in fukushima
From day in Fukushima on 6/29
We drove south along the coast from Ishinomaki to Fukushima, and ended our day in Fukushima city. If you look at the map, it's straight south and to the city it's a bit inland, but because of the issues with the nuclear power plant, there's an area that people are not allowed to pass through. The towns right next to the plant have become a peninsula in a way because no trains, buses, etc. run through the abandoned areas anymore.
It was surprisingly easy to get into the evacuation zone - I think the closest we got was ~10km from the power plant in Namie. This area was affected by the tsunami and earthquake, too, but because of the accident at the plant, it wasn't cleaned up to the degree of other regions… so driving through, you see collapsed houses, overgrown fields, scraps of metal and overturned cars in fields… some debris has been collected in mounds so it's not entirely untouched, but you can get an idea.
It's surreal now because although people are allowed to go back to their houses and retrieve things or do repairs, they aren't allowed to live there. Electricity is restored in most areas (except maybe not the closest to the plant) but water has not because of concerns with the radiation.
We went with a Geiger counter in the car and measured the levels as we drove, but surprisingly it was never that high. In Tokyo at the office, the count was ~0.04 microsieverts and in the area around the plant, the highest it got was ~0.9, which is similar to what someone had measured in an airplane. The threshold per year before the accident per person was 1 millisievert, and now it's 20. The highest we measured all day, after passing through completely abandoned but completely beautiful mountain town Iidate was < 2 microsieverts. Apparently there are places where it is much higher - I assume people aren't allowed there.
The people who live in the areas where people are allowed to live are completely normal. They don't wear masks or strange outfits, but I imagine it's in the back of their minds somewhere.
A soon-to-be mother we talked to said she was absolutely determined to raise her child there. She said that because she knew the risks and did her homework on how to avoid internal exposure to radiation, she trusted produce from Fukushima more than other nearby areas because people there go the extra mile to make sure their food is safe.
I can't imagine living with that cloud always hanging over you, though.
On a side note, this is a really good resource for English-language news and reports about Fukushima: Fukushima on the Globe.
We drove south along the coast from Ishinomaki to Fukushima, and ended our day in Fukushima city. If you look at the map, it's straight south and to the city it's a bit inland, but because of the issues with the nuclear power plant, there's an area that people are not allowed to pass through. The towns right next to the plant have become a peninsula in a way because no trains, buses, etc. run through the abandoned areas anymore.
It was surprisingly easy to get into the evacuation zone - I think the closest we got was ~10km from the power plant in Namie. This area was affected by the tsunami and earthquake, too, but because of the accident at the plant, it wasn't cleaned up to the degree of other regions… so driving through, you see collapsed houses, overgrown fields, scraps of metal and overturned cars in fields… some debris has been collected in mounds so it's not entirely untouched, but you can get an idea.
It's surreal now because although people are allowed to go back to their houses and retrieve things or do repairs, they aren't allowed to live there. Electricity is restored in most areas (except maybe not the closest to the plant) but water has not because of concerns with the radiation.
We went with a Geiger counter in the car and measured the levels as we drove, but surprisingly it was never that high. In Tokyo at the office, the count was ~0.04 microsieverts and in the area around the plant, the highest it got was ~0.9, which is similar to what someone had measured in an airplane. The threshold per year before the accident per person was 1 millisievert, and now it's 20. The highest we measured all day, after passing through completely abandoned but completely beautiful mountain town Iidate was < 2 microsieverts. Apparently there are places where it is much higher - I assume people aren't allowed there.
The people who live in the areas where people are allowed to live are completely normal. They don't wear masks or strange outfits, but I imagine it's in the back of their minds somewhere.
A soon-to-be mother we talked to said she was absolutely determined to raise her child there. She said that because she knew the risks and did her homework on how to avoid internal exposure to radiation, she trusted produce from Fukushima more than other nearby areas because people there go the extra mile to make sure their food is safe.
I can't imagine living with that cloud always hanging over you, though.
On a side note, this is a really good resource for English-language news and reports about Fukushima: Fukushima on the Globe.