Plenty enough to be worried about

July 16, 2014

Lack of evacuation destinations poses problem for care facilities near nuclear plants

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20140716p2a00m0na012000c.html 

While the government rushes to reactivate nuclear power plants, starting with Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Sendai Nuclear Power Plant, evacuation measures have lagged behind and the needs of those most vulnerable to disasters have been neglected, a Mainichi Shimbun survey has indicated.

Hiroyuki Morimitsu, the 58-year-old manager of nursing care facility Togo Home in the Kagoshima Prefecture city of Satsumasendai, where the Sendai plant is located, is at a loss. "I don't even know where to start," he says.

The nursing facility is located near the Sendai River, just 16 kilometers upstream from the Sendai nuclear plant, which stands near the mouth of the river. The plant is set to become the first in Japan to be reactivated, but the nursing facility does not yet have an evacuation plan.

A group home is also operated on the grounds of the facility, and including clients who come in for short-term stays, there are over 70 residents. There had been rumors that care facility managers with close ties to each other were making arrangements to host each other's clients in an emergency, but Morimitsu doesn't know of any such people.

Because some of Morimitsu's elderly clients are bedridden and cannot easily be transported, Morimitsu is keeping open the option of taking refuge inside in the case of an emergency, but has fears of radiation infiltrating the building. Plus, if lifelines are blocked, staff and residents would not be able to stay for long.

"If possible, I'd like to evacuate everyone," Morimitsu says. He has only the local and national governments to fall back on.

According to a Mainichi Shimbun survey, 70 percent of nursing care facilities and 75 percent of hospitals located within 30 kilometers of a nuclear power plant have not secured evacuation sites.

Considering the various directions in which radiation could spread in a nuclear disaster, it is advised that care facilities and hospitals secure multiple destinations for evacuation. It's also important to ensure that facilities do not overlap in their evacuation sites, and some must cross prefectural borders to find appropriate sites. Hosting facilities, moreover, requires logistical and financial support. Such wide-ranging coordination is a lot for prefectures and municipalities to handle on their own. As one Ehime Prefecture official said, "We've been going around to various facilities and hospitals asking for their help, but it's hard to accomplish much from just that."

Meanwhile, municipalities which said in the Mainichi survey that they've secured evacuation sites for their facilities and hospitals are not without their concerns.

Of the 16 nursing care facilities in Hokkaido, only nine have been able to secure other nursing care facilities as their destination for evacuation. The remaining seven must initially be relocated to hotels or other accommodation facilities, after which the prefecture will coordinate further evacuation.

Likewise, all 51 care facilities in Shimane Prefecture will first be relocated to community centers and other such accommodation facilities, after which prefectural officials will organize further evacuation to a facility providing care similar to the evacuating facilities themselves. In other words, clients and patients will not necessarily be evacuated directly to facilities matching their needs.

Starting in November of last year, the Kagoshima Prefectural Government stepped up assistance for nursing care facilities and hospitals in creating evacuation plans. It first secured evacuation sites for 360 people in seven care facilities and hospitals within five kilometers of the Sendai plant. Since April, it has secured evacuation sites for 460 people in 10 care facilities and hospitals within five to 10 kilometers of the plant.

Most of the care facilities and hospitals that will be hosting those evacuees are located in the city of Kagoshima, at least 30 kilometers southeast of the nuclear plant. "Finding evacuation sites was possible because the city has many care facilities and hospitals," a Kagoshima Prefecture official says.

However, close to 10,000 people are being cared for at 227 care facilities and hospitals within 10 to 30 kilometers of the plant, and evacuation plans for those institutions have yet to be drawn up.

As nuclear plant heads towards reactivation, disaster evacuees fear repeat of history

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/features/news/20140716p2a00m0na014000c.html 

Fukushima nuclear disaster evacuees are raising concerns that the "safety myth" that surrounded Japan's nuclear plants before disaster is being revived with the Nuclear Regulation Authority's July 16 approval of safety measures for Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture.

Takeshi Tanabe, 42, who evacuated from the Fukushima Prefecture town of Okuma after the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, now lives in a government-rented residence in Tokyo. Day after day, he is stunned by Japan's hurried moves to restart its nuclear reactors.

On the day of the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, Tanabe fled with his wife and 2-year-old son to an elementary school near their home with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

He had heard no news of the problems at the nuclear plant, but at the school Tanabe learned that buses would be carrying him and the other evacuees to the city of Tamura, around 40 kilometers to the west.

However, the buses never arrived. The next day around 150 people were loaded onto 15 Self-Defense Forces trucks and evacuated. Only two hours after they left, the building of the nuclear plant's No. 1 reactor exploded.

Everywhere the trucks went, the evacuation shelters were full. Finally, at around 2 a.m. on March 13, a place that could take them was found. The path the trucks had taken as they traveled for over 12 hours coincided with where radioactive material from the plant had spread.

"I want the authorities to think about plant reactivation on the assumption that another accident will occur. If a new 'safety myth' takes hold like before the disaster, it will be hard to have discussions about residents' safety," says Tanabe.

Hiroshi Sugamoto, 73, head of an administrative section in the town of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, who now lives with his wife in Kyoto Prefecture after evacuating, says, "The lessons of Fukushima are being forgotten."

Before the disaster, Sugamoto participated in regular meetings with executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the owner of the Fukushima plant. But whenever he brought up potential problems regarding tsunamis or earthquakes, he says, TEPCO would dismiss them as "impossible," and the company made him believe in the plant's absolute safety.

Sugamoto's father died during the evacuation, and the disaster robbed him of the automobile parts factory he had spent his life building up. He is reluctant to return to Futaba if it becomes the location of a mid-term storage site for radioactively contaminated soil.

"The nuclear plant supported the local economy, but the disaster stole everything," Sugamoto says. "As a condition for reactivating plants, the government should promise to pay for local residents' living expenses in the event of a disaster."

July 16, 2014(Mainichi Japan)