NH #455: Fukushima Anniversary SPECIAL: Voices From Japan 2020 – Tokyo Shimbun Reporter Takeshi Yamakawa

This Week’s SPECIAL Voices from Japan Interviews:

• Takeshi Yamakawa is a reporter and editor, part of Tokyo Shimbun’s Nuclear Power Reporting Team. He has been covering Fukushima since the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011.  He’s interviewed in Japanese by Nuclear Hotseat investigative reporter Yuji Kaneko.  

   

  CONTACTS:  
  Tokyo Shimbun Nuclear Power Reporting Team: (THIS IS CLICKABLE)
  Website原発取材班サイト- https://genpatsu.tokyo-np.co.jp/
  原発取材班 Twitter – https://twitter.com/ kochigen2017

Takeshi Yamakawa of Tokyo Shimbun stands next to a sign on Route 253 near Namie that says, “Exclusion zone: do not enter.”  A mega-solar farm built on abandoned farms is on the other side of the highway fence.  (Photo courtesy of U.G. Kaneko)

• Yuji Kaneko is Nuclear Hotseat’s Voices from Japan investigative reporter.  He has gone to Fukushima numerous times to learn the truth about what is happening there.  Today, through a travel diary he kept, we’ll gain first-hand insights into radiation problems and how government funds have been used in the Exclusion Zone.  

Takeshi Yamakawa of Tokyo Shimbun shows that the air dose level inside a greenhouse in Iitate Village is 0.433 μSv/hour, nearly twice as high as the government standard for outdoors of 0.23 μSv/hour. 
(Photo courtesy of U. G. Kaneko)

Takeshi Yamakawa of Tokyo Shimbun (black hair) and Iitate Village resident Nobuyoshi Ito (grey hair). Outdoor radiation air dose at this location in Iitate is 0.631 μSv/hour, almost 3x higher than the government limit of 0.23 μSv/hour. (Photo courtesy of U. G. Kaneko)

Takeshi Yamakawa of Tokyo Shimbun (black hair) and Iitate Village resident Nobuyoshi Ito (grey hair) conduct experiments on the uptake of cesium in farm products in Iitate Village.  
(Photo courtesy of U. G. Kaneko)

                          March 3, 2020 Press Conference
               at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan:

 

     “Radioactive Hotspots along Olympic Torch Relay Route”  

Press conference participants (l-r): Kazumasa Aoki, Vice President of the Radioactivity Monitoring Center for Citizen; Nobuyoshi Ito, an Iitate Village Resident; and Jun Nakamura, Co-Chairman of the Fukuichi Area Environmental Radiation Monitoring Project.

Press Conference Handouts:

• Results of radioactive contamination survey around Tokyo 2020 Olympics Torch Relay Route – CLICK for pdf.
• Detailed course relay maps  with survey sites and results. Page is in Japanese, but the list of links is for municipalities in the following order: Tomioka Town, Okuma Town, Naraha Town, Kawauchi Village, Minamisoma City, Namie Town, Katsurao Village, Iitate Village, Kawamata Town/Yamakiya. 
• Website for Chikurin (Radioactivity Monitoring Center for Citizen). There are limited introduction pages in English and French with contact information. Click on the “Foreign Lang” link.