1993 年 10 月 15 日 第三種郵便物認可 毎月 1 日発行 Vol. 47 第 3 号 No. 1 Shimbun 2015 年 3 月 1 日発行

The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

March 2015, Volume 47 No. 3, ¥400

THE REMAINS
OF THE DAY
Building bridges
in Onagawa
Radiation
at a glance
Progress at
the nuclear plant?
“I was an instantnews media star”

The cover photo is of the Seaside Palace Hotel,
Kesennuma, which was some distance from the sea
prior to the disaster.

Vol. 47, Number 3

March 2015

contact the editors

no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Publisher FCCJ
Editor Gregory Starr
Art Director Andrew Pothecarywww.forbiddencolour.com
Editorial Assistants Naomichi Iwamura,Tyler Rothmar
Photo Coordinator Akiko Miyake
Publications committee members
Gavin Blair (Chair), Geoffrey Tudor, Orient
Aviation, Martin Fackler, New York Times,
Monzurul Huq, Prothom Alo, Julian Ryall, Daily
Telegraph, Patrick Zoll, Neue Zürcher Zeitung,Sonja Blaschke, freelance

Now, four years later, it is scheduled
for demolition – and a controversial seawall
is to be built in the bay.

FCCJ BOARD OF DIRECTORS (as of July 25)
President Lucy Birmingham, Freelance
1st Vice President Michael Penn, Shingetsu News
Agency2nd Vice President
Masaaki Fukunaga, The Sanmarg
Secretary Patrick Zoll, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Treasurer Yuichi Otsuka, Associate Member
Directors at Large
Suvendrini Kakuchi, Inter Press Service
Akiko Ryu Innes-Taylor, Associate Member
Carsten Germis, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Milton Isa, Associate Member

In this issue
The Front Page
From the President by Lucy Birmingham
Tales from the round tables by The Shimbun Alley Whisperers
From the archives by Charles Pomeroy

Kanji William Sposato, Freelance

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4
5

MARCH 11, 2011 - 2015
Onagawa also rises
by Mary Corbett

6

Update on “Ground Zero”
by Justin McCurry8

Four years after: An illustrated guideby Azby Brown and Antonio Portela

10Inching back to life
by David McNeill

12

Confessions of an Instant! News! Celebrity!
by Matt Alt

14

Stripped!
by Julian Ryall

16

Club NewsFCCJ exhibition: What the Fukushima Nuclear Explosion did to
our Beloved Rose Garden co-organized by Hisako Matsuda andMaya Moore/Heard at the Club/Join the Movie Committee/
New Members/New in the library

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MARCH 2015

FCCJ COMMITTEE CHAIRSAssociate Members Liaison Milton Isa
Entertainment Sandra Mori, Suvendrini Kakuchi
Exhibition Bruce Osborn
Finance Yuichi Otsuka
House & Property Michael Penn
Human Resources Masaaki Fukunaga
Information Technology Roger Williams
Library, Archives & Workroom Koichi Ishiyama,
Suvendrini Kakuchi
Membership Monzurul Huq, Peter O’Connor
Membership Marketing Bill Shin, Rie Sakamoto
Movie Karen Severns
Professional Activities David McNeill,
Tetsuo Jimbo
Publications Gavin Blair
Special Projects Haruko Watanabe
Web Committee Tim Hornyak
Compliance Committee Kunio Hamada
70th Anniversary Panel Yoshio Murakami
Freedom of Press Jake Adelstein
Food & Beverage Rike Wootten
De Roy Memorial Scholarship TBD
Foreign Press in Japan Justin McCurry

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan
Yurakucho Denki Building, North Tower 20F,
1-7-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0006.
Tel: (03) 3211-3161 Fax: (03) 3211-3168 fccj.or.jp
Published by the FCCJ All opinions contained within
Number 1 Shimbun are those of the authors. As such,these opinions do not constitute an official positionof Number 1 Shimbun, the editor or the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Please pitch and send articles and photographs, oraddress comments to no.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp
Read the Number 1 Shimbun online:
fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun/
Cover photograph:
Andrew Pothecary3

FRONT PAGE

FROM THE ARCHIVES

From thePresident

FOUR YEARS HAVE ALREADY passed
since the March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake,tsunami and Fukushima disaster. The
high school boy I profiled in my bookon the disaster will be graduating fromuniversity this month. While his upcoming
career offers much promise, thousands
remain in the hard hit areas still struggling
to recover from that fateful day.
We hear much about a “new fatalism”
afflicting Japanese youth. “In violent
times young Japanese just shrug,” reads
a Japan Times article. Yet the young
participants in journalism talks I’ve
attended are filled with curiosity andquestions. Interestingly, we saw a spikeof applications for student memberships
in January, thanks to introductions fromour members, and our Dateline Tokyo
program brought a similar number ofinterns into the Club last fall. We’re hoping
to expand this program in coordination
with Temple University Japan.
On March 18 (19:00-20:00) we’ll haveour first, monthly Happy Hour for young
journalists in the Main Bar. Of course it’sopen to journalists of any age as well as
nonmembers, so bring your journalist
friends.
In addition, we’ve had a flood of
inquiries about our program for Japaneseelementary, junior high and high school
students. It’s part of our public service

FROM SHEBATO CASTRO
efforts, and features a talk by one of ourjournalist members about their work
experience and news issues. So far we’ve
booked 15 high school groups from 30
to 180 students each, from all over Japanover the next year.
Please also spread the word
about our annual Swadesh DeRoy
Scholarship awards targeting university
undergraduate and graduate students,
which is organized by the Scholarship
Committee. The deadline for entries is
March 27, and there’s more informationon our website at: www.fccj.or.jp/images/
PDFs/2015Swadeshscholarship.pdf
Last but not least, the Freedom of
the Press Committee has officiallyannounced the Club’s inaugural “Japan
Investigative Journalism Awards” forpublished articles and “Freedom of thePress Awards” with four categories.
Judges will include well-known news
media figures. Nominations will be
accepted from FCCJ members andspecified press and media organizations
until March 31. Award winners will beannounced on Sun. May 3, World Press
Freedom Day. The awards ceremony anddinner will be Fri. May 22. Check the Club
website for details.
Wishing you a March free of pollen
sniffles and full of newly bursting cherry
blossoms.
— Lucy Birmingham

TALES FROM THE ROUND TABLES

THE NEWSMANNOVELISTOVER THE YEARS, MANY talented
FCCJ journalists have enjoyed fameand fortune through their books’
translations into Japanese. Pulitzerwinner James Michener’s books
sold in the millions here. And today,
Karel Van Wolferen, Robert Whiting
and Bill Emmott’s works make them
perennial favorites on the local
lecture circuit.
But it’s very likely that the mostimpressive career in this vein is theone of Earnest Hoberecht (19181999), best known to FCCJ members

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as the colorful UP bureau chief andformer Club president.
Horberecht started earning “a nicebit of change” producing swashbucklingwestern pulp in his student days at the
University of Oklahoma. His big breakas a novelist came after he landed in1945 as “the first foreign correspondent
in Japan” to start work at the UP office.
Opportunity came knocking when the
U.S. Occupation forces banned thetranslation of all American books in abid to control the quality and content
of American literature entering Japan,

Gina Lollobrigida graced us
with her presence on May 1,
1974. An Italian actress who
became the world’s leading “sexsymbol” in the 1950s and 1960s,
she became a photojournalist
in the mid-1970s and also asculptor. Seated to her right isBill Shinn (Sisa News Agency)
and to her immediate left isthen-president of the FCCJ SamJameson (Los Angeles Times),
Al Cullison (New York Journalof Commerce), and Sam Jones(AP). Al Cullison served as Club
president in 1975-76 and was
followed by Bill Shinn in the
1976-77 administrative year.

From now until our 70th anniversary in November 2015, we will turnthese pages over to the history of the Club, both of the many esteemed
and important guests who faced us – and the world – from the FCCJ
dais and of the many Members who have made the Club such afascinating place to be.

ITALIAN ACTRESS GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA
had a long and storied career,appearing in over 60 films, including
the role of Sheba in 1959’s Solomon
and Sheba, alongside Yul Brynner.
She retired from films in theearly 1970s to focus on a career
as a photojournalist, turning herlens on subjects ranging from Paul
Newman and Henry Kissinger to Ella
Fitzgerald. But Lollobrigida’s biggest
scoop came in mid-1974, shortly after
her appearance at the FCCJ, when
she arranged an exclusive interview
with Fidel Castro through the Cuban
Embassy in Moscow (which she had
visited to photograph poet Yevgenniy
Yevtushenko). Published first in Italy
and then in other publications aroundthe world, her Castro interview
became part of a documentary
released in January of 1975.
Her interests were wide-ranging.
She created sculptures that were
well received and contributed tophilanthropic causes, including
UNICEF, and unsuccessfully ran for
the European Parliament in 1999.
In 2013, she sold her jewelrycollection, and donated the nearly$5 million from the sale to support
research on stem cell therapy. Now
fully retired, she lives in Sicily.

— Charles Pomeroy

creating a vacuum in a country
hungering for any sliver of Americana.
Hoberecht and his publisher foundtheir way around the restriction bytaking a rough manuscript – which
Hoberecht dictated to a secretary– directly to translation, in effectmaking their first effort, Tokyo Diary,a Japanese book. The story of an
American correspondent’s experience
exploring the mysteries of Tokyo, it
was an instant bestseller. The novel
was graced with the exceptional
skills of famed translator Yasuo
Okubo, who had first established his
reputation with the Japanese editionof Gone with the Wind in 1938, even
before the movie’s U.S. release.
Hoberecht and Masunaga
positioned themselves as Japan’s
new literary “brain trust,” and moved

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quickly to exploit the momentum
with Tokyo Romance, Japan’s biggest
post-war blockbuster. The bookonce again starred an Americancorrespondent, this time finding
himself in love with Japan’s biggest
film star. Most of the story took
place at No. 1 Shimbun Alley. In what
Time magazine described as a “richly
corned-up novel” with “faint hintsof Madame Butterfly” but “with a
happy ending,” it featured the added
allure of “sensuous illustrations
by Tsuguharu Fujita, billed as thefirst kissing scenes ever to adorn aJapanese novel.”
Suddenly, Hoberecht was asfamous in Japan as his good friend
General MacArthur, and 300,000
members of the Ernest Hoberecht
fan club collectively swooned at

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MARCH 2015

his eloquence – albeit in the far
more gifted Okubo’s Japanese. With
Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald
all shut out of the market, Ernie alone
shouldered the “intellectual burden,”as he would call it, of upholding
America’s literary legacy against
European rivals such as Dostoevsky,
Hugo and Bronte, which remained
available in Japanese.
“How do you compare the literary
accomplishments of Jean Paul Sartre
and Earnest Hoberecht?” James
Michener was once asked from the floor
after a lecture at Waseda University. His
Japanese audience was dumbfounded
when Michener admitted he not only
had never read Hoberecht, but had
never heard of the author.
Soon after, Tokyo Romance waspublished in its original, rather

unpolished form, for a U.S. public
curious about its impact on modern
Japanese thought. Life followedwith a five-page story, declaring
Tokyo Romance “the worst novel ofmodern times” – a review rejected by
Hoberecht as “near libelous seeing as
I have written worse myself.”
Robust in ego and humor alike,he relished his status as the mostpopular American author in Japan,
without any illusions about his
literary talents. Until his departure in1966 his greatest passion remained
his day job at UP, though James
Michener guessed his royalties inthose heady post-war days may havewell been the biggest earnings of any
writer in the world.

— The Shimbun Alley Whisperers

5FEATURE
MARCH 11, 2011 – 2015
Out of destruction Left, the new Onagawa station building, designed byarchitect Shigeru Ban, under construction; below, Canadian Robert Hampton

Onagawa
also rises
From enemy combatants to saints,
architects and celebrities, this small Tohoku city seems
to have stumbled upon a magic formula for survival in a time of need.

SHIGERU BAN ARCHITECTS

Gray, who died attacking a ship in Onagawa bay in the last week of WWII.

D

impenetrable. “Let no crane or standing facility
eep suffering can never be measured
by MARY CORBETT
be left idle” became the town’s battle cry.
or compared, particularly in regard to“The earthquake may well have been the jolt
tragedies of the dimensions that struck
which snapped us out of the old complacency and mindset
Tohoku on March 11, 2011. But it’s hard to ignore the fact thatthat were killing our town,” says Yoshihide Abe, CEO of Umethe notoriously unruly gods of the region spared little thatmaru Newspapers, a delivery service. Abe resumed newspaday, and the town of Onagawa’s suffering was conspicuous inper delivery in just three days, and his extensive dealings
its scope. Its core was snuggled tightly in a narrow corridor
with local businesses helped gather leaders to form an action
between sea and hills, so when the 14.8 meter wall of watergroup focused on reconstruction.
(some witnesses believe it hit nearly 20 meters at its peak)
The president of a fish products manufacturer, Masanori
swept over the town, it leveled 70 percent of its buildings,
Takahashi, provided his still-intact facilities for meetings,
stripped the town of its railway and took the lives of nearly 10
and on his premises promptly built offices for the chamber
percent of the population in one fleeting sweep.
of commerce, tourist association and fish processing assoThat the gods targeted Onagawa at all seems cruel. The
ciations to resume the much-needed operations of the town’s
proud, ancient enclave was already in the throes of both ancore businesses. By mid-April, the Reconstruction Coordinaeconomic and population freefall. Voting down a 2005 initiation Association was up and running to work with the not-yet
tive to join six other towns in a merger that would make Ishifully operational municipal government.
nomaki city the second largest in Miyagi Prefecture along theway, Onagawa’s population had dropped from 16,000 in 1980
to 10,000 in 2010.
The flyboy . . .
Neitzsche could well have been looking at Onagawa when he
In the midst of the frenetic aftermath, mysterious funds
famously observed “that which does not kill us, makes us stronstarted to appear – and not just vague offers of assistance, orger.” Onagawans appear to have an abundance of that stubpromises languishing in the corridors of Japanese aid agencies
born and resilient DNA which gives some trauma survivors the
awaiting distribution. The funds were, for the most part, free
positive boost that psychologists call “post trauma growth.”from the clutches of the disaster relief Black Hole because they
Soon after the disaster, the members of the “Town Building
were earmarked specifically for the “The People of Onagawa.”
Study Group,” formed only the year before by the town’s busiThe town was moved and thoroughly perplexed by thenesses and young entrepreneurs to take urgent economygifts, arriving – in large part – from Canada. Only a few elders
boosting action, were promptly out on reconnaissance, vigorhad any inkling as to the possible roots of such generosity.
ously mapping the still operational components of the town.
The funds were followed by the tread of Canadian feet on
The results were immediate – and dramatic. One week
the ground, in the form of droves of volunteers with dollops
later, construction hands in Onagawa had cleared enoughof cash in hand from family and friends, and the reason was
to open a narrow path for supply deliveries and SDF accessquickly apparent. It seemed that a city of 10,000 in British
while volunteers and rescue workers were reporting from
Columbia called Nelson had a particularly strong resonanceIshinomaki that debris-clogged roads made that town largely
with the tragedy, a feeling that was reinforced after the

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local Canadian children folded thousands of origami cranes
to raise funds, matched by the city. Their generosity soon
arrived in Onagawa as a $40,000 gift.
What the citizens of Nelson recalled, though largely forgotten in the mist of Japan’s collective WWII amnesia, wasthe memory of one Hampton Gray that echoed from deep
beneath the waters of Onagawa Bay.
Hampton (or “Hammy,” as he was known to family andfriends in his hometown of Nelson) was the most decorated
Canadian pilot of WWII. He had joined the Royal Navy in 1940
and fought throughout the rest of the war in such locations
as Africa and Norway before joining the attack on Okinawa –and mainland Japan.
On August 9, 1945, less than a week prior to Japan’s surrender, Gray was leading an air attack on the escort ship Amakusa, part of the naval fleet in Onagawa harbor. Though he sunkthe ship, he took fire from five naval batteries as well as fromthe shore, and was last witnessed by his fellow flight members rolling right in a ball of fire and smoke, and exploding
into the waves of the bay. For his heroics, he posthumously
received the Victoria Cross, one of only two members of theRoyal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm to be so decorated.
It was hardly an event, one would think, that would inspire
great friendship between nations, particularly as there wasalso considerable collateral damage to civilians on shore. But,
after the war, Canada persevered in delicate negotiations toconvince Onagawa to help locate their favorite son’s Corsair
and remains. When joint recovery operations proved futile
due to mines left from the war, Canada then asked the peopleof Onagawa to permit the construction of a memorial to theirfallen hero. Preferably with a view, no less.
Quite understandably, this was cause for considerable discussion and division in the town, but when the memorial was
eventually erected in 1989, its
opening was attended by international media and Canadiandignitaries – and even somesurvivors of Amakusa. A local
Lion’s Club pledged to maintain it in perpetuity as a symbol of enduring friendship. One
current executive of the Club,
Tadao Kato, remains humbled
by the enormity of the responsibility entrusted in his generation, particularly as the fate of
their chapter was much in the doubt on the day of the earthquake and tidal wave.
That pledge has since blossomed into a formidable bridge
linking the small town with the outside world. Perhaps it isa symbolic one, but it comes with enormous practical ramifications for recovery that the town would be ill-advised toignore. The channel of communications with the CanadianEmbassy in Tokyo and Navy remain particularly strong. And
though the memorial stone toppled and broke on that day inMarch, 2011, it has since found a new home by a hospital on ahill with, of course, a view.

WWII, but my post-war generation knew little about the story
behind the Gray memorial. So the way Canada reached out tous certainly fills us all with gratitude and hope.”
Onagawa is lucky to have a celebrity spokesman like Nakamura, who himself lost three cousins and his childhood hometo the tsunami. He campaigns tirelessly at schools and charity events to keep Onagawa in the thoughts of people, lestanyone forget that Tohoku’s struggles continue.
He also is a sort of bridge, thanks to his starring role in
American Pastime, a 2007 U.S. film about baseball in a Japaneseinternment camp. Nakamura was surprised by the unexpected
speed and generosity with which former crew and cast members orchestrated donations that he says “just kept coming!”
Onagawa’s international bonds were once more on prominent display after stories began to circulate about how the
local fish-processing company executive Mitsuru Sato was
swept away by the tsunami after leading the Chinese trainees
working at his firm to safe ground. Sato instantly became a virtual patron saint to millions in China and Hong Kong, prompting visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the time to request
a pilgrimage to Tohoku in honor of the “brave man who transcended nationality” to save his countrymen. Sato’s portrait
can still be seen proudly displayed in Dalian, from where themajority of trainees living in Onagawa at the time hailed.

The architect

Now, as the town prepares to celebrate a recovery milestone
with the completion of the Ishinomaki Line’s last few miles
into the center of town on March 21, Mayor Yoshiaki Suda gleefully senses a great buzz around Pritzker-winning architect
Shigeru Ban’s new station building. Ban, who is as well known
as a humanitarian visionary as a pioneering architect possessing a magic touch with unusual materials, was much feted forthe many emergency structures he created for Tohoku as well
as for the ergonomic paper partitions his Voluntary Architects’
Network installed pro bono to give Onagawa and other towns’
evacuees a modicum of much appreciated privacy in thecrowded evacuation centers.
The station building is acommission that the mayor– himself a happy residentof Ban’s pro bono temporary
housing since the tsunami– feels “is not only a reflection of Ban’s exceptional
talent, but one which brings
his stature and international
interest to the town.” He goeson to add, “The publicity certainly won’t hurt.”“I’m happy and honored to be a part of the station reopening,” says Ban, “and I hope it provides a little respite for tired
travelers, even though they may not come in large numbers
at first.”
Modest projections all around, but everywhere the excitement is palpable. The town is already looking forward to thenext phase of Onagawa Station construction that will include
a new shopping promenade and a park. Kato, the keeper ofthe flame from the Lions Club, is already contemplating thepossibility that Hampton Gray’s memorial may one day finda more visible resting place in the new plaza, so that many
more can pay their respects.
“A friendship nurtured in such calamity is important and of
The thespian . . .
deep value,” said Premier Wen Jiabao that fateful year when all“We knew about the memorial as children,” recalls Masatoshi
seemed lost. He could have been speaking
Nakamura, the renowned actor and singer
Mary Corbett is a writer andfor the entire world, which luckily for Onawho hails from Onagawa. “Older people
documentary producer based in Tokyo.
gawa, continues to watch . . . and care. ❶in town used to talk about an air raid in

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MARCH 2015

“A friendshipnurtured insuch calamity isimportant andof deep value”

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FEATURE
MARCH 11, 2011 – 2015
Sending arms into battle In this 2015 photo, a remote-controlled, snake-

3,000 in early 2014 to almost 7,000 today.
In response to concerns that lack of proper rest was making Fukushima Daiichi workers more susceptible to lapses inconcentration, Tepco will open a new facility in March where
over 200,000 tons of water were being stored in about 1,000
up to 1,200 workers at a time can rest and have meals. A new
giant tanks that occupy land formerly blanketed by woods.
venture will provide nutritious meals for about 3,000 workTepco officials say a new tank must be built roughly every
ers a day from April.
two-and-a-half days.
The utility is also under fire for failing to ensure that its
The firm is pinning its hopes on a multifaceted approachcontractors treat their employees fairly. Amid revelations by
to water containment, although it recently conceded that itjournalists at Reuters that some unscrupulous firms were
will miss by several months its self-imposed March deadline
withholding mandatory hazard allowances, four former andfor completing the treatment of toxic water. The measurescurrent workers last autumn took Tepco and several of its
include a steel barrier that will prevent contaminated water
partner firms to court seeking millions of yen in unpaid wages.
from flowing into the open sea; pumping groundwater to the
Many Daiichi workers hail from the communities that were
surface before it becomes contaminated and the construcrendered uninhabitable by the plant’s toxic discharge. Evention of a 1.4-kilometer-long “ice wall” around the four damin villages where evacuees have been given the all clear toaged reactors. Tepco is also working on ways to cover the
return, optimism is tempered by the realisation that manyground with concrete and asphalt to stop rainwater fromwill never be tempted back.
soaking into the ground.
The village of Kawauchi is on the edge of the original 20-kiloIn tandem with the ¥32 billion ice wall, the utility says it ismeter no-go zone where radiation levels have been deemedalmost ready to launch a new, improved version of its ALPS
low enough for residents to return, and is one of several villag[advanced liquid processing system] water-treatment appaes I’ve revisited to monitor attempts to resettle evacuees. Durratus that can remove more than 60 radioactive elements.
ing my last visit, in October, its tireless mayRecent “hot testing” of the apparatus has
or, Yuko Endo, had mixed feelings about the
been successful, Shinichi Kawamura, head
recent lifting of the evacuation order there.
of risk communication at Fukushima Daiichi,“There are some of us for whom the situation
told visiting reporters last November.
has improved a little,” he said, “but there are“This is a high-performance systemothers who have been completely unable tobecause it uses only filters and absorbents
resume a normal life.”
to remove the contaminants,” Kawamura
Like many other places that were turned
said. “The old system depended on chemical
into ghost towns by radiation, Kawauchi
agents, which caused problems and createdhas divided largely along generational lines.
a lot more waste. We have confidence in this“Among elderly residents there were thosemachinery.”
who were desperate go back to their own
The progress Tepco and its partners havehomes and restart their normal lives,” Endo said. “They feelmade in recent months can’t conceal the fact that radiationthat they want to spend their twilight years in their own
levels inside the damaged reactor buildings remain dangerhomes in their own village. On the other hand, young families
ously high four years after the triple meltdown. Earlier thiswith children are worried about radiation and feel unable toyear, the utility showcased some of the remote-controlled
come back.”
robots that have been specially designed for tasks that no
Many experts accept that the official policy of reducing
human can safely perform. One newly unveiled device uses
radiation levels to just one millisievert a year is unrealistic.
muons, a type of cosmic ray, that easily permeate light objects
What started as a non-negotiable target has now become a
but are blocked by heavy substances such as uranium. Thoselong-term “aspiration” amid delays in the faltering mission
properties should allow experts to create an image of melted
to decontaminate areas around homes, schools, hospitals andfuel resting deep inside reactors Nos. 1, 2 and 3.
other public buildings.
“This is a great example of how the innovation and coopIitate village is one municipality that the government plans
eration from external experts is helping us overcome chalto encourage people to return to in March 2016, when theylenges and make progress toward decommissioning,” said
hope to win approval to lift the evacuation order. But postNaohiro Masuda, Tepco’s chief decommissioning officer.
disaster Iitate little resembles the village once celebrated as
one of Japan’s most picturesque.
The human cost: plant workers and the community
Hanako Hasegawa, a displaced resident from Iitate, says
Technology aside, the success of the decommissioning operamost of her 6,000 former neighbors now live in other parts oftion depends on the ability of the thousands of people onFukushima Prefecture, with the remainder scattered acrosssite to do their jobs in safe conditions. The dangers facing
Japan. “People who visit say it’s a sad place to be now,” says
the estimated 7,000 men involved in cleaning up the Daiichi
Hasegawa, who works at a drop-in advice center for villagers
plant were highlighted in January when a worker fell to his
at a temporary housing complex just outside Fukushima city.
death inside an empty water storage tank. The same week,“Yet they still go back to weed the garden and tidy homes theyanother died after equipment fell on him at the neighboring
will probably never live in.”Daini plant.
Hasegawa's story, and those of tens of thousands of other
The number of injuries at Daiichi, excluding cases of heatFukushima evacuees, no longer makes the headlines. Therestroke, has almost doubled in the past two years. In fiscal
is a real risk that, as each anniversary passes, the coverage
2013, Tepco recorded 23 injuries, while the number between
will abate and their plight will be
April and November last year
Justin McCurry is Japan and Korea correspondent forforgotten, in Japan and around the
had already reached 40. The firm
the Guardian and the Observer. He contributes to theworld. As foreign correspondents,
attributed the rise to an increase
Christian Science Monitor and the Lancet medical journal,
we owe it to them to make sure thatin the average number of workers
and reports on Japan and Korea for France 24 TV.
doesn’t happen. ❶at the site during weekdays, fromAP PHOTO/SHIZUO KAMBAYASHI

like robot is lowered through the mock-up of a containment chamber in Ibaraki.

Update on“Ground Zero”
The litany of steady progress and stubborn obstacles at the
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant may not claim headlines four
years after the fact, but there are plenty of stories to go around.

After four years and six visits (the mostjob, so when we removed the last fuel assemblyby JUSTIN MCCURRY
recent late last year) to the site of thewe were delighted,” Yuichi Kagami, who overworst nuclear accident in a quarter ofsaw the fuel removal, said. “This was a big stepa century, I find myself in the unfamiliar position of strugforward in the decommissioning process.”gling to come up with a strong, news-led way to report theDale Klein, the former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regusituation. The problems confronting its operator, Tokyo Eleclatory Commission who heads Tepco’s nuclear reform monitric Power, are familiar to anyone who has followed the crisis
toring committee, believes that a corner has been turned.
since it began on the afternoon of March 11, 2011.
The safe removal of the fuel assemblies, he said, “deserves
We know that Tepco is battling to cope with the build-up
recognition as a major technical achievement, as an advanceof contaminated water; that some among the site’s 6,000
in creating a safer environment, and as an example of how
workers are unhappy about pay and conditions; and that thecareful planning and an embrace of a safety-first culture canremoval of melted fuel from three badly damaged reactors
produce excellent results.”
looks as distant a possibility as it did during the deeply unsettling aftermath of the disaster.
No cure for the headache: What to do with the water?
The near-elusive news peg reflects another fact about
Tepco has made slower progress in addressing the perennial
Fukushima that some in the anti-nuclear community willproblem of containing and treating huge quantities of confind unpalatable: that for all the public opprobrium heaped
taminated water that have built up on the site. Until they doon Tepco, the utility and its vast network of contractors have
that, proper decommissioning – an unprecedented technimade demonstrable progress since the disaster last featured
cal challenge that is expected to take at least 40 years andprominently in the pages of the Number 1 Shimbun.
cost tens of billions of dollars – will be practically impossible,
Tepco deserves credit, for instance, for reaching an imporAkira Ono, Fukushima Daiichi’s manager, told foreign media
tant milestone last November when it completed the safeorganisations recently.
removal of 1,331 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 4. By the“The contaminated water is the most pressing issue – there
end of the year, a much smaller number of unused assemblies
is no doubt about that,” Ono said. “Our efforts to address the
had also been removed from the reactor’s elevated storage
problem are at their peak now. Though I cannot say exactly
pool and transported to a safer location on site.
when, I hope things start getting better when the measures
As critics warned of catastrophe – Japan’s former ambasstart taking effect.”sador to Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, went as far as claimOfficials estimate that about 400 tons of groundwater flow
ing that “the fate of Japan and the whole world” was at stakefrom the surrounding mountains and into the basements of– engineers approached the task with a sagacity that struck
three stricken reactors, where it mixes with a similar quantity
many of the foreign correspondents who toured the reactor
of water that’s used to prevent melted fuel from overheating
just before removal work began in late 2014. “This was a risky
and triggering another major accident. By late last year, well
8

MARCH 2015

FCCJ

Many experts
accept that
reducing
radiation levels
to 1mSv/year isunrealistic

FCCJ

MARCH 20159

FEATURE
MARCH 11, 2011 – 2015

FOUR YEARS AFTER:AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE
2012
Percentage ofFukushima ricethat tested above
100Bq/kg limit

10
Bq/ 0
& a kg
bov
e

5
Bq/ 0
kg

Bq 25
/kg

0

0.0084%

2014

0%

st:
Highe gk/qB
1963 10 Average:
Bq/kg
1963 5 erage:
Av
Bq/kg
2011 0.5 e:gAvera g
q/k
B
.1
3
0
01

201
3
37.3
%
57.7 –%

5,6
sam 09plesout of

For other prefectures over the sametime period, the range was from 4.7%
(Mar.-June 2011) to 0.3% (Jan. 2015)

Highest found7,5
sam 81
ples

8,7
sam 32
ples0.

from3%
sam 651
ples

77.5%

36.4%

6,402 out of 8,263

3,061 km out of 8,421 km
In progress

16.4%

Complete

35 km2 out of 213 km22014 “Hot spot” decontamination inmunicipalities outside of Fukushima

60
17Completed: Tamura, Kawauchi,
Naraha, Okuma
In progress: Katsurao, Kawamata,Minamisoma, Iitate, Namie,
Tomioka, Futaba

municipalities (in Iwate,
Miyagi, Ibaraki, Tochigi,
Gunma, Saitama, and Chiba)
complete (in Ibaraki andGunma)

Dec. 2014

Number meetinggovernment goal ofless than 1mSv/yr

Number of Fukushimaresidents screened forinternal contamination

238,527 238,501¥78.2B
Government
estimate

Approx.
76,000 in
Fukushima

Approx.
46,000outsideFukushima

Comparison of internal contamination data provided
dose/yr

Bq/kg

Municipalities*
Fukushima
Pref.

✓
✓

Bq/body Bq/kg repeated tests identify high risk groups test food

✓
✗

✓
✗

✓
✗

✓
✗

✓
✗

* includes Minamisoma, Hirata, Kawachimura, Miharu and Iwaki

Mental health (suicide)

Fukushima’s ranking in the suicide rate in Japan, 2006-2014

Oct. 2014

July 2011

Jan
201 .
5

70.7%
21,164 out of 29.920

10,000¥2.48T

Ritsumeikan
University estimate(Professor Kenichi Oshima,
quoted by LDP member
Taro Kono)

Total cost of the Fukushima health survey

0.4
%–
1.6%

59.9%
185,478 out of 309,718

Number ofevacuees

Total decontamination cost

¥1.15T

1.7%
–
7.7%

Roads

Public facilities

June 2012 164,218
June 2013 150,488
Dec. 2014 121,585

Jan. 2015 Contamination in wild boar
above 100Bq/kg in Fukushima

Government
estimate

9.6%
25.1 –%

Farm fields(99.9%)

Dec. 2011201
4

Households

15 samples were over thelimit in Fukushima, all inMarch 2011, most for Iodine— I131 — (up to 5300 Bq/kg)

2

Variation represents sampling results fromdifferent times through the year

201
2

Contaminationin milk compared
to 1963

Strontium:
Only 66 samples of milk
have been measured for
Sr90 since 2011.
• 1963: avg: about 1 Bq/lhighest: about 3 Bq/kg• 2011: avg: 0.03 Bq/kg
highest: about 0.5 Bq/kg

it
Safe lim r. 2012)p(set in A

samples

Percentage of seafood which tested above
100Bq/kg limit in Fukushima Prefecture

201
1

10

on March
Milk distribution
was stopped thefollowing day.

24
29

10,870,963 bags measured,
0 over 100Bq/kg

1,9
sam95
ples

Highest:2011 210 Bq/kg20.

7
Bq/ 5
kg

10,246,086
bags measured,
71 over
100Bq/kg

Decontamination completed
vs that in progress in theSpecial Decontamination Area
(original evacuation zone)

As of Nov. 2014 Decontamination (undertaken at least once) in Fukushima

April 2014

¥96B
NHK estimate

MARCH 2015

FCCJ

1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th
11th
12th
13th
14th
15th
16th
17th
18th
19th
20th
21st

Sharp increase
noticed in those
aged 80 and overin 2012, and infemales aged 2029 in 2013.

2014
2006 n2008 ▼

2007 ▼ 2009 ▲2013 ▲
2011 ▲

2010 ▼
2012 ▼Overall national
suicide rates havebeen declining
since 1997.
Iwate has always
been in the top 6
in this period, andremains higher
than Fukushima.

All data from official sources: details can be found atwww.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun.html (March 2015 issue).
Official data relating to Fukushima is made available online by
several different government agencies, but only a few categories,
such as environmental radiation levels and food contamination, canbe adequately cross-checked against independent sources.
The data presented here was collated by AZBY BROWN,
a Safecast volunteer and director of the KIT Future Design Institute,and ANTONIO PORTELA, an independent researcher and translator.
All graphics by ANDREW POTHECARY.

FCCJMARCH 2015

Percentage of people with detectableinternal contamination (300 Bq/body)
Data from Minamisoma
municipality. Fukushima
Prefecture data does notprovide this information

Number of
Fukushima children(under 18) diagnosed
with thyroid cancer
Feb. 2015
Preliminary screening

367,687

AdultsChildren

Sept.-Dec. 2011

55%

38%

Apr.-Sept. 2012

10%

0.2%

298,577

Apr.-Sept. 2013

2%

0.1%

297,046

Oct. 2013Mar. 2014

1.5%

0%

109

eligiblescreened
results

cancer cases
Data suggests a normal
prevalence rate in childrenof about 36 cases per
100,000 people.
Full-scale screening began in
2014, to be conducted every
2 years until age 20 andevery 5 years after 20.
For 2014:
1/5 screened, 8 cancer cases

11

FEATURE
MARCH 11, 2011 – 20152011: Opposite, a deserted street in Namie.
2014: Left, a refugee from Iitate – Eiko Kanno – still living in

Inchingback to lifeand drowned 40 of its 1,800 residents. The government’s response was to order a 14.7-meter
wall, with a price tag of ¥230 million, all toshelter a community that is no longer there.
The village has been moved 3km inland fromthe sea.
Even more puzzlingly, the land ministry
admits the new structures are not designed
to withstand the sort of seismic event that
occurred in 2011. That quake is considered aonce-in-a-thousand-year calamity and nothing
could block the tsunami that followed. Koizumi’s wall is less than half the size of the highest
wave that hit the area in 2011. Yet the walls willsave lives, and many residents demand them,insists the ministry.

Despite the continued suffering ofmany thousands of residents, therebuilding of Japan’s devastatednortheast is agonizingly slow.
by DAVID MCNEILL

Sea walls face opposition from residents

On March 13, 2011, I walked through Minamisanriku withcolleagues Julian Ryall and Rob Gilhooly, scarcely able
to take in what we were seeing. A community of over
17,000 people had been washed away in a giant muddy deluge.
Under the crunch of our feet, the town was almost completely
silent save for the caw of crows and the distant hiss of a sea
that had erupted with such terrible, unexpected violence.
Four years after the tsunami that pummeled Japan’s northeast, turning communities like this into watery morgues, themantra from Tokyo is that the area’s recovery, the economy andthe state of the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, whichsuffered a triple meltdown after its cooling system failed, areunder control. The reality, of course, is very different.
To be fair, the task was always going to be enormous. Acrossthe worst hit areas of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures, over a million buildings were damaged or destroyed
and nearly 19,000 people left dead or missing. An early damage estimate by the World Bank of US$235 billion is now considered too low, rendered obsolete by inflationand the ballooning price tag for cleaning up thenuclear mess.
“Every recovery from natural disaster is
struck by criticism of the speed of reconstruction, and of thetension between local and central governments about who isin charge,” points out Margareta Wahlstrom, the UN’s firstSpecial Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. Wahlstrom is in Japan to prepare for a disaster-risk conference
this month in Sendai, Tohoku’s largest city.
Nevertheless, the Sendai conference-goers will surely
be struck by views of the agonizingly slow pace of recovery
around them. Swathes of the northeast coast are still wastelands. Less than 10 percent of the 29,000 housing units
planned for the tsunami zone had been completed by the endof last year. Over 170,000 people still live in temporary housing in the region. Tens of thousands have left, perhaps permanently. Minamisanriku has lost 20 percent of its population todeath and displacement, according to state broadcaster NHK.

be rebuilt. Nearly 46,000 people have left the coastal areas of
Iwate. About a third of Minamisoma’s 71,000 people, mostly
the young, have never returned from the exodus of March 2011.
Despite the public rhetoric that the towns and villages aroundthe Daiichi plant are becoming livable again, the population figures say otherwise. Many households have used nuclear compensation packages of about ¥15 million per person to relocate.
By autumn last year, about 300 out of the 1,800 households inthe irradiated mountain village of Iitate had bought houses
elsewhere, according to anthropologist Tom Gill.
In a book on the impact of the disaster, Japan Copes WithCalamity: Ethnographies of the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disasters of March 2011, Gill and the editors say: “What istrue of Iitate is even more true for the communities closer
to the nuclear power plant, such as Namie, Tomioka, and ofcourse, Futaba and Okuma.” They conclude: “It is safe to saythat these communities have been dispersed permanently.”
Around the disaster zone, Japan’s construction army has beenta and Minamisanriku is that the longer plans for revival stayparked in bureaucratic limbo, the more their residents losefaith in the future.

Where have all the funds gone?

The problem is not a lack of money. By autumn last year, about¥5.5 trillion in reconstruction funds had been transferredfrom the central government to the three worst-hit prefectures. But 60 percent is still parked in local bank accounts,
according to a landmark Reuters report. The money sits
unused as towns and villages debate whether to move backfrom the sea and abandon whole communities that have stoodfor hundreds of years, or build enormous walls to keep it out.
The central government says these walls must be built. A
few months after the disaster, it pledged to build hundredsof seawalls and breakers in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate, at
a total cost of about one trillion yen. Many more are planned.
A joint 2012 report by the ministries of agriculture and land

Hiroko Otsuka, who grew up near Koizumi, disagrees. She says coastal residents sheltering behind the walls
are lulled into a sense of false security, and lose the ability
to read the sea. The 2011 deluge killed her mother and herbrother’s two children. They could have been saved if they
had fled 10 meters up a hill behind their house, she insists.
They didn’t run because they thought the village seawall
would protect them.
While local communities wrestle with these dilemmas,
reconstruction stalls. Few of the 460 planned levees along
the northeast coast have been completed, according to NHK.
Two-thirds had not even started by 2014. “Many prefectural
governments have foregrounded the seawalls as a precondition of rebuilding,” said Marieluise Jonas, a landscape architectural designer with RMIT University in Australia.
Given the uncertainties, the price tag for putting Tohoku
back to rights is scientific guesswork. The biggest uncertaintyof all is the nuclear cleanup. Decontamination costs depend
on lowering annual radiation to one millisievert, a goal now

Namie, Tomioka, Futaba and Okuma: “It is safe to say that these communities have been dispersed permanently.”

The breaking up of local communities

The tsunami has accelerated pre-2011 demographic shifts.
Older people with generational ties to coastal areas and family
graves have stayed, but the young are drifting away, pulled bywork and nudged by the fear that their communities will never12

pressed into action. The rubble-mountains of twisted metaland splintered wood that scarred the outskirts of most coastal
towns and cities are gone. The construction boom has sent thecost of building plots, materials and labor soaring. Areas of highground in the tsunami zone have seen three years of record
land-price increases; Shirasagidai, a district of Ishinomaki, hasseen a cumulative increase of 129 percent, according to Gill.
That boom is pricing the poor out of many areas even as
much of the wider rebuilding crawls along. Futoshi Toba, themayor of Rikuzentakata, which lost most of its city centerand nearly a tenth of its population, is among several local
leaders to vent his frustration. He has repeatedly criticizedJapan’s labyrinthine bureaucracy and disputes over levees
and where to relocate houses and businesses.
Toba has cited a slow-moving plan to relocate hundreds ofhomeless families to hills overlooking the city, bringing him
into collision with multiple bureaucracies. Clearing the hillside forest, leveling and rezoning land and reconstructing
large buildings must receive permission from overlapping
government agencies, eating up precious time as the life ebbs
out of his city. The danger for communities like RikuzentakaMARCH 2015

FCCJ

said that 14,000 kilometers of Japan’s 35,000-kilometercoastline requires tsunami protection.
The seawall solution is controversial, not least because theevidence for their effectiveness is, at very best, mixed. Fudai,
a village sheltering behind a giant concrete shield once condemned as a costly boondoggle, escaped unscathed in 2011.
But in the city of Kamaishi, a $1.6 billion breakwater listed in
the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest, crumbled
on impact with the tsunami.
Nearly 90 percent of the seawalls along the northeast coast
suffered similar fates. Critics say they made the impact of the
deluge in many places worse. “There is simply no guaranteethat seawalls will stop every single tsunami,” said Nobuo Shuto, a tsunami engineer at Tohoku University.
Last year, I travelled with The Guardian’s Justin McCurry toview one of the most disputed seawalls, in the village of Koizumi, Miyagi Prefecture. The deluge had flattened Koizumi
David McNeill writes for The Independent, The Economist, The Chronicleof Higher Education and other publications. He has been based inTokyo since 2000.
FCCJ

MARCH 2015

widely seen as unrealistic. Tepco says decommissioning theDaiichi’s four damaged reactors (the plant has six) will cost
¥978.6 billion, but that does not include the cleanup, fuelstorage or compensation.
The Japan Center for Economic Research, a private research
institute, put the bill over the next decade at ¥5.7tn to ¥20tn,
excluding compensation to the fisheries and farming industries. A broader calculation, by the same research institute,puts the entire cost of the disaster at ¥40-50tn. Remarkably,
Tepco soldiers on. In December the company said it expects
a pretax profit of ¥227 billion for the current business year.
The good news for consumers is that means no rise in electricity bills – at least for now.
Around Tohoku, when you talk to people languishing incramped two-room housing, above all a consistent fear
emerges – they are being forgotten. This fear has deepened
since Tokyo won the right to host the 2020 Olympics, drawing
more firepower away from the northeast to the already rich,overstuffed capital. In a February interview with The Economist, Takuya Tasso, governor of Iwate, spoke for many when
he said the government is losing interest in the region. ❶13

DAVID McNEILL; JUSTIN McCURRY

temporary housing just outside Fukushima.

FEATURE
MARCH 11, 2011 – 2015

Confessions of an
Instant! News! Celebrity!

●

MATT ALT is in Tokyo●and high school. Former neighbors phoned my parents after
decades of having fallen out of touch. In the internet age it’s
hip to run down “old-fashioned” media, but this response
was a fascinating lesson in the incredible power and reach ofmainstream television.
Interview requests continued to arrive via email and cell
phone. I tried to respond to as many as I could. It would beeasy to claim I did this for some higher purpose. The real reason was far simpler. It was cathartic. Talking kept me fromthinking. Thinking about what was going on up north, about
the overheating reactors, about how many people had died.
How many of the victims had seen it coming? How many had
just gotten home from the grocery store, as I had been when

“My sole qualifications were havin g endured a rough shake for approximately two minutes and the ability to speak English” ● “My sole qualifiIpacing the living room of ouram not a news corresponhouse. I’ve been told, by adent. Yet there I was onvariety of people, that I talkMarch 11, 2011, describtoo much, and too loudly.
ing the Tohoku earthquake
Suddenly my twin Achilon millions of American TV
les’ heels were transformed
screens. I was among theinto assets. Listening to thevery first on the ground inrecording years later – it’s onJapan to do so, just 45 minYouTube, of course – even I
utes after the first tremors
am surprised by how I sound,subsided. Already shocked byas though another person
the earthquake and horrified
took over for the duration.
by the first images of the tsuThere’s a unique cadence
nami slamming the Tohoku
to television reports, acoastline, I remained utterly
rhythm of stresses and pausunaware of the media maeles that seem designed to constrom I was about to be swept
vey authority – even whenup in myself.
there is none. I found myself
CNN was the first to call.
uncontrollably sliding into
At the time, my wife Hiroko
this linguistic lifejacket as I
served as the local editor forbobbed among the airwaves,
the Japanese-language edifollowing the directive totion of their now-defunct
Keep Talking and praying
travel and lifestyle website.
my delivery didn’t sound likeThat she might get such aparody. I worried that I’d becall at a moment of crisis had
asked some technical quescrossed our minds, though
When an unsuspecting Tokyoite answered histion about volcanology orfor a news media that “covers
phone on March 11, he stepped into the dazzling
regional demographics or
the world,” one would expect
light of the 24/7 media machine.
some other field in which I
that we’d be farther down the
had even less expertise. But
go-to list. Hiroko’s English
for better or for worse theis borderline native, but shequestion was the simple news
is more comfortable behind
staple: how did it feel? I would answer that question over anda screen than on one. And so it was that I found the phone
over and over again, over the next 72 hours.
thrust at me, listening to her editor tell me I’d be getting acall from Atlanta soon.
Within minutes, I did. Almost instantly, call waiting rang.
Anderson Cooper was worried about me
This one was from CNN New York. A heated discussion ensued
The phone began ringing the moment CNN hung up. It
between the two cities over who had “dibs” on me and mywouldn’t let up until the first overseas journalists landed instory. What the hell did I know? I toggled back and forth tryJapan several days later. I’m not sure how the producers got
ing to make heads or tails out of the situation as the duelingmy number so quickly. But they were hungry for content andproducers grew more and more agitated. Eventually the mathad found someone who could give it. My sole qualifications
ter was settled when one began a countdown and suddenly
were having endured a rough shake for approximately two
I found myself untethered, floating on live television withminutes and the ability to speak English.
nothing but anchorwoman Rosemary Church’s questions to
My Twitter feed exploded. I went from a handful of folguide me.
lowers to thousands in the blink of an eye. My Facebook
She had to ask surprisingly few. The sole direction her
and email inboxes flooded with friend requests and letters
producer had given me was to “just keep talking.” This I did,from well-wishers, old friends and old teachers from college
14

important stories than some white guy who “suffered” two minutesof shaking. At 4:30, I began going down the final checklist
with the producer. That’s when the direction came: “Just tell
him what it was like when the tsunami hit Tokyo.”
I reminded her, not for the first time, that a tsunami had
not hit Tokyo. It had hit many hundreds of kilometers north.
A pregnant pause ensued. Presently I was told Chris’ current
guest was running over and I wouldn’t be needed after all, sosorry to trouble you.
It’s a testament to the gutting of foreign news bureaus
that someone like me even found a place in the media spotlight in the first place. But putting aside the lack of “bootson the ground,” the fact was nobody really knew what was

MARCH 2015

FCCJ

the quake hit Tokyo? How many still needed help when I waschatting away with news celebrities?
The next week was a blur of virtual “green rooms” and weehour Skype appearances. We took to unplugging the phone
whenever we needed rest. An alphabet soup of media organizations deluged my inbox with Urgent Interview Requests forthe internet, radio, and TV. CBC. NBC. CBS. Even the Oprah
Winfrey Network. The absurdities piled up. One show subtitled me a “survivor.” Anderson Cooper asked, repeatedly, if I
was “in a safe place” (I was in my living room). Once a nobody,suddenly I was going toe-to-toe with correspondents of major
news organizations.
Things hit a personal low point about a week later. By thistime, news of the reactor meltdowns completely dominatedthe coverage. Hiroko and I scrutinized the news for scraps ofusable information while bookmarking websites and Twitter
feeds of locals with Geiger counters. At times the radiation
angle reached a hysterical pitch; you’d be forgiven for missing the fact that tens of thousands of people had been literally wiped off the face of the planet days earlier. The domestic sources were doing a decent job of covering things, or as
decent a job as anyone could given the slim details Tepco andthe government were doling out to the world, and if for whatever reason you didn’t trust them, a small army of foreign
journalists had “parachuted” into Japan for their own countries’ piece of the action.

The end of the affair

I was asked by several foreign news organizations to go up
north as a fixer. The work wasn’t unfamiliar to me; I’ve fieldproduced segments for various organizations, albeit underless stressful conditions. But going closer than one needed
to the steaming husk of Fukushima Daiichi seemed like utter
folly, even before I discussed it with my wife, even before myparents phoned to politely request I stay put. Later I heard
about someone who’d said “yes.” A major TV news organization had him set up a triage area in an emergency shelter.
They weren’t triaging for injuries. They were triaging for people who were more likely to burst into tears on camera. It was
about this time that I decided I’d had enough.
But for whatever reason – lack of sleep? Inertia? Vanity?
– I allowed an MSNBC producer to coax me into appearing
on Chris Matthew’s “Hardball.” It would require getting up
at 5:30am for his live stateside broadcast. Hiroko and I werestretched thin, dealing with the aftershocks, the temporary
food shortages, and now the threat of fallout from the reactors. One last time, I thought, and then I’m done. There are more
FCCJ

MARCH 2015

going on at the time. The areas most affected by the disasterwere all but cut off from the outside world, and the Fukushima reactors represented a classic “black box” situation inthat nobody save for Tepco had any eyes and ears inside. (Toa certain extent, not even they did.) Updates were sporadic,
but the insatiable need to feed America’s 24/7 TV news cycle
demanded daily, sometimes hourly scoops. A media baby crying for food, a change or simply attention.
This isn’t to say there wasn’t solid reporting going on during the crisis, though most of it was in print, and the majority of that by the rarest of beasts, the resident bilingual
journalists. As a “civilian” stuck in the thick of it, the pieces
that stung most were punditry crafted purely to stoke emotional responses at an already emotional time, while the best
focused on attempting to convey facts, such as scientific or
historical background, expanding on official releases, or theplight of those who had lost their homes or families. Often,
chaotic situations unfold in dangerous locales of the sort
only specialized correspondents are willing to go; a chaotic
situation in a country as safe and easily accessible as Japan
represented a Petri dish for the best and worst journalism
had to offer.
In the end I was really only active for less than a week,
filling the gap until the “name” journalists hit the groundthemselves. As soon as the pros arrived, the requests dried
up. I’ve never heard back from the army of producers andreporters who’d had me fill their Urgent Requests. I had no
expectations or desire to turn a crisis into a career, but even
I was a little shocked at how quickly and totally the spotlightshifted. It was an odd mix of relief tinged with withdrawal.
The attention had been fleeting, but incredibly intense. Fora brief moment I had reached millions more than I ever had
with my own books, articles, translations, and television projects, a thrilling prospect for any content creator. That was thesense of loss. But of course, it wasn’t ever really about me.
Thus the relief.
Today only a handful of YouTube videos remain as evidence of my little foray into the mass-media spotlight. Whichis as it should be. Because in the end, none of the stress or
sleepless nights I went through hold a candle to that of thepeople who lost family members and homes to the tsunami
and nuclear disasters. Still, I’m honored to have had a tiny
part in giving the world a window into a desperate situationin its earliest hours. ❶Matt Alt is a Tokyo-based writer and translator. He is the co-author of
Yokai Attack! and other books on Japanese culture.
15

PRESS FREEDOMCLUB NEWSA Japanese photojournalist who had his passport confiscated on the
grounds that he was planning to cover the conflict in Syria told the
FCCJ that he intends to take the government to court.

Yuichi Sugimoto at the Club

Stripped!
by JULIAN RYALLYUICHI SUGIMOTO SAID IN a press
conference on Feb. 12 that the actionsof the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
are “unacceptable” and that they set
a “dangerous precedent” for otherjournalists and photographers who
feel it is their duty to report on events
happening in other parts of the world– even if there is a degree of danger
involved.
Under duress, Sugimoto handed his
passport over on Feb. 7 to officials of
the passport division of the ministry –who visited him at his home in Niigata
Prefecture and were backed up by

part in a press tour organized by local
Kurdish groups of the recently liberated
town of Kobani,” he added, emphasizingthat he has extensive experience
operating in conflict zones after
covering wars in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Palestine and the former Yugoslavia
during his long freelance career.
With his passport confiscated –and Sugimoto quoted the ministry
official who took it as saying “it isinconceivable that your passport will
be returned to you” – he insisted heis being deprived of his right to travel
and his ability to earn a living. “I havebeen told this is the first time since theend of the war that the government has
confiscated the passport of a journalist.

Sugimoto quoted the ministry official as saying“it is inconceivable that your passport will be
returned to you”
police officers. The ministry officials
acted just six days after extremists
belonging to the Islamic State released
footage of the execution of Kenji Goto,
another freelance journalist, in Syria.
A few days previously, the same group
had released a video showing thedecapitated body of Haruna Yukawa.
“I know that the government has
issued an advisory against Japanesepeople travelling to Syria and isproviding information on the dangers of
the region, but that is an advisory andnot a binding order,” Sugimoto said.
“I never had any intention of going toparts of Syria that are controlled by theIslamic State and I was hoping to take16

I feel this sets a very dangerous
precedent for all Japanese journalists
because it takes away our freedom andright to report the news,” he said.
Sugimoto finished his speech witha plea to the foreign correspondents
present to give him advice on how to
respond to the Japanese government's
draconian decision and whether
withdrawing a journalist’s passport
would be considered appropriate intheir countries.
Pio D’Emilia made it quite clear thatsuch a measure would be unacceptablein Italy.
“No, it’s not possible,” he said.
“In Italy, every citizen has theconstitutional right to have apassport.” The only situation that
Italian authorities can use to withholdor withdraw a passport from one ofits citizens is if he or she has been
convicted of a crime, he said.
Richard Lloyd Parry, of the Times of
London, echoed the conviction that the
British government attempting a similar
tactic would be unthinkable. “If thishappened in the United Kingdom, there
would be a huge, huge controversy –but I get the impression here that there
are quite a lot of people who believe it
is wrong because they say it is meiwaku[inconvenient] to other people.”
Sugimoto conceded that his
determination to fight for his rightto travel and work overseas has notbeen entirely welcomed, with somepeople calling his home and accusing
him of being a “traitor,” although thevast majority of the messages he hasreceived have been supportive.
The situation regarding theprovision of passports to Frenchjournalists wishing to work in parts of
the Middle East that are considereddangerous is similar to that in Italy and
Britain, according to Joel Legendre,
from French broadcaster RTL.
“What I hear from France is that
we can go there if we are going towork and we are not a member of Isil,”he said. “I also understand that thedelivery of passports in many countries
is very different from Japan; in Japanit looks as if they are ‘granted’ rather
than being ‘owned.’ In France we havea passport, but there is a difference
legally speaking.”
The journalists’ perspective on thesituation was tempered by comments
by Rasromani Khalil Hassan, theambassador of Bahrain, who called on
Sugimoto to put himself in the shoesof the Japanese foreign minister, who
has a duty to protect the country’s
nationals – particularly given theexecutions of Goto and Yukawa inrecent weeks.
Sugimoto replied that if he werethe minister, then he would make thedangers clear to the journalist, but thatthe final decision should not be in thehands of the politician.
The Japanese government does notappear to be in a mood to back down,
however, with Yoshihide Suga, thechief cabinet secretary, telling a press
conference a few days earlier thatit has a duty to protect the lives ofJapanese nationals.❶

FCCJ EXHIBITIONBEFORE — 3.11 — AFTER What the Fukushima Nuclear
Explosion Did to Our Beloved Rose Garden
co-organized by Hisako Matsuda and Maya Moore
AS WE APPROACH THE fourthanniversary of the Tohoku
earthquake, tsunami and nuclear
meltdown, the general reaction– both in Japan and elsewhere– is that of disinterest. That isperhaps the most distressing
aspect for the victims of that
tragic day, since little about
the events has faded fromtheir memory. So it is of vital
importance to think about what it
is like to lose one’s family, home,
livelihood and dreams.
This exhibition gives a uniqueand personal perspective to theongoing suffering of the many
residents of Fukushima who are
now refugees within their own
country. The contrast between
the magnificent, vibrant rose
blossoms in their prime, and thehaunting images of the present
Futaba Rose Garden, locatedjust eight kilometers from thenuclear plant, is nothing shortof shocking. In their silent way,
the roses represent the profoundanguish of all the victims of 3.11.
The photographs were taken
by non-professionals: the garden
shots by Katsuhide Okada,
the owner of the Futaba Rose
Garden, and the individual rosesby members of the Yokohama
Photographers of Roses. Theirlove of the subject matter makesthese photographs all the morepoignant. ❶Hisako Matsuda is a photography
graduate and photographer for theJapan Kennel Club who runs a private
photo studio specializing in portraits
and animals. She produced “Our
Beloved Rose Garden” exhibitions
across Japan.
Maya Moore is a former journalist andanchor for NHK, TBS and PBS. She
is a facilitator for the Tohoku Virtual
English Class Project for elementary
schools in Ofunato, Iwate. She is
the author of The Rose Garden Of
Fukushima. (Available at FCCJ.)

Julian Ryall is the Japan correspondent
for the Daily Telegraph.
MARCH 2015

FCCJ

FCCJ

MARCH 201517

CLUB NEWSCLUB NEWSHEARD AT THE CLUBREGULAR MEMBERS

New
Members“Before Fukushima we all believed in
the “safety myth” on which all nuclear
policy was based. We learned a bitter
lesson, that it was a lie. From now on
all possible risks must be taken into
consideration to guarantee
the safety of the people.”

HUI ZHAO has recently moved to Tokyo as Japancorrespondent and representative of CBN Weekly, a businessmagazine in China published by the Shanghai Media Group.
She covers business stories involving technology, design andfashion companies and start-ups in Japan. Hui was previously
Chief Editor of CBN Business Review at CBN Weekly, andManaging Editor at MONEY+, a financial magazine from thesame SMG Group.
PROFESSIONAL/JOURNALISTASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Ryuji Nakamura, Jakarta Shimbun
Takashi Kawakami, Takushoku University
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Hisakatsu Koyama, Daito Trust
Construction

Genpatsu anzen sengen
Shoichi Watanabe;
Hironobu Nakamura
U TimeGift from Hiroyuki Fujita

New in the
Library

Masao Uchibori
Governor of Fukushima Prefecture
At the FCCJ on Feb. 5, 2015

The Great Tokyo Air Raids
Tokyo Memorial
Association (Tokyo-to Irei
Kyokai)Gift from Yasuo Sumiyoshi(Kyodo News)

一九九三年十月十五日 第三種郵便物認可 毎月一日発行

1993 年 10 月 15 日 第三種郵便物認可 毎月 1 日発行 Vol. 47 第 3 号 No. 1 Shimbun 2015 年 3 月 1 日発行

第三号
Vol. 47

THE REMAINS
OF THE DAY

二〇一五三月一日発行
No. 1 Shimbun

Building bridges
in Onagawa

定価四〇〇円 税(込

Radiation
at a glance
Progress at
the nuclear plant?

)

MARCH 2015

FCCJ

The Future, Declassified:
Megatrends That Will Undo
the World Unless We Take
ActionMathew Burrows
Palgrave Macmillan
Gift from Julian Ryall

The Market & Media
Databook of Japan,
2014/2015
Mediaship Japan
Gift from Mediaship Japan

China's Japan Policy:
Adjusting to New
Challenges
Joseph Yu-sheck Cheng
World Scientific

March 2015, Volume 47 No. 3, ¥400

JOIN THE MOVIE COMMITTEE . . .

18

Japan Inc. on the Brink:
Institutional Corruption
and Agency Failure
Susan Carpenter
Palgrave Macmillan
Gift from Palgrave
Macmillan

The magazine of The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan“I was an instantnews media star”. . . at 7:00 pm on Thursday, March 13 for a sneak preview of the U.S.
festival hit Man from Reno, a bilingual thriller starring Steven Seagal’s
very talented daughter, Ayako Fujitani (who will join director Dave Boylefor the Q&A session). Winner of the Best Narrative Feature award at last
fall’s Los Angeles Film Festival, and a nominee for the John Cassavetes
Award at the Spirit Awards, the film opens on a lonely highway in dense
northern California fog, and it isn’t until the final moments that the fog
lifts, as all the twists and turns, disappearances and mistaken identities,
MacGuffins, mysteries and mayhem, finally make sense. Fujitani plays apopular Japanese mystery author who has fled to San Francisco to escapea book tour and can’t quite resist the extremely charismatic come-on of afellow Japanese traveler at her hotel. But after a night together, Akira Suzuki (Kazuki Kitamura) suddenly disappears. Aki finds
herself teaming up with aging, small-town Sheriff Paul Del Moral (the great Pepe Serna, in a rare leading role), who is alsochasing a mysterious Japanese man. (USA, 2014; 110 minutes; English/Japanese with Japanese/English subtitles.)— Karen Severns

Satoshi Kakuda, Alabama Department ofCommerce
Ryuichi Honda, Mitsubishi Corporation
Hiroyoshi Kitamura, American Home
Assurance Co., Ltd.
Ryuji Iwata, CLC Inc.

SUPPORT
YOUR
CLUB
MAGAZINE

Discount LexisNexis
Subscriptions
for FCCJ Members
The FCCJ is pleased to offer
members a substantial discount on
subscriptions to LexisNexis’ news
database service, Nexis.com
The Members-only deal
allows for flat-rate access at¥7,900 per month – offering
big savings on a service that
normally costs ¥126,000 per month

The service will be billed by theClub. The FCCJ benefits from all
subscriptions sold under thisarrangement.
Nexis provides access to news andinformation from more than 34,000
sources, including Kyodo News, Jiji,
Yonhap, Xinhua, AP, Reuters, AFP,
all major world newspapers andspecialist news sources. Also
included is a database of U.S. andinternational company information,
biographical databases, country
profiles and a U.S. legal database.

For those already in on the secret,the application form is available
on the FCCJ website or from the
19F Club office.

Please send your story ideas tono.1shimbun@fccj.or.jp, and be sure to note whether
you have (or have access to) visuals.
Our rates are ¥20 per published word,¥20,000 for a front cover photo.
Photo essays: ¥15,000 for full-page photos and¥5,000 for smaller shots. All payments will be madein chits to your member account.

FCCJ

MARCH 201519

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一九九三年十月十五日 第三種郵便物認可 毎 月 一 日 発 行

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定価四〇〇円 税(込)

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