A message to everyone in the world
While perplexed by rapid changes in the state of world affairs at the start of 2025, I am deeply appreciative of your various anti-nuclear activities around the world.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to visit parts of the Difficult-to-Return zones in Fukushima. A hospital, where more than 50 patients died during evacuation efforts in the 2011 nuclear disaster, was now overgrown with dense trees and grasses. In a care home for older people, I saw disarrayed beds and scattered items, such as diapers, medicines and documents, all left untouched since the residents had to evacuate suddenly for safety. The meal plan for 11th March 2011 was still written on the whiteboard. At a nearby primary school, I found dictionaries placed on each small wooden desk. Pupils’ bags, shoes, brush washers, and even fallen bicycles as well as helmets were still there – everything was left behind. No sounds were to be heard except for the hum of cicadas. There is no doubt that people lived here until the disaster struck, but now, there is no one. These places remain abandoned even today.
Only a very small number of people have returned to the areas where evacuation orders were lifted. Empty houses need to be demolished one by one. Grand gates and storehouses, seemingly with centuries of history, are being torn down. New homes have been built nearby for disaster-affected families, with some residents with children moving in from outside Fukushima. A resident told me that the current indoor radiation level was as high as 0.3μSv/h, five to ten times higher than the levels before 2011. Part of the Difficult-to-Return zone begins just behind the fences surrounding these homes. Such living conditions should never be called safe.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government has removed its pledge to reduce reliance on nuclear energy from its Seventh Strategic Energy Plan, signalling their intention to revive the industry. To someone like me, who is acutely aware of the ongoing sufferings from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the reality that local residents cannot safely stay or evacuate if a similar disaster were triggered by an earthquake in areas like the Noto Peninsula, the epicentre of a major earthquake in 2024, Japan’s continued reliance on nuclear energy seems inconceivably absurd.
In 2022, Japan’s Supreme Court ruled that the government was not liable for the 2011 disaster, dismissing the claims of many evacuees and victims seeking fair compensation and accountability. Since then, it has been revealed by a journalist that there was a collusion between the judge and the executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The state of the judicial system in Japan is deeply concerning. Similar rulings in other Fukushima nuclear disaster related cases followed in lower courts, leaving those suffering in an incredibly difficult position.
The extraction of 0.7 gramme of nuclear debris from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been recently reported, but the modest “success” was achieved only after repeated failed attempts.
Harsh working conditions with high levels of radiation exposure and mismanagement by TEPCO — such as failing to send a company staff member to properly inspect a telescopic device — became evident during the process. No review of the plant’s decommissioning roadmap to account for the radioactive decay period has been carried out, even though no one believes the decommissioning process will be completed by 2051, as originally planned.
Having released contaminated underground water from the plant into the ocean despite strong opposition, Japan is now distributing contaminated soil to wider areas, touting it as a “recycled” material for rebuilding works. In doing so, the Japanese government continues to propagate nuclear safety myths, particularly among younger people, while asserting that they alone have the authority to determine which evidence is scientific and which is not.
Along the quiet Fukushima coastline, almost empty of people, lavish corporate facilities and state-of the-art laboratories have been built with generous subsidiaries under the guise of reconstruction efforts.
A nuclear disaster not only devastates your life and home, but it also deprives you of basic human rights. Confronted with this harsh reality even 14 years after the disaster, I cannot help but feel a sense of despair about the future of Fukushima.
With winter nearly gone and spring just around the corner, I long to be filled with good intentions and to see the world with discerning eyes. Encouraged by the knowledge that many friends around the world are tirelessly working to end nuclear energy production, I will continue to contribute as much as possible to this important cause.
March 2025 in Fukushima
Ruiko Muto
Chair of the Complainants for the Criminal Prosecution of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
Co-Representative of the Nuclear Accident Victims Group Liaison Committee
(Translated from Japanese by JAN UK)
Ruiko’s message has been translated into five languages and published on the website of yosomono-net.
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Message to all those in the world
who have a thought for the victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster
I am Akiko Morimatsu. I left Fukushima to avoid radiation exposure caused by the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, and I have been living as an internally displaced person.
Fourteen years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 and the subsequent accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The accident is far from over and the crippled power plant continues to contaminate the oceans, air, and land connected to the rest of the world. The situation is anything but “under control”, and I am outraged that none of the leaders of the Japanese State have acknowledged this fact.
Even after 14 years, many people continue to remain displaced. The number of evacuees registered with the government (Reconstruction Agency) is still approximately 29,000 people in all 47 prefectures of Japan (December 6, 2024, Reconstruction Agency, “Number of Evacuees in Japan.”), and they are in desperate need of government protection and relief. However, the exact number of evacuees has never been counted by the Japanese government. In fact, many more people than registered in official statistics have been compelled to flee their homes and are still in distress with no relief in sight, as they are not officially recognized as evacuees.
I have two children. At the time of the disaster, they were a 5-month-old baby and a 3-year-old toddler. For the past 14 years, my husband (the children’s father) lived in Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, and I was living with my children in Osaka City, far apart one from the other. Thus, people living in contaminated areas outside of the mandatory evacuation zones, made their not-easy-to-take decision to escape from the radiation source with only mothers and their children, who are more vulnerable to radiation. And this, without official aide or support. Even now, there are many people displaced living by their own means, and among them, a large number of households without fathers.
Evacuated or not, we all need to protect ourselves from the radioactive contamination resulting from the Fukushima nuclear accident. “Evacuation” is a rightful act of a human being to avoid exposure to radiation so as to enjoy good health. In Japan, however, evacuees are subjected to discrimination and bullying, labeled as “rumor spreaders” since our very existence points out the dangers of radiation. Under this severe social pressure, we can barely express our rightful thought.
To promote nuclear power and not to give up nuclear weapons is, in the first place, to force people to be exposed to unwanted radiation exposure. As an added problem, many people are not publicly supported in their evacuation efforts. Furthermore, our right to protest freely and without fear is under threat, given the social and personal discrimination that has befallen on many of us and our families.
I would also like to strongly emphasize that this issue is not only a problem for the people of Fukushima. I would like to share with everyone in the world the following question: when threatened with nuclear damage, will you stand on the side of those who impose radiation exposure, or will you stand on the side of those who protect people’s lives and health from radiation exposure?
If nuclear power is promoted as a national policy, fleeing will not be easily allowed, and the government can claim, as in Japan, that coexistence with radiation is possible, in order to preserve nuclear power. It is nothing but deception.
The year 2025 will mark 80 years since the end of World War II. Last year, Nihon Hidankyô, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and hibakusha gave a speech to the world audience, drawing attention to the issue of radiation exposure.
We believe that now is the time to connect with people around the world concerned about nuclear damage. Avoiding radiation exposure to protect lives should be a universally recognized principle. As a victim of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, I, too, have renewed my determination to continue to raise my voice and strive for the establishment of this universal right. Let us continue fighting together.
March 11th 2025
Akiko MORIMATSU
Representative of the plaintiffs’ group in the Osaka metropolitan area filed by Victims of the Fukushima nuclear accident
Co-chair of the national coordination of the plaintiffs’ groups
of the lawsuits filed by Victims of the Fukushima nuclear accident
(Translated from Japanese by Nos Voisins Lointains 3.11)
