel uncertainabout this although I am not a specialist in thefield.1

I believe, however, that as long as radiationlevels stay below 0.2 - 0.3 microsieverts perhour in Namie, there may not be muchdifference between the evacuation areas andNamie. In fact, in Nihonmatsu, where my familyand I are now living, the radiation level is 0.2or 0.1 and many people are living there.

H i r a n o : S o m e p e o p l e c l a i m t h a tdecontamination is not very effective.

Some evacuees from Namie currently living inmy hometown in Ibaraki prefecture made aone-day trip to Namie last October, and werejoined by a group of professors from IbarakiUniversity, who have been collecting andmonitoring data on radiation doses in that area.They sampled soil in the area around one of theevacuees’ houses, which had been declared

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decontaminated. In some areas the level haddropped to the national and internationalstandard (1 millisieverts per year or 0.23microsieverts per hour), but in the backyardand in a forest area just behind the house, theradiation level was actually extremely high.2

Suzuki: It seems that it has not yet beencompletely decontaminated . Well, I have tosay, we can’t decontaminate forest areas. Thatwould require cutting down all the trees andthen scraping up all the topsoil. Otherwise youwouldn’t be able to see any effect. But as far asareas around houses are concerned, all the soilhas been stripped away, so the radiation levelhas dropped significantly. For example, myparents’ house is in a so-called “zone inpreparation for lifting the evacuation order.” Atfirst the radiation level was 3.0 microsievertsper hour, but after decontamination, it hasdropped to less than 0.5.

Hirano: I see. But the entire contaminatedregion in Fukushima is richly forested– it’s allsurrounded by forest, not just Namie. If it isimpossible to decontaminate forest areas, itmeans that radioactive material could easilyblow in from the forest, causing radiation levelsto increase in decontaminated areas. Someresidents say that the radiation level has in factrisen since the decontamination. So does itmean that decontamination is effective only inurban areas where there are few forests? Inother words, there is a gap between placeswhere decontamination has been working welland places where it has not.

Suzuki: It is okay in areas where the soil hasbeen properly stripped away, but nobody hasdone anything in mountain areas behind homes（urayama, 裏山）. We town officials have beenasking the Ministry of the Environment todecontaminate such areas properly as well,since they are not just nameless wooded hills.Rather, they are Satoyama (里山), woodedareas surrounding people’s homes that are apart of their everyday lives. We’ve said that if

we don’t decontaminate those areas wewouldn’t be able to bring people back home.

Houses in wooded areas (satoyama) are notdecontaminated. Radiation levels remainhigh and residents are not allowed toreturn.

However, if we cut all of the trees down inorder to decontaminate, we will lose waterretention capacity, which could result in anatural disaster. So that’s another reason wecan’t clean up mountains and forests. We haveconsidered just asking people to stay awayfrom forest areas. If you take a radiationdosimeter and find 0.2 in your garden and thenthat same dosimeter indicates 1.0 in anotherplace higher up, you will have to acknowledgethat you have a hotspot and stay away from it.People will have to make those judgments asthey go about their lives.

Hirano: It sounds psychologically stressful,doesn’t it? We have to live our lives constantlytelling ourselves it is okay here, but not there.

Suzuki: I know what you mean, but that is allwe can do to deal with the Satoyama areas.And then there are rivers. Before the nuclearaccident, we used to go to a river to pick uppebbles or take our kids there to play in thewater, but the Ministry of the Environment

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doesn’t deal with rivers so they decided not todecontaminate rivers. They have not doneanything to remove radiation from them. I’mtalking rivers that have a levee on either side.Their reasoning probably is that once a river isflooded, it will be contaminated again. That ismy guess. But rivers are also a part of everydaylife, so we have been asking that they beproperly decontaminated as well, but…

Hirano: Do they have a plan in place?

Suzuki: Probably not. I don’t think so.

Hirano: Well, so is your town planning toprepare for residents who return, such assetting up public signs for high radiation areasto warn people not to come close to thoseareas? Or is it something like ‘let’s leave it upto people’s “common sense” once they returnhome’?

Suzuki: I think it will likely be left up to theircommon sense. That’s why I believe it isnecessary that schools give children radiationawareness training, so that they can learn howto avoid internal radiation exposure bymeasuring doses of what they eat, or they canlearn to stay away from dangerous placeswhere they live. Now, this is not limited to onlyFukushima, but should apply to peoplethroughout Japan.

Hirano: In other words, from now on this kindof so-called self-responsibility will become anessential part of life in Fukushima, won’t it?Later I would like to return to this topic andask about education on the risks of nuclearpower plants, and external and internalradiation exposure.

But I would like to ask you a little more aboutthe “return policy”. When I interviewed you lastsummer, you mentioned that under the returnpolicy probably less than 10% of residentswould come back. Has your estimate changed?

Suzuki: No. It is about the same. Regarding the

estimate, we briefly had a program called“special case overnight stay" (tokureishukuhaku, 特例宿泊) to allow formerresidents to stay in Namie during the month ofSeptember for 26 days. The only participantsafter all were elderly couples and some singleguys, who really wished to return. That wasabout it.

Namie town center. Decontamination workhas been completed and the streets havebeen cleaned up. However, it is expectedthat most shops will not reopen. I sawabout a dozen people preparing to moveback during my visit to Namie in thewinter of 2016.

Also we have begun a program cal led“preparatory overnight stay” (junbi shukuhaku,準備宿泊) since November, which allowsresidents who notify us to stay in evacuationareas until the evacuation orders arepermanently lifted. It is still going on, but theonly participants in the program have beenelderly couples. We have set up a temporaryemergency clinic, but only the elderly couples,who participated in both programs, the specialcase overnight stay and the preparatoryovernight stay, visit the clinic when they’re

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feeling sick.

We are building a medical facility now that willbe opened once the evacuation order is lifted inNamie, but it will provide nothing beyondprimary and secondary medical care, so wewon’t have an actual inpatient facility. It meansthat anyone who needs to be admitted to ahospital, will have to go to a neighboring town,but these hospitals are already struggling witha shortage of doctors and nurses, so I amdoubtful that they will be able to accept outsidepatients any time soon.

In my opinion, if you remain wherever you’veevacuated to, you can always be admitted to ahospital and receive necessary medical care. Ialways tell people to think about these thingsbefore they decide to return home. The clinicdoctor also explains this to his patients, butelderly couples really want to come back toNamie. The doctor believes they shouldindividually decide. I ask them, “so after youreturn to Namie, what are you going to do ifyou feel sick and need to be hospitalized? Youwon’t have a place to go.” They say, ”I will goto a hospital in so-and-so town.” Then I ask,“what if they can’t admit you there? Even afteryou are discharged from a hospital, where areyou going?” “I am going to a nursing home.”

But in reality, even the nursing homes areunderstaffed and unable to accept newpatients. There are facilities, but there isn’tenough staff to run a facility and give adequatecare.

When I ask what they are going to do, theyhave no concrete answers. They just have avague idea about going there and maybe beingadmitted to a hospital. They just want to comeback home. That is their strongest feeling. Itseems that they just don’t want to stay wherethey have been since evacuation. That was thecase of an elderly couple I dealt with recently.

Hirano: Had they been living in temporaryhousing for quite a while then?3

Suzuki: Yes. Also lack of employmentopportunities for a generation of breadwinnersis another reason why I think that less than10% of evacuees will come back. In addition,many have children attending school in theplaces they evacuated to, so it is not possible tothink about returning.

I had my children with me when the evacuationorder came, and I ended up sending them toschool in the town where we settled. As youknow, I did it not because they wanted tochange schools but because they had to. It ispossible for my children to graduate from theschools they are currently attending. No matterhow much you say that it’s safe, that it’s okayto go back, parents need to think about theconsiderable burden placed on children byswitching schools, as this poses another risk tochildren.

Also it’s been almost six years since we wereforced to leave our town. The reality is thatchildren no longer have friends from Namie.This is the same with my children. All of theirfriends are the ones they met after weevacuated to Nihonmatsu, and once they go tohigh school, they only hang out with friendsfrom their high school. At the time of theevacuation, one of my children was a 4thgrader in elementary school, but she does notsee any of her classmates from that time. Shehas no connection with other children fromNamie. Even if you move back here, you willneed to find a job, but there will be noemployment other than reconstruction-relatedwork.

Hirano: While we’re on that subject, would yousay something about lifting the evacuationorders? I understand this applies only to limitedareas of the town and not to the entire town.

Suzuki: Yes, the town is divided into threeareas, the “zone in preparation for lifting theevacuation order," "restricted residence area,"and "difficult-to-return zone.” This is dividedaccording to radiation levels, and according to

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the government report submitted to the town,there are plans to lift evacuation orders in thefirst two zones sometime in March 2017. As forthe third zone, the difficult-to-return zone, noplan has been announced.

Hirano: Does it mean that residents who have ahouse or property in the town except for thedifficult-to-return zone, are allowed to return ifthey wish?

Suzuki: Yes, that is right.

Hirano: But as you mentioned earlier, even inthe areas designated safe to return, variousfacilities, which returnees will need to restarttheir lives, are not in place yet, so they arelikely to face multiple hardships. But if theychoose to return no matter what, the municipalgovernment will support them. Is this thecurrent situation?

Suzuki: Yes. We have been working to restoreinfrastructure to its pre- earthquake andtsunami state. Concerning the water supplygoes, restoration work is nearly complete, andthe sewer system has been restored in areaswhere the evacuation orders are expected to belifted to the point that we can operate, althoughI can’t say it is 100% yet.

Concerning infrastructure, a few businessessuch as commercial and medical facilities, thepost office, and a banking facility have resumedoperation. One financial institution opened abranch office in Namie sometime last year,however it’s not as though everyone uses thatone bank, so I don’t know what to say aboutthat.

Hirano: A moment ago Mr. Kawano and Istopped by the temporary shopping arcade,which is set up next to the town hall. It houses11 stores now, and we spoke with some of theowners. They are truly concerned about theprospects for their businesses. They believethat only a few will come back to town and thatthey won’t be able to sustain their businesses.

Right now they keep their stores openexperimentally with financial support from thelocal government, but they know that thesupport won’t last forever. They seem to bestruggling with the long-term prospects fortheir businesses. I wonder what the point ofthis trial exercise is without a prospect for thefuture.

Suzuki: Well, more than a trial exercise, it israther to show people that there are at leastp laces to buy food, hardware , da i lycommodities, dry cleaning. It is to show that wehave a place to at least get basic necessities,though these stores are very small.

The prosperity of these stores will probablydepend on how many people eventually moveback. I don’t think evacuees will bother cominghere all the way from where they are currentlystaying to go shopping. But when you drop in atNamie, as long as there is a convenience store,you can get almost everything, except forhardware. They have drinks, food, first-aid kits,laundry detergent and even cigarettes andsome little luxury items. There are also somesmall restaurants, and I heard that they are thetop-selling businesses. And the Lawsonconvenience store in the temporary shoppingarcade carries a bit of fresh food.

I have a feeling that even the participants ofthe preparation stay program brought a lot offood with them when they came back. Soamong the 11 stores in the temporary arcade, Iheard that only the restaurants have beensuccessful. Instead of buying food and cooking,people will get a box lunch from a conveniencestore or order meals for home delivery. Itseems that this is the current situation.

Kawano: The store owners at the shoppingarcade I spoke to also said that considering thelack of enthusiasm for the movement to returnin town, it is hard to believe that the evacuationorders will be lifted sometime in March here inNamie.

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Suzuki: Yeah. We have some estimates that 500or 1,000 residents might move back, but even ifthey do come back, they are likely to feel thatthey are the only ones or the only familiesliving in Namie since they can’t expect to havemany neighbors around them. Especially atnight, you usually see lights on in every houseby 7pm or 8pm, but you won't be able to seethat. So if you have next-door neighbors onboth sides when you return, you might feel as ifyou’ve finally returned to your hometown, butthe reality is that with people evacuated tolocations all over the country, it is not easy tocoordinate your return with other families.

The best way might be to move into publichousing built for evacuees or disaster recoverypublic housing. All of the units might not befilled, but you would have some other familiesliving in the same complex, so it might feelmore reassuring.

But I don’t think it will be that easy. In fact, ithas been a year since neighboring towns, suchas Hirono-machi, Naraha-machi, and Odaka-kuof Minami Sōma, lifted their evacuation orders,but most evacuees who have returned areelderly people.4 Some of them have beenencouraging others to return, something like“oh, so and so is back, so we should return,too.” Watching how those other towns aregoing, I feel it might be possible for someevacuees from Namie to decide to return homeencouraged by their pioneering neighbors.

It is also true, however, that while such effortsare being made, some elderly evacuees willprobably pass away in 10 or 15 years.Elementary or junior high school students atthe time of evacuation will be almost in their30s, won’t they? Namie will be just a place for alittle bit of memory and nostalgia, “oh, Iremember there used to be a house I used tolive in when I was little,” but no more, no less.That’s why it will be extremely difficult to bringpeople back to town after all these years. I amnot surprised at all if places like Namie-machi

or Odaka-ku will become a “no man’s land” 20or 30 years later.

Hirano: In Odaka-ku, where decontaminationwork has been completed, some farmers havebegun experimentally planting a few crops andexploring the possibility of reviving agriculture.How many farmers are really thinking aboutreturning to restart agriculture? How likely arethey to be able to sell their rice or other cropsonce they prove to be free of radioactivesubstances? Also does the government haveany plans to support these farmers?

Suzuki: In order to eliminate harmful rumors(fūhyō higai, 風評被害) against produce fromFukush ima , the governor has beendisseminating information about safety of foodfrom Fukushima to the whole country. Ourmayor has also been promoting safety of ourproduce by taking rice grown here to theMinistry of the Environment for testing.5

But the farmers participating in this testplanting are all elderly people. After all, thereare few young farmers in Namie, and themajority of people engaged in agriculture hereare older people. Before the accident, theiradult children used to help in the field as part-time farmers, but they had to abandon theirfields due to the evacuation, and as a resultthey have ended up losing their connectionwith agriculture.

I believe those who want to come back andresume agriculture now will be mostly retiredpeople, the elderly, so I am not sure how longthey will be able to continue with agricultureconsidering they won’t have help from theyounger generations. Even the younger peopleI am talking about here, who might considerreturning to engage in agriculture, willprobably be in their 50s, so I would say mostfarmers will be 75 or older.

Hirano: So i t sounds l ike even i f theexperimental planting succeeds, these farmersare not actually pursuing an operation to make

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a living. Like the elderly couples you mentionedearlier, these farmers really want to returnhome and as long as they can grow enough tofeed themselves, they will be happy.

Suzuki: That’s what I think. They feel terribleabout leaving the land they inherited from theirancestors unattended for such a long time. Thedecontamination work has been completed, andall the weeds in their fields have been pulled.Now that their land is back to normal again,they probably want to at least cultivate it andharvest crops they can eat in the land theirancestors passed on to them.

Nemoto Sachiko and Kōichi run organicfarms in Odaka of Minami Sōma. Theymoved back to their home as soon as thegovernment took Odaka off the designatedhazard zone in April 2012. The Nemotofamily has been farming land here sincethe early 17th century. Kōichi has beenworking with researchers at NiigataUniversity to grow rice and vegetablessince 2012 and his crops have beenconfirmed free of radiation. Theirneighbors and friends have not returned,and they think that they will not return.Photos by Yoh Kawano.

Of course, I cannot say for sure that they haveno intention of earning income by selling theirproduce. I am sure it will make them happy ifthey can do so, but I don’t think that it will be ahigh priority in their mind right now.

Speaking of rice produced through testplanting, as long as it is certified to be safe, itis can be sold in the market. It is true that therice is tested on a bag-by-bag basis to ensurethe radioactive cesium level does not exceedthe limit, and the contaminated soil has beentreated with zeolite. The deep plowing methodhas also been applied to the soil so that theupper layer soil can be replaced with a lowerlayer.

In my opinion, however, some radioactivesubstances still remain in the soil. It means it ispossible that there are still some risks offarmers being exposed to radiation in theirfields. Right now there is no technique that hasbeen established to remove zeolite from thesoil. The best way would be to scrape off thesoil completely, but this would also remove thecompost, which would probably affect soilfertility and crop growth. In fact, rice yieldshave decreased considerably compared tobefore the accident. So I guess we need tofigure out how to deal with these problemsassociated agricultural land in the future.

Amaya: I believe it is very important toestablish control measures to minimizeradiation exposure to farmers.

Suzuki: I also think the government needs toproperly communicate the risks, educatingfarmers about the risks caused by radiationinstead of giving them a go-ahead based onlyon whether or not radioactive substances aredetected in their produce. For example, beforethe accident it was not uncommon for them toroll up their trousers and enter a rice paddybarefooted if they needed to fix some smallthing. But now they need to be advised to avoid

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doing so because radioactive substances maystill remain in the soil. Although the level ofairborne radioactivity has been reduced, it doesnot mean the substances have been completelyremoved. The radioactive compounds havebeen buried deeper in the soil by deep plowingand also remain with zeolites in the soil.

Amaya: What zeolite does is absorb radioactivecesium in the soil, so it makes crops less likelyto absorb cesium, but as long as zeolites stay inthe soil, radioactive substances will remain inthe soil as well.

Hirano: Is there any way to remove zeolitesfrom the soil?

Amaya: As far as I know, there is no way toremove zeolites that have absorbed radioactivecesium from the soil selectively or efficiently atlow cost.

Hirano: The only option is to leave them in thesoil.

Amaya: Some researchers have been trying todevelop technology to remove radioactivecesium from zeolites. In fact, it is possible inprinciple to dissociate cesium absorbed intozeolites with acid, but you would need a lot ofequipment to treat a large amount of soil, and afacility to store radioactive cesium. The cost forall of this might pose a big problem. Alsoduring the process of dissociation, mineralnutrients in the soil are likely to be removed, soit might also become a problem when it comesto growing crops.

Hirano: That means that we have to remove allthe soil, doesn’t it? It sounds like it may beextremely difficult to revitalize agriculture,which had been the mainstay of Fukushima.

Suzuki: Well, it won’t be easy for sure. First ofall, we need to figure out how to solve theproblem of manpower. I think we can recruitpeople, but as I have mentioned before, thosewho are interested in engaging in agriculture

and actually have the agricultural skills to do itare mostly elderly people in their late 60s and70s. It will be hard for them to remain activefor the next 10 or 20 years. So the future ofagriculture is an open question. I don’t think itwill be easy to revive it.

Hirano: Namie has wonderful mountains andocean, and before the nuclear accident, it wasknown as a place where you could harvest notonly rice but any food you want. It used to besurrounded by rich, beautiful nature.

According to surveys of city dwellers before theaccident, Fukushima was always one of themost ideal places to move to enjoy the countrylife in retirement. In your view, what had mostattracted people to Namie before the disaster?

Suzuki: Well, to put it briefly, a lot of it is therustic atmosphere. Namie is not really urban,but it’s not just a narrow-minded backwoodstown, either. We have traditional crafts likeObori Soma ceramic ware, and both fishery andforestry were active. There were farmers whogrew pears and other fruit. Rice, fish, fruits,seasonal foods like mushrooms and vegetables--all these were within our reach. Namie was acomfortable and easy place to live.

Obori Sōma Ceramic Ware

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Hirano: All such things have been destroyed,haven’t they? That’s where things stand now inNamie.

Suzuki: That’s right. There is no doubt that thenuclear industry was one main factor that madethis town prosperous. All the regionsthroughout Japan where nuclear power stationswere located, were very poor. There wasnothing to develop. This was true for Namiewhere Fukushima Daiichi (Fukushima No.1Nuclear Power Station) and Daini (FukushimaNo.2 Nuclear Power Station) are located.

But remember, we were always lectured withthe myth of nuclear safety, and I was taught itsince I was little. We visited the nuclear energyinformation center on a social studies schooltrip and learned about how it would work andhow beneficial it would be, like how it couldcreate energy at a low cost. I do not recall anydiscussion about radiation at all. That’s why wenever thought it could cause such a danger.

That’s how we grew up here. It is also true thatwe had a low unemployment rate in this townbecause there were a quite a few peopleengaged in nuclear power-related work. Ourtax revenue also had been going up, and thenuclear industry had promoted our localeconomies significantly. So economically thetown and the industry maintained a mutuallybeneficial relationship.

Namie High School before the NuclearDisaster

Hirano: So residents here had a very positiveimpression of the economic effect brought bythe nuclear industry?

Suzuki: I think they did. At least I did.

Hirano: So while the safety myth had beenaccepted widely by residents, neither thecentral government nor TEPCO had explainedanything about nuclear related risks.

Suzuki: No, they didn’t talk about risk. Wewere told that accidents could not happen.

Hirano: That means they didn’t explain that ifan accident were to happen, how serious adisaster it could cause, or even how much ofthe community could be destroyed. Nothinglike that at all…

Suzuki: I don’t think so. There is a PR facilitynearby the power stations, and there mighthave been some kind of explanation concerningnuclear risks there, but I don’t remember it,even if they had anything. So I think probablynot at al l . This must be true for othercommunities with nuclear power plantsnationwide.

Hirano: I agree with you. My hometown is closeto Tokai-mura, and I heard the same thing from

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residents there, as well. This is probably howthe safety myth spread through all thesecommunities. The residents were told how itwould bring positive economic effects andsignificant wealth to their community. That it’snothing but a win-win situation. This was howthey came to accept the nuclear power plantsin their community. Was it the same in Namie?

Suzuki: Yes, I think it was the same here. Atleast that’s how I feel. I am 56 years old, and Iwas 50 at the time of the accident. I believedwhat they had told us.

I did not even realize that a cooling systemfailure could cause the kind of situation that itdid. So at the time of evacuation, I imaginedthat the accident at the power plant would leadto an explosion, that is, an explosion like anatomic bomb. That was the image I had thenabout the accident.

However, at the time of the accident, plantworkers I talked to said that the loss of powersupply and the failure of cooling system in oneunit would cause problems with all four units.They all said that. Obviously those who wereengaged in the plant work knew so much moreabout radiation, such as the limit of radiationexposure, since they worked in a strictradiation-control environment. I am sure theyhad been educated well through numerouslectures about radiation.

I have a feeling that only a handful of officialsin local government had knowledge aboutradiation at that time. I gradually learned allabout how much exposure we received, andabout radioactive substances Cesium 134, 137,Strontium, etc. I came to learn these thingsafter the nuclear disaster. I had no knowledgewhatsoever before then.

Hirano: Let me ask you some specif icquestions. What was the percentage of Namieresidents who worked at TEPCO or its affiliatedcompanies before the accident? You mentionedthat the industry stimulated the local economy.

Suzuki: I would say at least 50% if we includeall its subcontractors’ businesses, andfactories, and all the companies below them. Infact, my uncle also ran a small subcontractingcompany, which was about two or three stepsdown from the general contractors. My uncle’scompany dispatched workers, and he himselfworked with them to make a living. So if weinclude all the businesses related to the TEPCOoperation, such as catering, entertaining, andgift-giving, I would say at least 50% ofresidents here had worked for TEPCO andrelated industries.

Hirano: I would guess that many companieslocated in Namie relied heavily on TEPCO.

Suzuki: I think many of them did. I can’t giveyou an exact proportion, but many businesseswere affiliated with TEPCO.

Hirano: I would like to ask about the returnpolicy. Are there are any discrepanciesbetween plans at the national, prefectural, andlocal level regarding the policies for “residents’return” and “reconstruction”?

Suzuki: My feeling is that right after thedisaster, the central government was willing tolisten to us and to try to help with whatever weneeded, but recently I feel that they haveturned everything toward lifting the evacuationorders.

Their attitude is “we’ve heard you enough, andwe’ve dealt with you enough during theconcentrated reconstruction period.(2011~2015) What else do you want? Moremoney?” You might remember a cabinetmember (Ishihara Nobuteru) saying, “thebottom line is they want money.”6

The government should just contribute money –this was the feeling I got. I understand that itisn’t that easy for them to dispatch officials to alocal government at the spur of a moment justbecause we had an emergency and neededmore people and help. I know the central

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government hires many officials as needed, soit is hard to deal with our request for morepeople to handle the extra work related to theevacuation.

However, it is easier to provide funds to thedisaster-stricken areas. That’s why they hadsuch strong preferences for coming up with abudget rather than sending staff.

Also I feel that people who haven’t been thevictim of a disaster, including politicians andbureaucrats, won’t be able to understand thepredicament of the evacuees who were forcedto flee. Here we thought that victims of theGreat Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995 musthave resumed normal lives after a few years ofliving in temporary housing.7 To me that wasjust something that happened far away in theKansai area. Unless you experience it yourself,it’s difficult to understand what it’s really like.

Hirano: What the media has been saying is thatfor Namie, in particular, after lifting itsevacuation orders, full-scale reconstruction canbegin . I fee l that what the Japanesegovernment is trying to do is to send themessage that the nuclear crisis in Fukushimahas been finally settled. The governmentbelieves that it is necessary to do so in order tocreate an image of Japan rising like a phoenixfrom the ashes at the Tokyo Olympics of 2020.That’s what it hopes to achieve by putting asidethe thorny predicament of more than 100,000evacuees and the difficulty of rebuildingcommunities.

I don’t feel that the Japanese government islooking at reality from the standpoint of thelocals. That’s why they simply can’t accept howmuch the pre-accident life in Namie hasfundamentally been destroyed, as youdescribed earlier, and that, even for residentswishing to return, the current situation here isfar from ready for them to come back and thatthere is no way to fix the situation. Mr. Suzuki,how do you feel about this sense that thegovernment has conveyed that the situation in

Fukushima is now under control, thatreconstruction has been going well, and thereturn policy has been successful?

Suzuki: Well, I don’t think it will be possible forthe reconstruction to be completely finishedeven 100 years from now. We can say thereconstruction is 100% complete only wheneverything has been restored to the way it usedto be before the evacuation. But of course,there is no way to really restore the life we hadbefore.

So I don’t think 100% reconstruction will bepossible, but I think it would be nice if eachfamily passes on its own stories of what Namieused to be like from generation to generation,from mothers and fathers to sons anddaughters, and to their children, includinglessons of what we learned from this nuclearaccident. In fact, some NPOs and otherorganizations have been working hard tofacilitate events so that stories about Namiemay continue into the next generation.

Also, since the budget from the centralgovernment won’t last forever, I think theywant to lift the evacuation order to continuethe next step of settling the other remainingissues in the next few years. Considering thefact that money comes from limited financialresources and the burden falling on taxpayers,I understand the situation even from thestandpoint of a beneficiary.8

The most important thing we need to do, Ithink, is to figure out how to support evacueeswho are struggling to put their lives backtogether. More than people like me who havebeen able to keep a job, I’m concerned aboutpeople without jobs and unable to workbecause of various health issues, and those whohave lost their homes to the earthquake ortsunami and have no place to return to and noidea what to do.

They have managed to live so far with thecompensation they receive from TEPCO for

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mental stress, but it is vital now more than everto think about how to financially support thesepeople.9 For example, instead of giving thesame flat amount of financial support to allevacuees, we need to establish a system togrant support based on individual needs andcircumstances. Unfortunately it is true thatthere are some who are not willing to supportthemselves even though they are capable, andare using the compensation to lead an idle life.

We appreciate the compensation since thosewho have been affected by the disaster havebeen suffering mental distress, but I think thetime has come to reach out to and focus on thepeople in real need of help. Those capable ofworking should get jobs and stand on their ownfeet.

Hirano: So you think it is necessary andimportant to carefully differentiate individualneeds and give assistance and support on acase-by-case basis.

Suzuki: Yes, I believe so.

Hirano: Have there been any discussions aboutth i s be tween the cen t ra l and l oca lgovernments?

Suzuki: No. Well, as the local government, Ithink it is very difficult to pursue. There will beresidents who will complain, “so you are goingto cut our compensation. You are going toabandon us. We are all residents of this town.”We will have to deal with problems like this, soit’s not going to be easy. I think it would bedifficult for the local government to carry outsuch a policy.

If it is really true that it is now safe to returnand restart life, as the central government hassaid, I believe they should come up with apolicy to encourage people to return bycreating employment in Namie. If they do andprovide job opportunities, I do think that morepeople would come back.

The best way to do so would be, I think, for theJapanese government to build national facilitiesin the evacuation areas, in Namie andelsewhere. Then former residents will beassured that the government decision to buildindicates the safety of the area. But in realitythere no government facilities have been builtin this town. Since the accident, not a singlefacility has been built here. That leadsresidents to think that it is still not safe to livehere, especially with Fukushima Daiichi not yetdecommissioned. They feel that the absence ofgovernment facilities confirms this.

Hirano: It makes sense. If the centralgovernment insists that it is safe to return, ifPrime Minister Abe’s pledge that Fukushima isunder control is true, they need to take theinitiative to show people that in fact it is now asafe place to live. Otherwise residents won’t beconvinced.

Suzuki: Exactly. They should buy land from thetown and actively start building governmentfacilities to conduct research or to work ondevelopmental plans. They should buildhousing for national government employees.Residents would then be reassured. I am notsure if it has something to do with evacuationorders or instructions, but right now there is abranch o f f ice o f the Min is t ry o f theEnvironment in Minami Soma city, far north ofour town. The nearest office to the south is inHirono town.

Hirano: In addition, as you mentioned before, itis also important to implement policies toeducate people about the risk of nuclear power.In order to achieve that, both the centralgovernment and TEPCO need to end theircover-up culture. They need to explain all thepossible risks to residents who wish to return,and let them decide. Is that what Namie townlocal government hopes to do for its residents?

Suzuki: Yes, exactly. Part of what we call “riskcommunication” (risukomi,リスコミ) is, in away, to give people some “negat ive”

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information. The government has beenreluctant to pursue this, but it is crucial forpeople to be informed of any risks even if it hasa potential negative impact on them, so thatthey can make their own decisions. We hadbeen fed only positive information, but ifsomething bad happens, we will know what toexpect.

But as long as the reconstruction plans comefrom a Tokyo-centric perspective, Namie willhave neither hopes nor dreams. As I’ve saidmany times, the only people coming back totown are elderly. Without young people, Ibel ieve, a town can’t be revived andreconstructed. The current policy seems tofocus on merely bringing back people, butunless government can recreate a safeenvironment for young people, includingch i ldren , beg inn ing wi th comple tedecontamination, it’s hard to see any future.I’m not even sure, to be honest with you, if it’spossible to actually create a safe environment.Remember, it was the central government thattold us that it would take responsibility todecontaminate and reconstruct.

For the local government that was forced toevacuate, it would have been much better andless stressful if we had been told not to live inthis area for, say, the next thirty years and tofind some other place to start a new life. Theycould have given us some money to cover initialcost of moving and later compensation forlosses. That way, we could transfer our residentcertificates to a new town and receive fullpublic services and benefits like other residents

there. It would have been much betterfinancially, as well.9

But the central government that took theinitiative to promise that it would take fullresponsibility for decontamination and wouldbring us back to our hometowns. That’s why Ibelieve it should put itself in the position ofevacuees and take responsibility for what theyare supposed to do to the end, instead ofrelying on the power of money.

Hirano: The evacuation orders will be lifted atthe end of March 2017. This interview hasrevealed that there is still much more work tobe done and many problems to resolve, andthat the prospect for the future still remainsunclear. It also gave us a chance to think againabout for whom and for what the policies andslogans of “reconstruction” and “return” exist.We greatly appreciate your valuable time andopinion.

Related articles

Arkadiusz Podniesinski, Fukushima: A SecondC h e r n o b y l ?(https://apjjf.org/2016/21/Podniesinski.html)

David McNeill and Androniki Christodoulu,Inside Fukushima’s Potemkin Village: Naraha(https://apjjf.org/-David-McNeill/4389)

William Johnston with Eiko Ootake, The Makingof “A Body in Fukushima”: A Journey througha n O n g o i n g D i s a s t e r(https://apjjf.org/2015/13/9/William-Johnston/4295.html)

Katsuya Hirano is Associate Professor of History, UCLA. He is the author of The Politics ofDialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan(https://www.amazon.com/dp/022606056X/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (U of Chicago Press). Hehas published numerous articles and book chapters on early modern Japan, the colonization ofHokkaidō, settler colonialism, cultural studies, and critical theory, including “The Politics ofColonial Translation: On the Narrative of the Ainu as a ‘Vanishing Ethnicity’”(http://apjjf.org/-Katsuya-HIRANO/3013/article.html). You can also find the series of

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interviews related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in the Asia-Pacific Journal, a projectwhich Hirano started in 2013. He can be reached at hirano@history.ucla.edu.

Yoshihiro Amaya is Associate Professor of Medicine and Dentistry at Niigata University,Japan.

Yoh Kawano is a PhD student in Urban Planning at UCLA

Akiko Anson is a freelance translator who lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Anson obtained a BAdegree in English literature from Gakushūin University in Tokyo, Japan and an MA degree inAsian Studies from the University of Iowa.

Notes1 In April 2013, two years after the disaster, the Japanese government changed the limit ofradioactive exposure dose from one milli-sievert per year (mSv/yr) or 0.23 micro-sievert perhour (μSv/h) to 20 mSv/yr or 3.8 μSv/h. This standard was roughly 6 times higher than thatfor “Radiation Controlled Areas.” The Labor standards act prohibits those under the age of 18from working under these conditions. This new standard has been used only in Fukushima fordetermining evacuation zones as well as school grounds, buildings, and residential areas. Thepolicy of zoning left (607) 743-2421out over 260 “spots” in areas such as Minami Sōma-city,Date-city, and Kōzu-village whose radiation levels exceeded 20 mSv/yr. The governmentinitially announced that the new standard would be used as an emergency measure and soonbe lifted. Contrary to this announcement, however, 20 mSv/yr has virtually become the newstandard for safety measure and return policies. On December 28, 2014, the Japanesegovernment removed 142 areas in the city from the list, noting that annual radiation exposurehad fallen below the 20 mSv/yr threshold. On April 17, 2015, some 530 residents of MinamiSōma filed a lawsuit demanding that the government revoke a decision to remove theirdistricts from a list of radiation hot spots. This decision meant the ending of their entitlementto receive support in the form of subsidized medical treatment and “consolation” money. Theplaintiffs argued that by international standards, the upper limit for radiation exposure was 1mSv/yr, and thus the government’s decision to delist the hot spots based on a 20 mSv/yrstandard betrayed its responsibility for protecting the safety of citizens. The governmentinsisted that its decision was based on scientific findings. The government is now carrying outthe return policies based on the same rationale. Evacuees who have lived in areas that areunder 20 mSv/yr and expressed concerns about safety are regarded as “voluntary” and thuscan receive very little financial support and compensation. With the lifting of evacuationorders in parts of Namie, Ōkuma, Iitate, and Tomioka at the end of March, 2017, they will notbe allowed to stay in temporary housing. Even those who were originally ordered to evacuatewill be considered “voluntary” after March 31, losing Fukushima prefecture’s financial aid for

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housing. Many critics refer to the government’s return policy as “forced return policy” as wellas “kimin seisaku” or the “policy of abandoning people.” See more details, Hino Kōsuke,Genpatsu Kimin (原発棄民), (Tokyo: Mainichi News Press, 2016).2 When I visited Namie in the summer of 2016 with a group of researchers of NiigataUniversity, the radiation level in some backyards and a forest area ranged from 5~10microsieverts per hour.3 In 2012, Fukushima prefecture promised to build “reconstruction public housing” (fukkōkōei jūtaku, 復興公営住宅) in Iwaki-city, Minami Sōma-city, and Fukushima-city for evacuees.The temporary housing (kasetsu jūtaku, 仮設住宅) was originally expected to be in use onlyfor 2 years until the construction of public housing. But due to central government hesitationto implement this plan as well as the increase in the cost of construction materials and workeroutflow from Fukushima to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics, the construction of the publichousing was delayed and over 30,000 people are still living in the temporary housing. Asreported in many media outlets, the conditions of temporary housing are far from desirable.The walls are paper-thin, and apartments are small. Furthermore, about 50,000 people areeither living with relatives or renting apartments, unable to find new homes. According to the2015 survey conducted by Fukushima prefecture, 62.1% of the 80,000 evacuees have healthproblems. 61.6 % are worried about the wellbeing of their families and themselves, 43.2%about their housing, 42.7% about their mental conditions, and 39.0% about the uncertainfuture and financial problems. When I interviewed evacuees from Namie at one of thetemporary housing sites in Nihonmatsu, they expressed similar concerns. Now, with thelifting of evacuation orders, they will be forced to decide whether to return to theirhometowns or find a new home within or outside Fukushima.4 Hirono-town is about 20 kilometers from Fukushima-Daiichi. The Japanese government liftedthe evacuation order in 2015. As of 2017, 2,897 out of 5,490 people have returned. Naraha-town is 16 kilometer from Fukushima-Daiichi and the evacuation order was lifted inSeptember, 2015. 767of 8,011 Haraha residents have retuned to the town. Odaka-ku ofMinami Sōma-city is also 16 kilometers from Fukushima Daiichi. The order was lifted in July,2016. 1,329 of 12,842 Odaka-ku returned to the area.5 The so-called “damages created by rumors” have become a major point of politicalcontention since the nuclear disaster. Many farmers and businesses, not only in relativelyunaffected areas of Fukushima but in other prefectures in northeastern Japan, have sufferedsubstantial financial loss due to widespread concerns about being exposed to radiation. Onthe other hand, Liberal Democratic Party politicians and conservative media outlets haveused the “rumor-caused damage” charge to silence criticism, warning against discussion ofthe real danger of external and internal radioactive exposure. Residents of Fukushimacontinue to live under the pressure of being accused of encouraging rumor-caused damageeven though their concerns are legitimate and their efforts to raise awareness about radiationshould be taken very seriously. Some right-wing internet bloggers call those who raiseconcerns about radiation “unpatriotic” or “anti-Japanese.”6 Ishihara Nobuteru, a son of former Tokyo mayor Ishihara Shintaro, then Minister of theEnvironment, made the infamous remark in June, 2014 during a Q and A session at the Houseof Councilors with regard to slow progress in persuading towns and villages to buildintermediate nuclear waste storage facilities.7 The Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake occurred on January 17, 1995 in the southern part of

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Hyogo prefecture, Japan. It measured 6.9 on the earthquake magnitude scale, claiming 6,434lives, most of which were in Kobe, a major urban center with a population of 1.5 million.8 In 2016, the Abe administration has decided to use taxpayer money for decontaminatingaffected areas in Fukushima. The decision marks a fundamental shift from the current policythat obliges TEPCO to pay for the decontamination work. The 2017 decontamination work isestimated to cost 30 billion yen. Behind the adminstration’s decision for the use of taxpayermoney is the rapidly expanding expense of decontamination, with the latest estimate risingfrom the original 2.5 trillion yen to 4 trillion. This estimate does not include the no-returnzones. The government expects the planned work in those areas to cost roughly 300 billionyen over five years. The Abe administration’s decision not only increase people’s financialburden but also blur TEPCO’s responsibility for the irretrievable damages it caused.9 Each person receives from 100,000 to 120,000 yen per month as compensation for mentalanguish in addition to compensation for the loss that varies significantly. The formercompensation will end in 2018.10 As stated in note 2, the Japanese government was reluctant to support the building of“reconstruction public housing.” This was mainly because it was concerned that this wouldslow the return of evacuees to their hometowns and home villages. Hino Kōsuke writes inGenpatsu Kimin that Tokyo’s reluctance indicates it is prioritizing the return policy overrespecting evacuees’ needs and concerns. Suzuki Yūichi’s statement here expresses the sameview.