Ongoing Casualties and Exploitation from Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

By Steve Bynum
JAPAN FUKUSHIMA CLEANUP
In this Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018, photo, a plant official walks down the road outside Unit 2, left, one of the three melted reactors whose building escaped an explosion but ironically that has kept high radiation inside, falling behind other reactors in the cleanup process, which is expected to take decades at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeast Japan, during an exclusive visit by The Associated Press. The hardest-hit reactor at the Fukushima plant in the March 2011 disaster is moving ahead of the other two melted reactors seven years later in what will be a decades-long cleanup. Mari Yamaguchi / AP Photo
JAPAN FUKUSHIMA CLEANUP
In this Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018, photo, a plant official walks down the road outside Unit 2, left, one of the three melted reactors whose building escaped an explosion but ironically that has kept high radiation inside, falling behind other reactors in the cleanup process, which is expected to take decades at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeast Japan, during an exclusive visit by The Associated Press. The hardest-hit reactor at the Fukushima plant in the March 2011 disaster is moving ahead of the other two melted reactors seven years later in what will be a decades-long cleanup. Mari Yamaguchi / AP Photo

Ongoing Casualties and Exploitation from Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

By Steve Bynum
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Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, Japan still experiences devastating consequences.  The UN recently reported that tens of thousands of citizens, including workers in charge of decontaminating the nuclear plant, are at extreme risk of radiation exposure. Activists in Japan are trying to raise awareness about the real threats nuclear radiation exposure can have on a person’s health. They are being met with resistance by the Japanese government. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe claimed “with regard to health-related problems [of the Fukushima accident], I [Abe] will state in the most emphatic and unequivocal terms that there have been no problems until now, nor are there any at present, nor will there be in the future”. Critics view the Japanese government’s blatant denial about harmful effects, and its insistence of the safety of Fukushima, as a cover-up to ease tensions ahead of  the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Joining us to discuss what they view as an unfolding disaster is Norma Field, professor of Japanese Studies in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, and Yuki Miyamoto, an ethicist and associate professor of religious studies at DePaul University.