☆〜A news , an old and a new, relating Fukushima Japan〜☆

Fukushima refugees cheer for native son in Olympics

By Shigemi Sato | AFP – Mon, Aug 6, 2012 12:24 AM EDT

Evacuated Fukushima residents are seen watching Japanese track cyclist Kazunari Watanabe competing at the London Olympics on a television screen during …

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  Hopes are high that Kazunari Watanabe (pictured in 2008) can grab a medal on Tuesday in the Keirin, an event which originated in Japan where the competitors …

A Japanese track cyclist from the no-go zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is helping unite a community scattered by last year's quake-tsunami disaster as they cheer him on in the London Olympics.

Refugees gathered in the city of Tsukuba on Friday to watchKazunari Watanabe in the team sprint and will get behind their native son again on Tuesday when he takes part in the Keirin event.

"I've raced bearing in mind how everyone felt about me. I want to repay the courage they have given me," Watanabe told Japanese media after his first race, in which his three-man team finished eighth, well out of the medals.

The 28-year-old's family -- including his wife, parents, and grandmother -- now live in different locations across Japan after the devastating 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 which triggered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The cyclist's mother, Tomoko, has said she can "see in everyone a feeling that they have grown into one" because of her son.

Hopes are high that Watanabe can grab a medal on Tuesday in the Keirin, an event which originated in Japan where the competitors are paced behind a motorcycle before sprinting for victory.

In the world track cycling championships in Melbourne in April he placed fifth.

Junko Nakamura, who fled the disaster zone with her family last year, was among dozens of people who watched a delayed broadcast of Thursday's Olympic cycling races on a big television set under a tent in a park.

"I hope he does well in London and wins a gold medal to bring us all bright hope," said the 37-year-old, who has settled in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo, with her banker husband and two daughters.

"Isn't it wonderful that we can unite as one because of him. I will come to see his next race here too."

Nakamura is one of the roughly 7,000 people from Futaba, the cyclist's home town near the Fukushima Daiichi plant, who fled following the disaster.

The giant tsunami swamped the plant, sending reactors into meltdown and scattering radiation across the surrounding area -- the worst atomic crisis in a generation.

A total of about 19,000 people were left dead or missing by the tsunami, and more than 160,000 are still displaced from their homes in the Fukushima region because of high radiation levels and the devastation wrought by the disaster.

It remains uncertain whether they will ever be able to return, with experts saying it could be decades before the area is deemed safe.

Tsukuba is a relatively new city with universities and scientific laboratories which draw newcomers from around Japan.

Earlier this month, about 200 locals wrote messages of support on a huge Japanese flag to help cheer Watanabe on.

"I wrote, 'Please stay strong'," said 75-year-old Hisako Katsukawa who was also watching on Friday.

"I have watched different sports in the past Olympics, but not cycling," she said. I want to come back and see his courage. It will be moving if he wins a medal."

Junya Kataoka, who organised the big screen viewing, said he wanted to help refugees adjust to their new life.

"Instead of clearing debris from the disaster area, we are helping refugees take mental care of themselves and communicate with local people," he said.

Nuke plant chief after tsunami: 'This is serious'

By MARI YAMAGUCHI | Associated Press – 15 hrs ago

FILE - In this March 15, 2011 file …

TOKYO (AP) — The command center at Japan's stricken nuclear plant shook violently when hydrogen exploded at one reactor, and the plant chief shouted, "This is serious! This is serious!" videos taken during last year's crisis reveal.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. initially refused to release the footage, but the company is now under state control and was ordered to do so. The videos, seen Monday, are mainly of teleconferences between company headquarters in Tokyo and staff at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant after the March 11, 2011, tsunami critically damaged its reactors.

In the videos, then-plant chief Masao Yoshida can be heard complaining about phone calls to the prime minister's office not getting through and expressing frustration over interference from government nuclear safety officials whose technical advice didn't fit conditions at the stricken plant.

In footage taken around 11 a.m. on March 15, Yoshida screams to utility officials: "Headquarters! This is serious, this is serious! The No. 3 unit. I think this is a hydrogen explosion. We just had an explosion."

"I can't see anything from here because of heavy smoke."

In the background, officials can be heard shouting questions aboutradiation levels and other data. The massive earthquake and tsunami that hit northeast Japan had knocked out the cooling systems that kept the reactors' nuclear material stable, and the cores of three reactors had melted, releasing large amounts of radiation.

As workers struggled to assess the situation, they fell behind media reports. A voice from an off-site emergency center says he saw the explosion on television news.

The structures housing three of the reactors suffered hydrogen explosions after gas filled the unvented buildings, and the blasts spewed radiation and delayed repair work. To try to halt the explosions, the videos show officials even considered dropping a hammer from a helicopter to make a hole in the ceiling, but they scrapped the idea because it was too dangerous.

The footage reveals communication problems between the plant and the government as well asworkers' lack of knowledge of emergency procedures and delays in informing outsiders about the risks of leaking radiation.

Just after the Unit 3 explosion, plant officials and TEPCO executives discussed extensively whether to call it a hydrogen explosion. The videos also showed they failed to notify officials outside TEPCO and residents about the March 14 meltdown at another unit, No. 2, or even provide data crucial for evacuation.

"Are we providing a release on this?" TEPCO vice president Sakae Muto asks, while discussing the meltdown of Unit 2's reactor core. A plant worker says no, while another executive, Akio Komori, instructs workers to quickly conduct radiation monitoring because they might have to evacuate at some point.

To this, another TEPCO official replies that he does not know the evacuation procedures contained in an emergency manual: "Sorry, that's not in my head."

After the March 12 explosion at Unit 1, dozens of workers were highly exposed to radiation, and the videos reveal TEPCO officials debated how they could allow extra exposures without getting in trouble.

"They can go home and take a bath and open their pores" to wash off contamination, one official suggests. Days later, the government raised the maximum exposure levels to more than double the usual limit for emergency operation.

The Unit 2 reactor was the most critical in the first few days. "Radiation levels are extremely high," Yoshida said. "You don't understand because you're not here, but it's really a skin-tight situation. (The workers) can go in only a short while, and they have to rotate."

The 150 hours of footage were heavily edited, with workers' faces obscured and beeps masking voices and other sound. In addition, TEPCO made a 90-minute video of selected clips available for download.

On March 15, the videos show a visit by then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan to TEPCO's Tokyo office. Bursting in, Kan is seen rebuking officials and demanding they work harder, though the segment contains no sound. For 20 minutes operations at Fukushima Dai-ichi seem halted, with officials and workers, as well as TEPCO executives in Tokyo, sitting straight and quietly listening to him.

Shown from behind, Kan appears upset, frequently raising and lowering his arms. Government and parliamentary investigation reports have said that Kan, who thought TEPCO executives planned to fully withdraw workers and abandon the plant, demanded they "risk their lives" to get the plant under control.

Eventually a total of 71 workers remained, trying to avoid catastrophe.

The plant's reactors were declared stable in December, and many more workers are now toiling at the site, undertaking a cleanup that could take decades. More than 160 workers have exceeded radiation exposure limits that require they no longer work at the plant, but so far no one is known to have developed a radiation-induced illness.

Kan left office last year after being criticized for the government's failings during the disaster, which was the world's second-worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl.

This photo, taken by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), shows workers removing fresh nuclear fuel from the spent fuel pool of the Unit 4 nuclear reactor building at TEPCO's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture. 

Japanese and TEPCO officials ignored the risks of an atomic accident because they believed in the "myth of nuclear safety", a report on crisis said

Photo By AFP/TEPCO/Fil

FILE - This March 12, 2011 file photo shows smokes rising from burning homes in Yamadamachi in Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan a day after a strong earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami in the area. 

Sony Electronics and the Nielsen television research company collaborated on a survey ranking TV's most memorable moments. 

Other TV events include, the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict in 1995 and the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.  

(AP Photo/Kenji Shimizu, The Yomiuri Shimbun) JAPAN OUT, CREDIT MANDATORY

The control room at TEPCO's Fukushima nuclear power plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture is shown in March 2011. 
Japan was plunged into the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl after TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was hit by a killer tsunami triggered by a huge earthquake on March 11, 2011. 

(AFP Photo/

FILE - In this Nov. 12, 2011 file photo, workers in protective suits and masks wait to enter the emergency operation center at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Japan. 

Japanese labor officials said Sunday, July 22, 2012 that they are investigating subcontractors on suspicion they forced workers at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant to underreport their dosimeter readings so they could stay on the job longer. 

(AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, Pool, File)