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Hong Kong needs answers on Taishan nuclear plant risks, as painful legacy of Fukushima lingers

Frances Yeung says work on the power plant should be suspended, amid the need for greater clarity of the potential risks, in the interests of public safety

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A dosimeter shows the radiation level near a new protective shelter placed over the remains of nuclear reactor Unit 4, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, on November 29. The explosion of Unit 4 in the early hours of April 26, 1986, is still regarded as the biggest accident in the history of nuclear power generation. Photo: EPA
It’s hard to believe that it was just six years ago when an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, sending three reactors into meltdown and contaminating everything within a 20km radius and beyond.

Over 15,000 people died, 2,000 plus still remain unaccounted for, and more than 146,000 people living in nearby towns were forced to evacuate.

In Iitate village, about 39km from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the Japanese government has attempted to “decontaminate” the area by removing radioactive topsoil around homes and along the sides of major roads.
Bags of contaminated soil lined up at Tomioka, in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, on February 22, as the fallout of the March 2011 nuclear disaster lingers. Photo: Xinhua
Bags of contaminated soil lined up at Tomioka, in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, on February 22, as the fallout of the March 2011 nuclear disaster lingers. Photo: Xinhua

Three Years On: Stories from Fukushima

But no matter how hard they try, the decontamination will not be able to reach the forests that cover about 75 per cent of Iitate’s area.

Radiation does not die – one simply needs to look at the effect of the Chernobyl disaster

Radiation does not die – one simply needs to look at the effect of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster as a clear example. Caesium-137, one of the radioactive materials released from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, takes 30 years to decay to half its original size. It has only been six years since Fukushima – the pollution is expected to last for a long, long time.

Yet the Japanese government thinks enough time has passed for Fukushima victims to return home. On March 31, the government plans to lift the evacuation order on Iitate village, allowing the 6,000-plus residents to go back home.

Dying robots and failing hope: Fukushima clean-up falters six years after tsunami

According to recommendations from the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the maximum dose of radiation that is safe for people to be exposed to in a year is one millisievert (1mSv/year).

However, Greenpeace Japan measured seven residential sites in Iitate and found the average exposure dose at 0.5 microsievert (μSv) to 1.2μSv per hour – two to five times greater than the government’s long-term target. That means, if these 6,000 residents were to return, their so-called safe living space would expose them to radiation equivalent to having a chest X-ray each week.
A mother and son retrieve belongings from their destroyed home in Ishinomaki, in Japan’s Miyagi prefecture on April 10, 2011, a month after a devastating magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami. Photo: EPA
A mother and son retrieve belongings from their destroyed home in Ishinomaki, in Japan’s Miyagi prefecture on April 10, 2011, a month after a devastating magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami. Photo: EPA
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