Coercive Lifting of Evacuation

New year’s day is the day that every Japanese spends comfortable time with families. In light of a provision in the Constitution of Japan, which ensures human rights for life liberty and pursuit of happiness, all Japanese deserve to have a happy new year. But, one hundred twenty thousand people in Fukushima are still in evacuation after the accident of First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. It was the forth time for them to have a new year’s day in temporary evacuation houses. Because the national government and the perpetrator Tokyo Electric Power Company is lagging behind in taking care of them, the evacuators are still spending hard times.

One news at the end of last year infuriated the people in Minami-soma city, which was located twenty kilometers north of the broken nuclear generation site. It was that the national government unilaterally lifted regulation for evacuation in one hundred and forty-two places in the city. People who have houses in those places became to be able to live without any regulation. Why do they protest that decision?

Most people in Minami-soma city, except in southernmost Odaka district, could continue their lives in their houses after the accident four years ago, because radiation levels was thought to be not too high. But, there were small places where extremely high radiation was monitored. They call those places hot spots. The national government ordered evacuation to the people in those spots.

The government continued their effort to get the people back to their home as soon as possible. It finished decontamination effort last March and confirmed the radiation as low as 3.8 µSv per hour in July, the level which was the standard for lifting evacuation. The government thought it was the time for getting the people back home. That decision was made in late December.

However, people in Minami-soma was not satisfied with the process. After confirmation of lowered level of radiation, the government had meeting with the people several times. In those meetings, people kept on expressing their concern about radiation level. They appealed that the radiation level was too high for living and required more decontamination.

The government rejected all those requests and forced them to accept the decision. The reason was simple: money controls everything. As long as the government orders evacuation, it needs to support people’s life in evacuation. Decontamination is not free. The government needs to order that job to private sectors and pay for it from national budget. After lifting the evacuation order, the government can finish those supports.

This is the incompetence of the government, which it showed after the great disaster. It could not lower radiation level enough, failed in building consensus among the people and desperately forced inappropriate policy to the people. Politician has spent reconstruction money for party politics. The situation of the sufferers is getting worse.