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Radiation Decontamination in Fukushima: a critical perspective from the ground

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Miguel Quintana
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A massive decontamination effort is underway in Fukushima Prefecture to lower radiation levels in areas affected by nuclear fallout. The program, worth billions of US dollars, is presented by the government as a necessary step to allow the early return of some 160,000 residents displaced by the crisis. But authorities have yet to address a number of key issues, including the long-term storage of contaminated materials, criticism about the effectiveness of cleanup operations, and residents’ concerns about their immediate future.

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Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 13 , March 2012 , e2
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2012

References

Notes

1 The municipalities are: Futaba, Iitate, Katsurao, Kawamata, Kawauchi, Minami-Soma, Namie, Naraha, Okuma, Tomioka and Tamura.

Miguel Quintana is a freelance journalist and translator based in Tokyo. A regular contributor to Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (Washington DC) and correspondent for Le Soir (Belgium), he is an Asia-Pacific Journal associate.

Recommended citation: Miguel Quintana, ‘Radiation Decontamination in Fukushima: a critical perspective from the ground,’ The Asia- Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 13, No 3, March 26, 2012.

2 A.D. Wrixon, New ICRP Recommendations, in Journal of Radiological Protection, 28 (2008) 161-168, available here. The table for planned exposure specifies that “exceptionally, a higher value of effective dose could be allowed in a year provided that the average over 5 years does not exceed 1 mSv in a year.”

3 The Japanese term for decontamination, josen, is a compound of characters meaning ‘eliminate’ (除) and ‘taint’ (染).

4 Relations between some municipalities and the central government have remained very tense since the early stages of the nuclear crisis, when local officials struggling to cope with the quake and tsunami's aftermath learned about government evacuation orders through television. A recent incident that illustrates local sensitivities was reported by Kyodo News on February 27 (available here). A detailed account of the situation in one municipality during the first days of the crisis was aired on March 3rd, 2012 in an NHK Special documentary entitled Nuclear accident: records from the [first] 100 hours (Genpatsu Jiko Hyaku Jikan no Kiroku).

5 On April 11, 2011, the government announced that the populations of Iitate and 4 other municipalities outside the 20-km exclusion zone would have to evacuate within one month. In practice, some farmers interviewed in early March explained that it took up to 2 months to evacuate because of logistical difficulties such as the disposal of cattle.

6 Using an industrial Geiger counter, this reporter measured 176μSv/hour below the mouth of a gutter in the Iitate district of Komiya on March 10, 2012.

7 This information is consistent with the account of evacuees featured in the NHK Special documentary (see note 4 above). In the absence of information about radioactive fallout, they were unknowingly directed in the path of the radioactive plume.

8 Yamashita was presented at the time as Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University; Chairman of the Department of Molecular Medicine and Department of International Health and Radiation Research, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki School of Medicine; and Director of the WHO Collaboration Center for Research on Radiation Emergency Medicine.

9 Hasegawa Kenichi, Genpatsu ni “furusato” wo ubawarete, Takarajimasha, March 2012.

10 New information concerning the Speedi debacle surfaced on March 21, when Fukushima Prefecture admitted it had deleted five days’ worth of radiation dispersion data (Mainichi article available here).

12 From a media analysis perspective, it is worth noting that the Emperor's speech during the March 11 commemoration ceremony in Tokyo included one paragraph about the consequences of the nuclear accident. The speech was broadcast live to the nation, but NHK's evening news did not report his words on the subject. The paragraph in question was: “As this earthquake and tsunami caused the nuclear power plant accident, those living in areas designated as the danger zone lost their homes and livelihoods and had to leave the places they used to live. In order for them to live there again safely, we have to overcome the problem of radioactive contamination, which is a formidable task“ A full translation in English is available here on the website of the Imperial Household Agency.

13 See a Kyodo News report in The Japan Times, Feb. 20, 2012, available here.

14 Several attempts were made in early March to reach the mayor for comment. A formal request in writing and repeated phone inquiries were left unanswered for days, until the head of the General Affairs Section said that the mayor's busy schedule prevented him from accepting interviews.