The effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident will be felt for decades into the future, say local and international activists on the 10th anniversary of Japan’s triple disaster of March 2011, contradicting the Japanese government’s official narrative that the crisis has largely been overcome.
Memories of that March day 10 years ago remain fresh for those who experienced it.
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan’s northeastern coast – the strongest ever recorded – was followed first by an enormous tsunami and then by the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant that was built on the coast and destroyed by the power of the wave. Nearly 20,000 people in the country’s northeast lost their lives.
A decade later, most Japanese in the Tohoku region have been able to move on with their lives, but in the areas near Fukushima Daiichi, where radioactive particles contaminated the land, recovery has not been so swift.
“Buildings could be repaired after the earthquake and tsunami,” said NGO worker Ayumi Iida. “Only the nuclear disaster hasn’t ended. We don’t know when it will end.”
In the wake of the nuclear accident, the government ordered people in nearby cities to leave, and established radiation exclusion zones around the plant. Nearly 165,000 residents were evacuated at its peak in 2012.
Decontamination efforts have meant most areas have been reopened and people allowed to return to their homes. But there are still nearly 37,000 people listed as Fukushima evacuees and many of them say they have no intention of going back.
Iida is a spokesperson for a group called NPO Mothers’ Radiation Lab Fukushima Tarachine, a grassroots organisation established by residents after the disaster to protect the health and livelihoods of children living in the area who had been exposed to radiation and other potential sources of harm.
Iida, a young mother who lives in the coastal city of Iwaki, about 40 kilometres (24 miles) from the destroyed plant, told Al Jazeera English that she tries to protect her children by sourcing foods from faraway regions of Japan, by finding playgrounds with the lowest levels of radioactivity and by having her children screened each year for signs of thyroid cancer.
“Our children have to be the main focus for the future of everything here,” she said.
