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Letters | Nine years on, Fukushima radiation levels still high ahead of Tokyo Olympics
- Greenpeace found 45 hotspots with radiation levels exceeding official decontamination targets, and recontamination after recent typhoons, even as the Japanese government presses ahead with its normalisation campaign ahead of the Tokyo Olympics
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster, which happened nine years ago yesterday as a result of a devastating tsunami, is still having a negative impact on the environment.
According to the latest radiation survey from Greenpeace, conducted over three weeks in October and November last year, radiation levels at some spots in Fukushima still exceed the official decontamination long-term target – even as the Japanese government says the situation is normalising.
Some high-level hotspots throughout the exclusion area and open areas of Fukushima prefecture, including in Fukushima City, were identified. This ongoing and complex radiological emergency in parts of the prefecture runs directly counter to the government narrative of the effectiveness of its massive decontamination programme.
The survey team also pinpointed 45 hotspots around Fukushima City central station, 11 of which equalled or exceeded the official long-term decontamination target of 0.23 microsieverts per hour measured at 1 metre, including observed radiation levels 137 times higher than the background radiation levels measured in the Fukushima environment before the 2011 nuclear disaster.
“The government is using the Olympics as a platform to communicate the myth that everything has returned to normal in Fukushima. Our radiation survey clearly shows that the government propaganda is not true,” said Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany.
The survey also found evidence of recontamination caused by last year’s typhoons Hagibis and Bualoi, which deposited large volumes of rain across Japan, including in Fukushima prefecture. In recent years, scientists have been reporting the effect of heavy rainfall leading to increased migration of radioactivity from mountainous forests through the river systems.
As Mizue Kanno, a resident of Namie who cooperated on the Greenpeace radiation survey, said: “I hope the world knows the real situation in Fukushima. Radioactivity is washing down from the mountains due to heavy rain and flowing into the decontaminated areas. The radiation levels found around my house are higher than ever before. Once a nuclear accident happens, it looks like this, and soon we are going to have the Olympics and pretend that everything is OK. It’s not.”
Frances Yeung, senior campaigner, Greenpeace
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