Prime Minister Noda giving thanks for the idea to continue to make the Fukushima evacuees pay mortgages and property taxes when they have no way to earn a living.
There are so many stories to be found. Each with its own version of the Blunders committed by the Government of Japan DURING and AFTER the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster. We know about the evacuation of people from areas of low-level radioactivity to EVEN higher levels based on the incomplete information of hotspots from ALL levels of the Government of Japan. We have seen the pain that the farmers having to abandon both land and livestock. But did you know that these people are still required to pay Mortgages and property taxes on that land, with little help from the government. Land that they may never be able to go back and occupy. I think the real kicker to this story is how this is expected of them when their very means of earning a living has also been removed. Unbelievable and unjust, but that is what the Government of Japan continues to show in reality. Wait a minute, I get it now. This is how the Government of Japan and TEPCO can buy the land cheap. They just have to wait for these people that have no means of earning a living to default on their mortgages and property taxes. PRETTY CLEVER, don’t you think?
Fukushima Fallout in Japan
The melted down reactors are stabilizing, but the real work of repair has yet to begin.
David Biello reports September 25, 2011
On March 13 of this year, 17 year old Yuuko Sato and 13 year old Mina Sato left the only home they’d ever known on an organic farm in Fukushima prefecture. They now live more than two hours by train to the north, in Yamagata. Their mother, Sachiko, explained the move via translator as fulfilling “the minimum duty of a parent” to protect her children. The danger they fled: radiation from the meltdown of three nearby nuclear reactors on March 11.
But not every child escaped. Some 300,000 children remain in radioactive zones in Fukushima, according to Sachiko Sato. She and her children were in New York City to protest a United Nations event on the safety of nuclear power. Some Fukushima children—and their parents—were actually evacuated from towns with relatively low radiation levels to places with higher levels. That error was due to incomplete information on radiation hotspots from all levels of Japanese government in the wake of the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Sachiko Sato says “the scenery in Fukushima is as beautiful as last year but all over us is radiation.” She adds, “can you understand the pain of farmers who have to abandon the land they have cared for?”
That abandonment is not complete. Mortgages and property taxes still have to be paid on that land, with little help from the government. And so Ms. Sato has stayed behind in Fukushima to meet such financial obligations. Many families have similarly been torn apart in the continuing aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and meltdowns. The triple disaster has also split apart once closeknit communities—some who stay consider those who leave to be traitors.
Ms. Sato calls the two million residents of the area “guinea pigs.” The government has simply raised what are considered safe radiation levels for contamination in food and water. The new levels are much higher than those in effect in the U.S. or even near Chernobyl. And in April, the government raised the so-called safe level of radiation exposure for children from 1 milliSievert per year to 20 milliSeiverts per year. Ms. Sato asks quote “were they saying that people’s ability to withstand radiation exposure had increased miraculously?” She adds “low level radiation exposure will continue–and we will see the results.”
—David Biello
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=fukushima-fallout-in-japan-11-09-25
