JAPAN’s DILEMMA
Nuclear power plant accident and implementation of Sendai Framework for DRR“The scope of disaster risk reduction has
been broadened significantly to focus on
both natural and man-made hazards andrelated environmental, technological andbiological hazards and risks. Healthresilience is strongly promoted
throughout.” (Foreword, Sendai
Framework for DRR)

top left (a): Takizakura in Fukushima prefecture ©Koichi-Hayakawa
bottom left (b) : Mt.Fuji & Tokyo Sky Tree©Ichikawa City
publication of photo(a)(b) is granted under the creative commons license 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
bottom right: Aquaculture facility near Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which was severely damaged by Tsunami in2011. Surrounding radiation level is still high. ©Fukuden

Japan is facing many dilemmas with regards to implementation of Sendai Framework for
DRR, particularly in recovery process from the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima.
This edition is prepared by Fukushima Booklet Committee to share the recent ‘10
Dilemmas’ as lessons from Japan in DRR, in relations to 7 Global Targets of Sendai
Framework for DRR.
Date of Issue: July 1st, 2018

Fukushima Booklet Committee
http://fukushimalessons.jp/en.html
Contact: fukushimabooklet@gmail.com(n1

Contents
SFDRR Global Target 1 / Dilemma 1: Indirect/related deaths exceeds 2,000 in Fukushima - P.3
Global Target 2 / Dilemma 2: Disaster impact still ongoing after 7 years- P.4

Dilemma 3: Long term 50,000 evacuees/IDPs becoming invisible - P.5
Global Target 3 / Dilemma 4: Skyrocketing disaster management cost in Fukushima - P.6
Global Target 4 / Dilemma 5: Nuclear power plant accident shut down all designated/core hospitals inaffected area
Dilemma 6: Schools have shut down, and children not returning - P.7
Global Target 5 / Dilemma 7: Restarting of nuclear power plants without comprehensive local disasterrisk reduction plans - P.8
Global Target 6 / Dilemma 8: Exporting while struggling with recovery in Fukushima - P.9
Global Target 7 / Dilemma 9: Early warning system that did not function in Fukushima - P.10
Dilemma 10: Nuclear disaster risk information not mainstreamed- P.11

About the Fukushima Booklet Committee - P.12

Beef cattle in Ranch of Hope,
14km away from Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Mr.Yoshizawa, the cow-keeper,
resisted against the government
order to kill the animals just after
the nuclear accident, and still
keeps 300 unsalable cattle
contaminated with radiation.

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SFDRR Global Target 1 : Substantially reduce global disaster mortality by 2030,
aiming to lower the average per 100,000 global mortality rate in the decade 2020–
2030 compared to the period 2005–2015.

Dilemma 1: Indirect/related deaths exceeds 2,000 in FukushimaMortality from disasters not only include direct casualties, but for those who die(including suicides) from stress of relocation, unemployment, or Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder are all considered as ‘disaster mortality’. The mortality from nuclear power
plant accident in Fukushima is not from acute exposure to radiation, but long-term
relocation/displacement is deteriorating people’s health, and increasing related deaths
including suicides.
As per the data from Recovery Agency of Japan, these ‘indirect/related deaths’ inFukushima is 2,202 individuals (as of September 30, 2017) and it is still increasing. Direct
deaths from earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima were 1614, so these indirect/related
deaths are significantly higher. The ratio of indirect/related deaths in Fukushima isparticularly high as compared to other prefectures (such as Miyagi or Iwate) affected by
East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.
For those displaced, long term radiation contamination makes it extremely difficult tomake decisions on whether to return or not, and this uncertainty adds significant stress.
For elderlies, relocating from the land they spent most of their life also has an influenceon their life span.

9540
10000
8000
6000

4673

4000
2000

1614

926

464

2202

0
Iwate

Miyagi
Direct death

Fukushima

Related death3

Using data as of September 2017
reported by The National Police
Agency (direct-deaths) andReconstruction Agency (disasterrelated deaths

CAN YOUIMAGINE?

Your hometown was affected by radiation contamination from
nuclear power plant accident. The government has not issued
evacuation order, and some spontaneously evacuated but
some are staying behind. What do you do? Would you quit
your work and evacuate? What would your family membersdo?

Global Target 2: Substantially reduce the number of affected people globally by 2030,
aiming to lower the average global figure per 100,000 in the decade 2020–2030
compared to the period 2005-2015.

Dilemma 2: Disaster impact still ongoing after 7 years
Even after 7 years, disaster impact from the nuclear power plant accident is still ongoing.
Decontamination efforts focused on residential and agricultural lands, but complete
decontamination is impossible. Furthermore, decontamination of mountains and forests are notpossible. Decontaminated soil is stored in flexible container bags but are being temporarily
stored/stacked. Ministry of Environment, despite strong opposition from the residents, havedecided to re-use part of these contaminated soil for public works such as construction of roads
and agricultural lands.

Decontamination work in Iitate village, about 60 km distance from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

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Let’s imagine that radiation contaminates your beautiful country.
How are you going to decontaminate? There is no chemical or
technology that can decontaminate your land, rivers, lakes,
mountains, completely. The real decontamination is scraping off thesurface of top soil and washing off rooftops and walls of the houses.
And where would you store such contaminated soil, leaves, and otherobjects?

CAN YOUIMAGINE?

Dilemma 3: Long term 50,000 evacuees/IDPs becoming invisible
Official record shows that at least 46,000 individuals are being evacuees/internallydisplaced as of May 2018. However, this data does not cover all the evacuation from areas
where evacuation order was not given, or evacuation from other prefectures such as Tokyo.
Evacuation order to areas nearby Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant is gradually being lifted,
but the criteria for this move is based on emergency phase dosage limit of 20mSV/year;
whereas international standard of limit of exposure is 1mSV/year as per International
Commission of Radiological Protection (ICRP). Until when should we use our emergency
phase dosage limit which is 20 times higher than international standard? Those families
with small children are not returning to affected areas, but if official evacuation order islifted, then compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is also terminated.
This adds economic and psychological stress for those who are displaced. And those fromthe areas where official evacuation order is lifted, they are no longer considered as‘evacuees’ and will be eliminated from official statistics.
Recovery is important, but the situation of these evacuees/IDPs is important to consider.
Nuclear accidents generate many IDPs, and it is long term issue. Even after the existenceof evacuees/IDPs are crossed off from official data, real life of being evacuees/IDPs aregoing to continue.

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Global Target 3: Reduce direct disaster economic loss in relation to global grossdomestic product (GDP) by 2030.

Dilemma 4: Skyrocketing disaster management cost in Fukushima
The government estimated that recovery cost from Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
accident would be around 12 trillion Yen (approx. 109 billion USD) in 2015, but this has
increased recently to 21.5 trillion Yen (approx. 196 billion USD) in December 2016.
Furthermore, this figure does not include everything, so we really don’t know how much it
would cost at the end of the day.
The damage from nuclear disaster to industries, particularly to agriculture and fisherybusiness, is significant, and such economic loss is continuing. Every year, 5 billion Yen(approx. 455 million USD) is spent to conduct radiation check of rice from Fukushima, anddespite that fact that there isn’t a case of rice that exceeds standard radiation limit since2015, the price of Fukushima rice is decreasing. For dairy farmers, they had to continuously
milk and dispose after the accident, and many had to slaughter their livestock. For fisherybusiness, despite continuous effort on pilot projects and strict radiation checks, consumers’
trust is hard to gain, and export of seafood from the area significantly lowered. Nuclear
accidents affect many of such special products from your area, and economic loss isunimaginable.

Cost of the accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Use
Amount [yen] ( USD )Decomissioning / Contaminated Water
8.0 trillion ( 73 billion )CountermeasuresCompensation
7.9 trillion ( 72 billion )Decontamination
4.0 trillion ( 36 billion )Interim Storage of Radioactive Waste
1.6 trillion ( 15 billion )Total
21.5 trillion ( 196 billion )Based on the document distributed in the 6th meeting of Committee for Reforming TEPCO and Overcoming 1F
Challenges on Dec.9, 2016
http://www.meti.go.jp/committee/kenkyukai/energy_environment/touden_1f/pdf/006_s01_00.pdf (Japanese only)

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What are the special products from your country? Maybe coffee,
tea, vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy products, seafood, or tourism?
If nuclear power plant accident, similar to the one in Fukushima,occurs in your area, such special products will no longer be acceptedby consumers. How much of such economic loss would be?
And how would you reduce such risks in prior?

CAN YOUIMAGINE?

Global Target 4: Substantially reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure anddisruption of basic services, among them health and educational facilities, including
through developing their resilience by 2030.

Dilemma 5: Nuclear power plant accident shut down all designated/core hospitals
in affected area
Within days from the nuclear power plant accident on march 11, 2011, around 3,000
patients from 28 hospitals in the affected area, and such patients faced with deteriorated
health condition, and some even died during the process.
In the coastal area, 7 hospitals within 20km radius from nuclear power plant shut down forevacuation, and in 8 towns in Futaba area, all 4 hospitals that had hospitalization/surgeryfunction have shut down.* 1 New medical center has opened in Tomioka town in April 2018,
and such recovery efforts are continuing. However, the hospitals in the area are facing withsignificant shortage of doctors and nurses. Even for those who recently returned to thearea, shortage of daycare or medical care is causing distress.

Dilemma 6: Schools have shut down, and children not returning
Many schools in evacuation zone had to close after the nuclear power plant accident.
Even though the evacuation order was lifted in some area, children who evacuated are not
returning, and the schools had to make a decision of whether to shut down, or to merge withother schools. Even if schools opened, Japan’s Teachers Union in their news on March 13,
2018*2 expresses difficulty in recovering education institution as many children are not
returning back.

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CAN YOUIMAGINE?

If evacuation order is issued after nuclear power plant accident, many
institutions, facilities, and shops will be shut down.
And even if evacuation order is lifted, it is difficult for them to return.
What are critical infrastructure/institution aside from hospitals or
schools? And how would you live in a town without such criticalinfrastructure/institution?

Global Target 5: Substantially increase the number of countries with national andlocal disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020.

Dilemma 7: Restarting of nuclear power plants without comprehensive
local disaster risk reduction plans
Local disaster risk reduction plans, including those targeting nuclear accidents, needs toinvolve the community, institutions such as hospitals and schools, business industry
while creating the plan. However, Japan has a decentralized approach, and how suchplan is made is completely up to each municipalities (with some guidance from thecentral government). And, the municipalities that include diverse stakeholders in theprocess is still limited. Current law on nuclear power plant operation does not require
such comprehensive local disaster risk reduction plans, so re-starting of nuclear power
plants without such plans is a challenge.
In addition, there is no disaster risk reduction plans that covers the workers at thenuclear power plants. When, and how such workers will evacuate? And how it would
link with evacuation plans of the residents? Citizens’ Commission on Nuclear Energy * iscalling for such comprehensive plans that connect emergency response in both within
and outside of nuclear power plant.

Sendai Nuclear Power
Plant in South Japan,
one of the NPPs which
restarted after the
Fukushima Nuclear
Disaster8If nuclear power plant is in the process in your country, how would
you include all-of-society (which Sendai Framework for DRR calls for)in creation process of the emergency evacuation and response plan?
What are difficulties you would face?
And what would be the benefit of doing so? How would you connect
the existing strengths of your communities to such plans?

CAN YOUIMAGINE?

Global Target 6: Substantially enhance international cooperation to developing
countries through adequate and sustainable support to complement their national
actions for implementation of the present Framework by 2030.

Dilemma 8: Exporting while struggling with recovery in Fukushima
As a country that is facing with continuous challenge with recovering from the nuclear
power plant accident in Fukushima, sharing our lessons is one big contribution Japan
can make to disaster risk reduction community in the world. However, our public appeal
is focusing on our success in recovery and not concrete and specific lessons we arelearning. As we approach Tokyo Olympics in 2020, there seems to be some people
believe the positive news should be spread on the impact of nuclear power plant
accident.
Japan also sells nuclear power plants to other countries, including India, Turkey, Jordan,UK, etc. Although Japan is trying to reduce the dependency to nuclear power internally,
we are selling it to other countries. And in some cases, tax money is being used tofinance/insure these investments. As the risk of nuclear power plant is quite high, suchgovernment back-up is necessary in closing the deals.
Those who are exporting nuclear power plants, including Japan, appeal that the new
type of nuclear power plant is safe; but isn’t this another ‘safety myths’ we are creating?
At the 3rd UN Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai in 2015, Japanese
government representative openly admitted that ‘Japan will no longer create safety
myths around nuclear power plants’. Any nuclear accidents could become cross-borderissue as it contaminates air, water, and the whole environment. How shall we move
forward with the spirit of Sendai Framework for DRR in such international cooperation?

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CAN YOUIMAGINE?
If Some countries that export nuclear
power plants indicate that they arewilling to take care of used energy rods.
However, if an accident occurs, who will
pay for decontamination orcompensation cost? Is your country
ready to bear such costs?

Barricaded street in Futaba town, where Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant is locatedGlobal Target 7: Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard
early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by2030.

Dilemma 9: Early warning system that did not function in Fukushima
Japan has a system called SPEEDI (System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency
Dose Information) which can forecast radiation spread at the time of nuclear power
accident. However, the information from SPEEDI was not used in Fukushima, andNuclear Regulation Authority decided that such system will not be used to determine theresidents’ evacuation beyond 2014. Current regulation indicates that at the time of thenuclear accident, residents who live in 5km radius from the nuclear power plantevacuates first, and those who live within 30k radius should stay indoors. However, thiswould also mean that until and unless 30km radius is contaminated, the residents are
not going to evacuate. The most important thing is early evacuation and reducing
radiation exposure, but how this can be achieved is still in discussion.
Furthermore, Local Emergency Response Headquarter site was planned to beestablished near the nuclear power plant, but due to radiation spread, many
stakeholders could not gather to such operation site. The communication between thegovernment headquarter and the field was also a challenge for Japan, and it createdchaos with regards to information and orders.

10SPEEDI data forecasted radiation spread on
March 12, 2011, which was not shown to the
public at that time

Dilemma 10: Nuclear disaster risk information not mainstreamed
The risk information from nuclear power plant accident is not mainstreamed in school
curriculum in Japan. The government also plans to decrease the number of radiation
monitoring posts. At least 199 people, who were 18 year or younger at the time of theaccident, had been either diagnosed with thyroid cancer or with suspected cases of cancer *3,
but there is a discussion of reducing long term health examination in Fukushima. Nuclear
power plant accident requires continuous and long-term monitoring of the health ofaffected communities, along with awareness raising of risks, but there are different opinions
on how this can, or should, be done.

CAN YOUIMAGINE?

If nuclear power plant accident occurs, what are data/information
you would use to construct public communication? How would you
coordinate with various agencies in your country, and how would
you determine which information to pass on to people and which
information not to pass on? Also, how would you monitor thehealth condition of those affected and how long would you do this?

*Notes
1. “Damage Status of the Hospitals in Fukushima Prefecture Affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake andthe Accident of TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station” Dr.Kazuhira Maehara, Director of Shirakawa
Kosei General Hospital
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjrm/61/6/61_802/_pdf (Japanese only)
2. “The Eighth Spring in Fukushima: Situation of Schools and Children in the Afflicted Area” by Fukushima pref.
Teachers Union Mar.13, 2018 https://www.jtu-net.or.jp/news/ (Japanese only)
3. Documents distributed in the 31st Prefectural Oversight Committee Meeting for Fukushima HealthManagement Survey held on June 18, 2018https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/273534.pdf (Japanese only)

11About the Fukushima Booklet Committee
The Fukushima Booklet Committee is a group of non-governmental organization’s (NGOs) inJapan working to share the reality and lessons of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant
disaster internationally.
Member Organizations:
CWS Japan / Fukushima Beacon for Global Citizens Network (FUKUDEN) /Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC) /Japan Iraq Medical Network（JIM-NET）/ Kanagawa Development Education Center (K-DEC)
Peace Boat
This project grew out of the Japan CSO Coalition for 2015 WCDRR (JCC2015), which organizedvarious activities in preparation for the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction heldin Sendai in March 2015. At that time, we published the booklet “10 Lessons from Fukushima:
Reducing risks and protecting communities from nuclear disasters.” This booklet is now
available in 14 languages as follows:
Japanese / English / Chinese (traditional) / Chinese (simplified) / Korean / French / Spanish/ Turkish / Armenian / Bengali / Arabic / Polish / Vietnamese / Thai
PDF files of the above language versions can be downloaded here:
http://fukushimalessons.jp/booklet.html.
Based upon the experiences and testimony of local people, this booklet was created throughthe collaboration of many NGOs, researchers and experts. It outlines the reality of the
Fukushima nuclear disaster, ten lessons from this which should be shared for considering
future response and prevention. The booklet also includes information regarding various
international legal tools and standards which can be utilized to advocate for the rights of thoseaffected by the disaster.
Since the 2015 publication of the booklet, we have made efforts towards its dissemination incooperation with civil society groups and experts around the world, with a particular focus
on raising awareness and understanding of the reality and risks of nuclear power plants incountries where there are currently existing or construction plans for nuclear power plants.

Written and designed by:Translated by:

Fukushima Beacon for Global Citizens Network (FUKUDEN)CWS Japan

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