Fukushima: 200 Days Later

What’s emerging in Japan six months since the nuclear meltdown at the Tokyo Electric Power plant is a radioactive zone bigger than that left by the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While nature reclaims the 12 mile no-go zone, Fukushima’s $3.2 billion-a-year farm industry is being devastated and tourists that hiked the prefecture’s mountains and surfed off its beaches have all but vanished.

The March earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear crisis and left almost 20,000 people dead or missing may cost 17 $223 billion, hindering recovery of the world’s third-largest economy from two decades of stagnation.

Fukushima schoolchildren are now being bullied at their new school in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo for “carrying radiation,” according to reports. Produce from Fukushima’s rich soil is also being shunned. Peaches, the prefecture’s biggest agricultural product after rice, have halved in price this year. Beef shipments from the prefecture were temporarily suspended and contamination concerns stopped the town of Minami Soma from planting rice. Land around the Fukushima reactors will lie fallow for two decades or more before radiation levels fall below Japan’s criteria for evacuation, the government recently announced.

While scientists knew back in March that radiation contamination would create an uninhabitable zone in Fukushima, information to the public has come intermittently, which created widespread distrust of politicians and scientists. This resulted in conflicting public commentary, making it harder for residents to decide whether to stay or leave.

The coastal town of Minami Soma this year canceled its annual qualifying stage for the world surfing championship, part of a waterfront that lured 84,000 beachgoers in July and August last year. The beaches, now destroyed by radiation and the tsunami, saw no visitors during the two months.

The area’s biggest festival, Soma Noma Oi, a re-enactment of samurai battles, attracted 200,000 visitors last year. This year 37,000 came. Of the 300 horses typically used in the event, 100 were drowned in the tsunami and another 100 were evacuated due to radiation.