The disaster , which is what most sensible quarters called it, led to some 18,000 deaths and 315,000 displaced homeless , of which over 130,000 are still classed as that today as they wait to return when it is safe to do so.
The power plant provided energy exclusively for the Tokyo conurbation some 200 kilometers away.This added to the historical tension of one of the more deprived areas of Japan being made to suffer a lot of the risk , but little of the rewards, to providing energy for the capital.The added dimension to the history was that in the late 19th Century Fukushima Prefecture supported the Tokugawa and was one of the last bastions of the old samurai order to resist the Meiji , thus it is still regarded as a renegade and rebel province even today.The suspicions go both ways , with the aftermath of the disaster extenuating deeper lying prejudices between the province and the centre.
Some 6 years prior to the disaster a request for the local University to set up Nuclear Department was denied by the Central bodies.This was seen as part of the past discrimination of the province by the Tokyo elite in which funding was always less than the average for the regions.
The nuclear debate in Japan , which has 54 plants , was a dominant issue for the recent elections.Opinion polls show two extremes , one for continuing with the programme and the other for complete abandonment with there being virtually no middle ground or consensus.The recent winners of the elections are pro-nuclear and have taken steps to begin to expand the programme.
The other major prejudice was the reactions and news control from the Central government which seemed to be entirely fixated to allaying the fears of Tokyo to the detriment of providing safety and accurate assessments for the local people in the epicentre to take appropriate precautions.It took the efforts of a diverse group from the local University to take reading which suggested the the area of contamination was way beyond the original Government designated danger zone.Had these individuals not got together to take the measurements of their own initiative and accord a lot more People would have been exposed to danger levels and a lot less would have been evacuated to safer distances from the plant.
The story of these Peoples experience is told in the Documnetary "Our Friends In Fukushima"
And The summary of Professor Yamaguchi’s talk ( who led the self-formed Fukushima University radiation assessment team is contained in this link.
"The absence of nuclear specialists seemed a problem at first, but it turned out that the multi-disciplinary nature of the Faculty, with diverse expertise to pursue the symbiotic relationship among human, industries and the environment, was an asset in creating, based on scientific methodology, a comprehensive radiation assessment map covering the whole Fukushima Prefecture. At the time of carrying out an assessment for the map in late March 2011, there were two similar maps: a simulation map by the Japanese governmental organisation; and an aerial map by the US Army. The Fukushima University team wanted to make a map on foot, dividing the prefecture equally into 2X2 km units and measuring radiation level at a point on a road in each unit at the same height from the ground. The resultant map showed that the fallout was not uniformly distributed. Rather it was higher in the areas in the northwest of the nuclear plant, compared with other areas. The map was presented, firstly, to the national government, and the government later changed the evacuation zone from a concentric one to the one based on actual, measured radiation level. It was then provided to local municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, which used it in delivering necessary measures for local residents. Finally, in April, it was made public through mass media and the team’s homepage.
http://www.sss.fukushima-u.ac.jp/FURAD/FURAD/data-map.html "
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