Consolation Money from Government

The Cabinet led by Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, decided a policy change in reconstruction from nuclear disaster in First Fukushima Generation Plant. Although the government has been saying that all refugees should get back to their home someday, new policy is based on a notion that there will be some who cannot do that. Nevertheless, most people do not feel strange about the change, because former policy was apparently making no sense. So, are they satisfied with new policy? Definitely no. That is because the government has shown no clear vision about the future of Fukushima. New policy is, in short, an offer of consolation money to Fukushima.

The policy offers compensation money for repairing houses for the people returning home, and for building new houses abandoning former ones. Additional money will be provided to whom gets back home soon. On the other hand, compensation for mental damage will be cut off one year after coming back home. So the government is saying that “Well, that is all we have. It’s up to you whether going back or keep on escaping.”

Is it enough for victims to decide whether they will go back or not? For the people to return to their hometown, it is necessary that the town will be reformed for people’s life. Schools, hospitals, town offices or shops need to restart their works. However, there is no vision for that so far.

The biggest reason is radiation omitted from the broken nuclear power plant. The government is planing to lift the evacuation order for the residents in the area where radiation level is between 1 and 20 millisievert per year. People are still worried about low-level exposure to radioactive materials, because even the limitation for workers in nuclear power plant is 5 millisievert per year. “Why do we ordinary people have to live with higher radiation than the workers in plants?” is a question of the people in Fukushima.

While it shows a limitation of money spending for victims, the government does not show any limitation of money pouring into Tokyo Electric Power Company. It decided to put ¥2.5 trillion for decontamination efforts in Fukushima, which should be done by TEPCO. It is also planning to spend ¥1.1 trillion for establishing intermediate facility for stocking radioactive debris, without any clear vision of building final facility in somewhere in Japan.

Those measures are all based on tax money collected from ordinary people in Japan. The government is too enthusiastic in saving TEPCO to take sufficient measures for people suffered from an accident caused not only by natural disaster, but manmade error.