She says a lot of the anxiety everyone is feeling now reminds her of how she felt back in 2011. "I was so relieved," she says, "I knew I could come home."īut now, Tomoko says, a new invisible threat has her worried - the coronavirus. It was low enough for the pair, something they both felt comfortable with. She remembers how empowering it felt to know and understand the reading. By that point, Tomoko had gotten a Geiger counter. That last option is ultimately how the Kobayashis felt when they decided to come back after their neighborhood was reopened in 2016. "Other people will say, 'Oh, you know, it's not as bad as I feared, maybe I'll stay.' And yet others will say, 'Well, it's pretty bad, but now at least I know what I'm facing and I know how hard it's going to be.' " "Some people will look at the data and say, 'Oh my God, I'm leaving,' " Brown says. People stand near the ocean in Japan's Fukushima prefecture, commemorating the ninth anniversary of the tsunami and nuclear disaster. But many are quick to point out that the government raised the legal limit of radiation exposure in this part of Fukushima prefecture after the disaster - meaning that many of these areas wouldn't necessarily be considered safe in other parts of Japan or the world.īrown says that giving people the ability to collect and understand their own data can help them ease their anxiety and make decisions based on their personal comfort. The Japanese government insists that the areas being reopened are safe. Other organizations, like Greenpeace, dispute those findings.
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The United Nations and the International Commission on Radiological Protection have published reports saying that radiation risks in Fukushima are low. Part of the reason people want to collect data themselves and compare it is because even after more information became available, it was often contradictory. It builds and distributes radiation monitors in Fukushima, and puts all the data online for public use. Many residents say they still feel best collecting information themselves.Īzby Brown is the lead researcher at Safecast, an organization that formed in the immediate days after the disaster. The authorities have tried to ease concerns, testing food in supermarkets and setting up radiation monitors in public parks, outside train stations or flashing along highways, but trust in the government is still extremely low. But there are still a lot of hot spots - places where radiation is worryingly high. The maps show that Fukushima's radiation levels are decreasing, because of both natural decay of particles and large-scale Japanese government decontamination efforts. "It is important for us to visualize the invisible," he says. The couple made them, along with a team of volunteers, using donated Geiger counters - hand-held devices used to measure radiation - over the past few years as more neighborhoods reopened to the public. Takenori points to colorful radiation maps of the area hanging on the wall.
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Tomoko and Takenori were forced to evacuate Minamisoma after the disaster, but after five years, they returned to reopen Tomoko's family inn.
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And now, almost a decade later, wide arrays of residents have taken it upon themselves to collect radiation data - from mothers worried about their kids to surfers monitoring beaches to individuals with Geiger counters in their homes - to help regain a sense of control. For weeks after the disaster, information was scarce and trust in the Japanese government plummeted. The wind carried radioactive material for miles, covering whole towns and neighborhoods with dangerous, yet invisible, particles. So we test it all."Ĭitizen science like this flourished in Fukushima after the nuclear disaster in 2011, when a tsunami triggered explosions at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. "But in order for them to come back and visit us," she continues, "we need to know everything is safe. Most young people decided to start lives elsewhere rather than return, not wanting to take the risks with radiation. "We've given up hope that our children and grandchildren will come back to live here," Tomoko, 67, says. It started as a makeshift operation in the city of Minamisoma the year after the 2011 nuclear disaster, when people - mostly elderly - returned to the area and were worried about high radiation levels in their food and soil. On the edge of Fukushima's former nuclear exclusion zone, this is the place the couple likes to call their "grandma and grandpa lab." His wife, Tomoko, holds the door to a tiny work space with lab equipment and computers set up.
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#JAPAN NUCLEAR REACTOR MELTDOWN UPDATE FULL#
Takenori Kobayashi lugs a garbage bag full of soil across a parking lot to an unmarked office. Takenori Kobayashi (left) and his wife Tomoko Kobayashi bring soil samples into what they refer to as a "grandma and grandpa lab" to test it for radiation, in Fukushima prefecture, Japan.