Hospital

Hi

Sorry I've been off the wire. I've been in hospital. With pneumonia. As summer turned to autumn I must have caught a chill walking to and from work in my summer clothes. Come to think of it, didn't I mention in my last post that I'd left my cardigan on the train? I should pay more attention to those weather people on TV who in nanny-like fashion are forever reminding us to wrap up at the changing of the seasons (kisetsu no kawarime 季節の変わり目)!

So a week in a Japanese hospital, a week's worth of antibiotics and I'm right as rain. As you'd expect everything, from the nursing to the cleaning of the rooms, was efficient and to a high standard. Absolutely no complaints. I had my own room with en suite (5,000 yen extra per day), with an array of remotes to control the bed, the TV, the air conditioning, the lights. The food was Japanese, pretty plain, but palatable. From the 3rd day I chose to have bread at breakfast and lunch. It was a bit odd having, say mackerel in miso sauce, with bread but it was OK. 

I had one X-ray at the local doctors before I went in, then a CT scan and two X-rays at the hospital. That's a massive 7.18 mSv exposure to radiation which makes a mockery of my current attempts to limit additional exposure to 1 mSv/year. According to a book I have Hibaku Iryo Gaido (Guide to Medical Exposure), Japanese average per capita exposure from medical sources is 3.00 mSv/year, as opposed to a world average of 0.6 mSv/year. Strangely, I'm happy with this. I like the way Japanese doctors order lots of tests and only then give you the diagnosis. To me it seems systematic, rational - and reassuring.

And the damage? The bill was for 122,000 yen. When you deduct 35,000 yen for the private room and 4,400 yen for meals, the medical bill (medicines, tests, 7 days stay) was 82,500 yen (550 GBP). I pay 30% of the actual cost. (Incidentally, to cope with hardship, there's a ceiling of about 80,000 yen per month.)

Everyone's required to be covered by one of two national health insurance schemes. I'm satisfied with the way things work here. In England where I come from the NHS is free to all - no money changes hands - which is a great ideal but the system is creaking at the seams for lack of cash and too many people take it for granted. But as Japan prepares to join the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) there are fears here that American insurance companies might flood the market and break down this national system. 

Tonight is the last day of the Autumn Festival here in Koriyama. All day the neighbourhood has echoed with the sound of drums and pipes. Now darkness is falling and in the streets chants of Washoi! Washoi! But I'm convalescing and can't join in. It brings home the attraction of Matsuri: an invigorating show of strength, vitality, and love of life.

More later

Anne
P.S. October 5th
Looks like I'm going to get about 75,000 yen back from a couple of private health insurance schemes so the damage is looking less (though obviously I've paid in premiums over the years). Follow-up consultation today and I'm much better. CT scan booked for one month's time. Ouch, more radiation .....

Veni, vidi, non vici

Hi

There was a big earthquake in the middle of last night. Force 5 at the coast, Force 4 here in Koriyama. A long, low grumble. According to this morning's news, it was an aftershock from 3.11 and we are urged to remain vigilant. Quite frankly there's not a lot you can do when you're woken up at half past two in the morning. Wait for it to end, turn over and go back to sleep. I do have my emergency rucksack packed ready, I've stockpiled two weeks supply of food and water, and I keep the bath full. But I don't sleep in my clothes as I did that first month. 

The Prime Minister visited Fukushima Daiichi yesterday. I saw the cavalcade at Koriyama station yesterday morning as I was waiting for the bus. He's made the monumental decision to urge Tepco to scrap Reactors 5 and 6. Blindingly obvious, I should say. What took him so long? It would be hard to operate these reactors normally while the difficult work of clearing up the damage to Reactors 1 to 4 is carried out, and where radiation levels in some places are extremely high. And socially, the people of Fukushima would never accept it. The governor continues to press for a decision to scrap Fukushima Daini nuclear plant, 11 kilometers to the south, but no word on that yet.

So He came (along with members of the foreign press), He saw and tried to show the world that he's fulfilling the promises he made at the Olympic presentation in Buenos Aires. But the local press weren't allowed into the press conference 'for reasons of space'. Maybe they'd ask too many tricky questions about the leakage of contaminated water into the sea, and voice the fury of the local fishing community.

More important than Abe's 'performance' is the work going on in Tokyo to draft new legislation delineating the responsibilities of the power companies and the state in the nuclear power industry. This is the crux of the problem. Japan has always maintained that the electric companies take care of everything but it's now obvious that a single private company cannot sustain the costs of an accident. Abe has said that the government will step in but there's still a lot of work in the detail.

The government and bureaucracy may be overpaid and useless (common grouch in this country) but the private sector can be outstanding. How's this for an example? On Tuesday I came back from Tokyo and left my cardigan on the shinkansen bullet train. At 3:30 pm I reported it to the Lost Property office in Koriyama. At 7:00 pm I got a phone call saying the garment had been found. Did I want to go to Sendai to pick it up or have it sent to me paying postage on arrival (chakubarai 着払い)? I chose the latter option and at 10:00 am on Thursday the package arrived (I paid 740 yen). Is there any other country so efficient or so trusting?

Last weekend the country was lashed with heavy rain from a typhoon. It cleared the air and now we have glorious autumn weather. 

All the best
Anne

Tokyo Olympics

Hi

Tokyo is to  host the Olympics in 2020. Prime Minister Abe swung the vote by asserting that the situation in Fukushima is under control and personally guaranteeing the safety of athletes in Tokyo. The governor of Fukushima has been begging the government to take control ever since the disaster but only when the contaminated water crisis threatened Tokyo's Olympic bid did the government intervene. 

It's been hailed here as an 'international pledge' so we're hoping the government really is going to take charge and get results. Money has been found from this year's budget and a team of vice-Ministers, foreign experts, and frontline specialists are to work on decommissioning the plant and finding solutions to the contaminated water issue. The Prime Minister sounded super-confident but is the situation really 'under control'? Is the 'silt fence' (a net curtain supposed to stem the flow of water) really effective? Is there really no contaminated water escaping into the open sea, as he claimed? 

In the long term things should be under control. In all there will be three walls to contain contamination and stop water going into the sea: the 'frozen wall' around all four reactors (work to start next year and to be completed during fiscal 2014); a seawall already half built and to be completed in December this year; and an earthen wall reinforced with waterglass around several contaminated areas between the reactors and the sea. There has been some trouble with this last one where contaminated water was found to have been flowing over the top of the wall, and also a recent discovery of water flowing from one of the tank areas along a trench and into the open sea, south of the seawall. So all is not quite as under control as Abe seemed to suggest. The immediate crisis of the leaking tanks needs to be solved and there is a serious shortage of staff.  

The government's also pledged to step up overseas PR. The farmers and manufacturers of Fukushima have been fighting this battle for three years now, measuring all their produce, explaining over and over that Fukushima is safe. Now it seems that that battle has to be fought internationally. A cartoon in a French publication showing sumo wrestlers with 3 arms and legs has been widely shown here. In bad taste certainly, but it shows the kind of prejudice one is up against. It wasn't good to hear the person responsible for Tokyo's bid repeatedly say that Tokyo was 250 km from Fukushima so nothing to worry about. For us it only served to reinforce the gulf between us here and the powers-that-be in Tokyo. So in a way we have to thank the foreign journalists who have reminded Tokyo - and the rest of Japan - that Fukushima is a national and international issue.

But it's good that the Olympics are coming to Tokyo. For far too long Japan has been in the doldrums and people have been gloomy. Then there was the disaster. It would be great if the Olympic Torch were carried through a regenerated North East Japan (including Fukushima). The owners of J-Village, the national youth soccer centre which still serves as a dormitory and base for workers at Fukushima Daiichi, are already making plans, hoping that it will have some support role in the Olympics.

Bye for now

Anne

Contaminated Water

Hi
Contaminated Water - osensui  汚染水 - we hear the word all the time but it's another new word which along with the word for Decontamination - josen  除染 -  you won't find in any Japanese dictionary. How our lives have changed.

Contaminated Water, particularly the issue of leaking tanks at Fukushima Daiichi, has been top of the national news and made headlines across the world. After the Prime Minister announced last month that the government would step in, money has been found from this year's budget and a special 'Contaminated Water' post set up within METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry). Today there was an announcement of government plans to tackle the problem. Promises of money (which is welcome) but nothing new.

There are over 1,000 tanks holding 340,000 tons of contaminated water on-site. The current problem is with 300 tanks which are bolted rather than welded together. Yesterday's paper says extremely high airborne radiation of 1,700 mSv/hr has been detected in one of the tank areas. Spare a thought for the 3,000 people working there, in radiation suits, full face masks, and with temperatures still reaching highs of 30'C.

Maybe the government can coordinate policy on contaminated water and work out ways to stop it increasing and ways to deal with it - in place of the stop-gap measures until now. But with the Prime Minister swanning off on foreign trips to sell nuclear power overseas (you'd think he'd get his own house in order first), with no discussion in the Diet (broken up for elections in July and not back until October), there's still a general lack of a sense of crisis. No wonder the fishermen at a meeting with Tepco today were getting very angry indeed.

Electricity bills in our region (Tohoku Electricity) went up on the 1st of the month, the first increase in 33 years. The cost of electricity will rise 9% for households and 15% for businesses. This is the price we have to pay for the nuclear power stations being shut down - the cost of all that imported LNG. But it is strange. There doesn't seem to have been a shortage of electricity this summer - and it was a very hot summer. It does make you wonder what all that saving back in the summer of 2011 was for? There were peak cuts, fines for businesses, everyone was cutting back hard on usage. Maybe if people had kept in saving mode, we wouldn't have needed the price increases? But it seems consumption is back to normal, more fossil fuel LNG is being used, and prices are going up to pay for it. Not a good situation.

There's a typhoon sitting south of Kyushu that won't budge so we've had high humidity (60% on my home thermometer) for the past two days with unsettled weather. Hope it improves by the weekend. I'm going camping!
Anne

Decontamination

Hi

It was back in June. An acquaintance who lives in the Shima district of Koriyama was grumbling about the decontamination work at her house. First the boss man came, re-moved 5 cm of soil from the garden, took readings and having satisfied him-
self that radiation could be halved (that seems to be the criterion, not to reduce radiation to a certain level), he disappeared leaving sub-contractors to carry out the work. Shrubs and trees were pruned and the top layer of soil removed. Several houses in the vicinity were having work done at the same time so one moment there would be 8 workers in the garden, the next minute - just as she'd taken out some tea (!) - there were none. It took the best part of a week.

She and her husband were complaining that more time seemed to be spent recording and photographing each branch as it was cut, rather than actually doing the work. You have to take this with a grain of salt but you get the picture. At the end of the week they dug a hole about 2 metres by one metre and one metre deep behind the shed at the back of the garden and buried the plastic sacks of soil. Then they covered the garden with rough sand (yamazuna 山砂) which she was convinced was going to kill her plants. I met her a month later and she hadn't yet had the final results which were to come in the post. She's in her 70s and what with the heat she'd found the whole thing stressful. No doubt younger families would have welcomed having the work done.

The city of Koriyama, 60 kms from Fukushima Daiichi, was not evacuated and is not eligible for decontamination at central government expense. But early on the then Mayor decided to carry out its own decontamination plan to reassure residents and stop the outflow of people. Work started in the most heavily contaminated areas (around Ikenodai, Saikon) in October 2012 and is now being rolled out across the city.

I want to point you to an excellent piece of work by Azby Brown on this subject entitled. Decon or Con: How is Remediation being Managed and how effective is it? available on the Safecast website. It's a bit long but clearly written and easy to understand. Safecast, a global voluntary organisation, takes issue with the fact that there is no independent evaluation of decontaminaton (or 'remediation') and sets out to try and compare their readings with official before-and-after readings taken by the government. Accessing the government data seems to have been very time-consuming and Azby deserves credit for ferreting it out.

There are good maps and explanations of the different zones, explanations of how decontamination is to be managed, how the government's dose rate calculations are reached, and estimates of the effects of natural decay and weathering. To summarize, the goal was to reduce radiation in areas over 20mSv/year (the evacuated areas) rapidly to 20 mSv/year and to reduce radiation in other areas (Koriyama included) over the long term to 1 mSv/year. The evacuated areas are to be decontaminated at central government expense and other areas by the local authorities with subsidies etc. While work by local authorities seems to be progressing transparently (despite the grumbles of my friend above), work in the evacuated areas is behind schedule and proving more difficult. To quote, 'By early 2012, when pilot decontamination projects had been completed and the results examined, the government knew they could get areas with dose rates less than 30 mSv/yr down to below 20 mSv/yr, but not if they were originally 40 mSv or above ...'  So the outlook for residents in the exclusion zone is not good.

For those in the 'restricted residence zones' and 'preparing for return zones' things are more ambiguous. Safecast measured two sites to see if decontamination had been effective and to estimate whether it had accelerated natural reduction (weathering and radioactive decay). Results for the two sites were different which highlights the difficulty of this subject but it seems that decontamination is worth doing at higher levels but it's difficult to reduce further to 1 mSv/yr. This is polarising residents into those who say they will go back regardless and those who insist that levels need to be reduced to 1 mSv/yr.

Anyway, check it out here. A good read.
Safecast: Decontamination blog

The headline in yesterday's paper was Forest Levels Reduced by 38%. What this means is that airborne radiation had reduced by natural means (weathering and radioactive decay) in 2012 over the previous year by 38% in forests outside the exclusion zone, 10% of which was attributed to systematic felling of trees. (Seventy percent of Fukushima prefecture is forested.)

So it's a complex question that involves us all, not only those of us who live here but the nation's taxpayers who have to foot the bill. Questions are being raised about the cost-effectiveness of decontamination. Then there's the question of where to put all the soil. Not to mention the thorny question of compensation.
Thanks for reading this
Anne

Tomioka video and new comments

Hi

If you don't mind I'm going to cop out this time and pass on some of the feedback I've had recently.

You may remember that in June I visited Tomioka, since the end of March redesignated as a 'preparing to return' zone, with a photographer friend from England (Tomioka 1). He has made a video from the images and set it to music. Very moving. Take a look (6 minutes).
Tomioka video

Next, let me draw your attention to a comment on my post Airborne Radiation 1 (24 July 2013) by one DiogeneseNJ who was helpful and reassuring in those difficult days two years ago. He takes issue with my comment that 100 mSv of exposure to radiation causes cancer. I thought this was the received wisdom and the one figure that is generally accepted. However, the RERF (Radiation Effects Research Foundation), a cooperative Japan-US research organisation dating back to Hiroshima, says the 'association remains unclear'. In addition, there is new research (Dec. 2011, Berkeley Lab) on cellular repair processes which does show that exposure is not linear, i.e. low-rate doses are not as damaging as a single dose.

There is also a link to a paper showing how my glass badge worked (clever technology) and a final comment about risk concluding that when you factor in air pollution, Koriyama is probably a healthier place to live than Tokyo! Anyway, see for yourself at the following link. Unfortunately, the links on the comment itself don't seem to connect. You'll have to copy and paste. But worth it. The references are easy to understand.

Airborne Radiation comment

Here, the news is dominated by the issue of contaminated water leaking into the sea. It's been rated a Level 3 accident. Two more tanks have been found to be leaking - and it's highly radioactive stuff (100 mSv/hour). Japan's nuclear watchdog, the NRA, visited the site today and complained of 'sloppy management' (zusan na kanri), for example radiation around the tanks is neither measured nor recorded. If it had been, the leaks might have been spotted sooner. Things didn't seem too bad at first back in April. But every time something goes wrong, Tepco  apologizes - and then make the same mistakes over and over. The PM has said the government will get involved but there's no money till next year. Action is needed not words.

The other issue being discussed here is the removal of the children's classic manga Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen) about the atomic bombing in Hiroshima from school libraries in Matsue in a burst of political correctness on the grounds that the book shows violence to women and the images might disturb children. Barefoot Gen does depict the grisly reality of the bomb: horrid pictures of people's skin melting and hanging loose. But there's been an uproar. Japan as a country has not been good at facing up to responsibility for causing the War, but it has been good at keeping the horror of war alive. There's a national consensus that war should never be repeated. So most people, I'm glad to say, oppose the banning of this book.

Some welcome rain has given us a few cool days but the heat is to return this weekend.
All the best
Anne

August

A field of sunflowers planted on the ski slopes at San-no-kura, outside Kitakata

Hi
The O-bon holidays are nearly over. Back to work tomorrow. This last week was an odd week, as it always is, with the various ceremonies commemorating the end of the war coinciding with the peak holiday season. I was with an American friend in the mountain resort of Yanaizu at noon on the 15th. That's when the Emporer in 1945 gave his speech on the radio announcing the surrender, known in Japanese as gyokuon (玉音), the 'Jewel Voice'. Loudspeakers summoned the good people of Yanaizu to prayers in the square. 

Thankfully the Prime Minister decided not to visit Yasukuni Shrine this year. It's all very well remembering the war dead but 'A class' war criminals are interred there too and any official visit aggravates relations with China and South Korea. The TV does its best to keep memories of the war alive. One guest on a current affairs show said it's all very well remembering Hiroshima on 6th August, Nagasaki on the 9th and the end of the war on the 15th but Japan should also remember Pearl Harbor and the beginning of hostilities in China. Always interesting, and often shocking, are the reminiscences of people in their 80s and 90s, speaking up at last. As we approach the 70th anniversary, Abe is trying to rewrite the peace constitution so that Japanese forces can defend an ally under attack. It's an interesting time.

Young people from Fukushima were invited to participate in the ceremonies at Nagasaki. I suppose there is a link but I'm afraid that that word 'hibakusha' sends a chill down my spine. Not only did the victims suffer terribly from the atomic bombs but they've also been victims of discrimination and I don't want us lumbered in the same boat. 

But this last week was also holiday time when most companies, certainly up here, take works holidays. I spent it with good friends in the Aizu area. We went up the Tadami River deep into the beautiful area of Oku-Aizu. We saw fields of sunflowers, temples, lakes and mountains. The area's branded itself  'fairy land' and you can see why: it certainly seems a mystical place.

Families having fun at Lake Numazawa - paradise!

The magnificent Tadami River. It has many power stations along its length.

The Tadami River was developed in the early 1950's for hydro-electric power by Shirasu Jiro (educated at Cambridge, interesting man). I came across a book recently when I was tidying up the office called Fukushima: Electricity County published in the 1970s. Local dignitaries showed great pride in Fukushima's contribution to Japan's economic growth and were hailing nuclear power as the next phase with photos of Fukushima Daiichi under construction. So you see, it's not just nuclear, Fukushima has provided power for Tokyo for many, many years.

And finally, Matsuri in Kitakata. The last day of four days of festivities. Can you hear the drums?
Anne

Update: 11 August 2013

Hi

At last the government's stepped in. PM Abe has recognised the urgency of dealing with the issue of contaminated water at Fukushima Daiichi and said he's no longer going to leave things up to Tepco. Not before time. It's a long running saga. In April and May 2011 there were two spillages in addition to the 10,000 tons Tepco dumped in the sea prompting an international incident. After that a cleaning and recycling system was developed which has been dealing with the water injected to cool the reactors. Then in May this year we heard about problems with underground water: 400 tons a day were pouring down the hill into the reactor buildings and is being pumped out and stored in an ever-increasing number of tanks onsite. In May, Tepco unveiled a plan to bypass the water before it got near the reactors and direct it into the sea but the fishing industry opposed the plan and it got shelved. All the while Tepco denied that any contaminated water had seeped into the sea. Then on 22 July, the day after the Upper House elections (I kid you not), Tepco said it was 'possible' that contaminated water had got into the sea. 

Things went downhill from there: trenches on the seaside of reactors 1 and 2 were found to contain highly radioactive material dating back to the time of the accident; contaminated water had been flowing over the top of a newly built containment wall at high tide. And then the Natural Resources and Energy Agency recently estimated that not 400 tons but 1,000 tons of underground water had been flowing into the nuclear plant every day since May 2011. Of this 400 tons per day had indeed ended up in the bottom of the reactor buildings but 300 tons had seeped into the highly contaminated trenches and from there into the sea, and the remaining 300 tons had flowed uncontaminated into the sea. 

To put this in perspective, we're talking about the shoreline at the plant. Beyond the plant is a seawall, a barrier between the harbour and the open sea. Obviously monitoring of the sea has been stepped up and the beaches in Iwaki to the south were declared safe. But fishing which was supposed to start in a small way in September has been postponed. These revelations have damaged the industry too much. The issue will also affect whether people return to the area, not to mention international relations.

So the Prime Minister is right to take charge. But why wait for next year's budget? There's money from the Recovery Budget that hasn't been spent and what about the money that was mis-spent on non-disaster projects and is supposed to be paid back? It's clear that a private company cannot sustain expenditure on this scale. The government's committed to paying for the 'frozen wall' to be built underground around all four reactors (1,000 rods stretching 1.4 km) and taxpayers will have to pay the electricity bill for this almighty fridge for the next 30 to 40 years - plus myriad other astronomical costs. And nuclear is cheap?

That's all for now

Anne

Summer

Hi again

It's hot. The mercury hit 40 degrees centigrade in Shikoku today and it's 33 degrees here in Koriyama. It's Saturday afternoon and even I have switched on the cooler.

I've been away so I guess the heat is getting to me. Maybe I'll have some more peaches. The Fukushima white peaches are so good. So good that every year the very best are presented to the Emperor. Here they pass fruit through a light sensor to measure the sugar content: the sweeter it is, the higher the price. According to the local paper, of 260,000 peaches passed through a light sensor 1,000 with a sugar content of 12% were selected and from these experts picked 180 perfect peaches. The Emperor and Empress are very popular here. They've just paid their third visit since the disaster. During a two day stay, they visited a factory in Iitate in the 'restricted residence' zone, and talked with peach farmers in an attempt to boost confidence in Fukushima fruit and veg.

Summer in Japan means Matsuri. Koriyama and Fukushima cities had their big festivals last weekend (on the same days - these two cities are so competitive) but it's the O-Bon holiday next week (13th to 15th) so there are still lots more festivals and firework displays to come. 

In this region at O-Bon you visit the graves of the ancestors and this seems to be very important to people. Graves in the 'difficult to return' zone have been repaired and decontaminated and former residents (wearing white overalls) are being allowed in. People are also being allowed to stay at their homes in the 'restricted residence' zones for this period only. 

For the kids, summer holidays should be about swimming and playing outside. But is it safe? Professor Takamura from Nagasaki University and an advisor to Fukushima Prefecture writes a column in the local paper once a week. He says that tests carried out in June and July of all school swimming pools, lakes and swimming beaches detected no radioactive material in the water and airborne radiation levels are generally below 0.1 μSv/hour. Even if a child swallowed water when swimming there is no risk of internal exposure, he says. He did say that there is a slight possibility of caesium being stuck to sand but you can wash this away by showering and washing the hair. Same for exercise. He says that if a child played outside in an area of 0.5 μSv/hour for two hours a day, that would be 40 μSv over the summer holidays, the equivalent of a chest X-ray. There are no radioactive materials in the air now so no danger of internal exposure from breathing. But like swimming, best to wash your hands and feet when you come home and shower and wash the hair at the end of the day. Likewise, rinse any cuts and grazes. The benefits of running around outside and getting Vitamin D from the sun outweigh any worries. Sorry this is a bit technical but it's practical advice and I thought I'd pass it on. Probably sensible advice, wherever you live in the world ...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go and get that peach ..

Anne

Airborne Radiation 2

Hello again,

Last time I talked about the survey meter that I borrowed for a week from the city office. This time I'll share the results of the dosimeter that I borrowed from the same place for a month. It's a bit like a blue thermometer that you carry around in a pocket or on your belt.and it calculates accumulated radiation. The city asks you to record the results every day along with an estimate of how many minutes you were outside and where you were.

For me, it was clocking 2 μSv/day. At the end of the month this was worked out to 0.65 mSv/year which after subtracting natural radiation in Koriyama of 0.35 mSv/year left me with only 0.3 mSv/year in additional radiation as a result of the accident, well below the government target of 1 mSv./year. When I handed the dosimeter back I was told that it was low probably because I live and work in concrete buildings 7 and 8 floors up and I don't go outside much (usually less than an hour a day). I was told that many people are recording more than 1 mSv/year.

Incidentally, this 1 mSv/year does refer to radiation over and above natural radiation. (The term in Japanese is  年間追加被ばく線量 nenkan tsuika hibaku senryo.) But even so, natural radiation is so low here that even with the additional radiation, levels are still lower than many places in the world.

This is a point that the authorities are keen to stress and the Fukushima prefecture website now has banners and links showing comparative levels in other parts of the world. And you might be interested to check out Safecast, an independent organisation which monitors levels throughout the world and also here in Fukushima.

Next time, I'll look at the decontamination that's going on in Koriyama at the moment.
Bye for now
Anne