Fukushima students visit plant

November 19, 2016

Fukushima students see crippled nuclear plant firsthand

By CHIKAKO KAWAHARA/ Staff Writer

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201611190023.html

OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture--It was no ordinary outing for the 13 students from Fukushima High School.

The teenagers toured the site of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant by bus on Nov. 18 to get a firsthand look at work to decommission the reactors following the triple meltdown in 2011.

It was the first tour by youngsters since the disaster as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. had deemed the radiation risk was too high.

Through bus windows, the students observed the damaged reactor buildings, rows of storage tanks holding contaminated water and other facilities on the sprawling nuclear complex.

“The tour made me realize that we should arm ourselves with accurate information if we want to change people’s perceptions of Fukushima as a scary place,” said Keika Kobiyama, a first-year student in the group. “For starters, I want to tell my fellow high school students ‘We went to the plant to see for ourselves what was going on there.’”

TEPCO had previously refused to allow tours by those under the age of 18.

But the company gave the green light to this request as an exception on grounds that radiation levels had dropped significantly.

The students were each given a dosimeter as they boarded the bus for the two-hour tour. The trip was held after their parents agreed to the visit.

The students themselves had been releasing updates on the disaster for Japanese and foreign audiences by monitoring radiation levels in the prefecture and studying the decommissioning process.

See also : High school takes students to see Fukushima nuclear reactor decommissioning

http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161119/p2a/00m/0na/008000c

….Following the Labor Standards Act, which forbids employing people younger than 18 from working in places with harmful radiation, TEPCO generally only allows people 18 or older to enter the plant. From the time of the disaster through June of this year, TEPCO admitted around 23,000 visitors, but this was the first time it has done so for high school students. According to TEPCO, the radiation exposure during the students' visit was at the most 10 microsieverts. …