What the difference brought to Fukushima - two years after the disaster -

 There are many differences between Chernobyl's accident and Fukushima's. Sadly, such differences result in disconnection in communities.

 I personally believe that the degree of radiation exposure of people in Fukushima is better controlled. This is clearly shown from results of the rice (Japan’s staple food) screening examination; over 99.9% cleared a 100Bq/kg limit, which is one of lowest standard of cesium contamination.

I suppose people in Chernobyl could access very limited information and have limited choice to evacuate from the resident places due to the social mechanism of the Soviet Union at that time. At the same time, properties owned by the government were left un-decontaminated just making people migrate to alternate properties.

Flooded information on web/SNS made people in Fukushima uncertain what to believe to make own decisions. Unfortunately, it also highlighted government’s and local governments’ confusion at early stages of the accidents. This resulted in distrust to governments and, thus people tended to believe information that was comfortable to accept for individuals. Therefore, people in a community made different decision to leave or to stay in Fukushima. And what is worse, there were people who could not leave due to family or job reasons. Many families made difficult decision to live at different places.

Unlike Chernobyl, Fukushima chose to decontaminate the land and back to the resident places. However, in reality, there actually need the demarcation of zones depending on contamination level. The line also becomes one of causes to disconnect people in Fukushima.

 

Despite of the choice, the decontamination works require temporally and permanent places to store radioactive wastes. Of course, as a nature of human beings, none is willing to accept such wastes. This also causes frictions between communities. Then, the delay in decontamination increases distrust of people in Fukushima to governments.

The land may be recovered 30-40 years time. However, I wonder how long it would take to recover disconnections.

Nevertheless, we are moving forward step by step believing actions that we take are connected to our future.