N°05/13 MAY 2013 | GOVERNANCE Disaster Evacuation from ’s 2011 Tsunami Disaster and the Nuclear Accident Reiko Hasegawa (IDDRI)

JAPAN’S 2011 DISASTER: RESPONSES TO NATURAL AND INDUSTRIAL CATASTROPHES The triple disaster that hit the Tohoku region of Japan on 11 March 2011 triggered a massive human displacement: more than 400,000 people evacuated their homes as a gigantic tsunami induced by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake engulfed the coastal areas, and the following nuclear accident in Fukushima released a large amount of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. This study analyses the disaster response, with a particular focus on evacuation of the population, and social consequences of this complex crisis, based on intensive fieldwork carried out one year after the catastrophe. It reveals that the responses of the Japanese authorities and population were significantly different between a natural disaster and an industrial (man-made) accident. TWO EVACUATION PATTERNS: RISK PERCEPTION VERSUS VULNERABILITY Being prone to both earthquakes and tsunamis, Japan had been preparing itself against such risks for many years. A tsunami alert was immediately issued and the population knew how and where to evacuate. In contrast, the evacuation from the nuclear accident was organised in total chaos, as a severe accident or large-scale evacuation had never been envisaged—let alone exercised—before the disaster. The population was thus forced to flee with no information as to the gravity of the accident or radiation risk. In both cases, the risk perception prior to the catastrophe played a key role in determining the vulnerability of the population at the time of the crisis. SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES FROM THE DISASTER: DIVIDED COMMUNITIES AND FAMILIES While tsunami evacuees are struggling with a slow reconstruction process due to financial difficulties, nuclear evacuees are suffering from uncertainty as to their prospect of return. One year after the accident, the Japanese authorities began to encourage nuclear evacuees to return to the areas contaminated by radiation according to a newly established safety standard. This triggered a vivid controversy within the affected Institut du développement durable communities, creating a rift between those who trust the government’s et des relations internationales notion of safety and those who do not. The nuclear disaster has thus 27, rue Saint-Guillaume become a major social disaster in Japan dividing and weakening the

www.iddri.org 75337 Paris cedex 07 France affected communities. Copyright © 2013 IDDRI As a foundation of public utility, IDDRI encourages reproduction and communication of its copy- righted materials to the public, with proper credit (bibliographical reference and/or corresponding URL), for personal, corporate or public policy research, or educational purposes. However, IDDRI’s copyrighted materials are not for commer- cial use or dissemination (print or electronic). Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in the materials are those of the various authors and are not necessarily those of IDDRI’s board. Citation: Hasegawa, R. (2013), Disaster Evacua- tion from Japan’s 2011 Tsunami Disaster and the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Studies No.05/13. IDDRI, Paris, France, 54 p.

The author would like to thank both the French and Japanese DEVAST teams for their signifi- cant inputs and contributions in producing this study, especially Dr Francois Gemenne (IDDRI), Project Leader of the French DEVAST team, and Dr Alexandre Magnan (IDDRI) for the very great support they extended throughout the implemen- tation of the project. The author also received valuable and insightful advice from Dr Michel Colombier, Scientific Director of IDDRI, and Professor Claude Henry of Sciences Po/Columbia University (Chair of the Scientific Council of IDDRI). Special thanks go to Ms Rina Kojima, who worked as an intern during the fieldwork in Japan. Without her help, many of the interviews would have simply been unrealisable. The field research was successfully conducted thanks to Associate Professor Norichika Kanie of the Institute of Technology (TITech), who kindly hosted IDDRI researchers in his office during the field mission, and also to Mr Shinji Tanada, Ms Yui Nakagawa and Ms Miho Akatsuka, who provided valuable assistance in conducting field visits. My sincere thanks are also extended to all the evacuees and municipal officers who agreed to be interviewed despite their difficult circumstances. Lastly, the author would like to express sincere gratitude to the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), which provided the necessary funding for the project implementation.

For more information about this document, please contact the author: Reiko Hasegawa - [email protected]

ISSN 2258-7535 Disaster Evacuation from Japan’s 2011 Tsunami Disaster and the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Reiko Hasegawa (IDDRI)

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES 4 LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5 1. INTRODUCTION 9 2. METHODOLOGY 9 3. THE GREAT EAST JAPAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI 15 3.1. Overview of the event 15 3.2. Disaster response and evacuation 15 3.3. Perception of risk 17 3.4. Prospects of resettlement 19 3.5. Post-disaster challenges 20 4. THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI PLANT ACCIDENT 22 4.1. Overview of the event 22 4.2. Disaster Response and Evacuation 23 4.3. Perception of risk 28 4.4. Prospects of return 30 4.5. Post-disaster challenges 35 5. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TSUNAMI EVACUATION AND THE NUCLEAR EVACUATION 42 6. CONCLUSIONS 44 REFERENCES 46 APPENDICES 48 Appendix 1: Questionnaire for evacuees (tsunami and nuclear) 48 Appendix 2: Questionnaire for self-evacuees (only nuclear) 49 Appendix 3: Questionnaire for municipalities 50 Appendix 4: List of meetings and seminars attended during the field research 52 Appendix 5: Map of nuclear power plants in Japan 53

IDDRI IDÉES POUR LE DÉBAT 05/2011 3 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS Table 1. Number of persons interviewed 11 Figure 1. Age of evacuees interviewed 11 AAR Association for Aid and Relief Figure 2. Gender of evacuees interviewed 11 ADRA Adventist Development and Relief Table 2. Target municipalities for interviews 13 Agency Map 1. The Tohoku region and three heavily ANR Agence nationale de la recherche affected prefectures 14 (France) Map 2. Map of 14 FoE Friends of the Earth Map 3. Example of a hazard map ICANPS Investigation Committee on the (Rikuzentakada City) 17 Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Figure 3. Photos of temporary shelters Power Stations of Tokyo Electric Power (prefabricated housing) 19 Company (appointed by the Cabinet Figure 4. Changes in the number Office) Fukushima evacuees 23 IIC Independent Investigation Commission Figure 5. Changes in the total number of on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident evacuees 23 JST Japan Science and Technology Agency Table 3. Chronology of the Government’s M Magnitude evacuation orders/recommendations 24 METI Ministry of Economy, Trade and Map 4. Official evacuation zones prior Industry to 30 September 2011 24 MEXT Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Figure 6. Trends in public opinion on nuclear Science and Technology energy 31 MHLW Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Map 5. Reorganisation of the evacuation NAIIC Fukushima Nuclear Accident zone (as from August 2012) 32 Independent Investigation Commission Table 4. The government’s proposal on the (appointed by The National Diet) reorganisation of the evacuation zone 33 NISA Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency Figure 7. Changes in willingness to return 34 (under METI) Figure 8. Willingness to return according (replaced by the Nuclear Regulation to age 34 Authority in September 2012) Map 6. Radiation contour map NGO Non-governmental organisation of the affected region 40 NSC Nuclear Safety Commission (under the Table 5. Comparative analysis of the two Cabinet Office) evacuations 43 (integrated into the Nuclear Regulation Authority since September 2012) NUMO Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan OCHA United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs TEPCO Tokyo Electric Power Company TITech Tokyo Institute of Technology UNU United Nations University Disaster Evacuation from Japan’s 2011 Tsunami Disaster and the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY how it evolved in the aftermath. Then, the paper attempts to identify the major post-disaster chal- The triple disaster that hit the Tohoku region lenges that face the affected communities and of Japan on 11 March 2011 had a profound and evacuees and the social and political impacts in- transformative effect on Japanese society. Japan duced by the disaster that affect Japanese society is globally known to be one of the countries best as a whole. Ultimately, this research attempts to prepared for earthquakes and tsunamis, but the explore how a developed country with democratic earthquake and tsunami that hit the country were institutions deals with disasters and draws lessons far beyond the authorities’ expectations. Indeed, from this experience. this disaster represents the greatest challenge that Japan has faced since the World War II defeat: Two displacements for the first time, a natural disaster on a massive The field research found that the displacements scale was compounded by one of the worst nuclear caused by the tsunami and by the nuclear acci- disasters in history. The disaster caused nearly dent had many dissimilar aspects. In particular, 16,000 deaths and displaced hundreds of thou- the evacuation process, the prospects of return sands of people from their homes. One year later, and the related social impacts differ significantly there are still 344,000 evacuees who cannot go as the displacements were induced by different back home either because they lost their houses causes: one is a natural disaster, while the other is in the earthquake and the tsunami, or because an industrial (man-made) disaster. their houses were contaminated by radioactive substances released from the crippled Fukushima Evacuation triggered by the tsunami nuclear power station. The evacuation from the tsunami can be charac- The Disaster Evacuation and Risk Perception in terised as an evacuation with warning, prepara- Democracies (DEVAST) project is one of the first in- tion and knowledge. Given its geological condi- ternational research projects designed to analyse tions, Japan has developed an advanced system the social and political consequences of this triple of disaster prevention and coping mechanisms disaster. Its aim is to collect immediate, first-hand against earthquakes and tsunamis over the years. evidence from the field, which is at risk of disap- The affected communities of Tohoku were particu- pearing unless documented urgently. To achieve larly aware of the risk, as the region had already this goal, interviews were conducted in the affect- undergone many tsunamis, and the lessons from ed areas from January to June 2012 with evacuees such experiences had been passed down by and other stakeholders such as public authorities the older generations. These communities had and aid workers. This study presents the major therefore prepared themselves by building high findings from this fieldwork. It first analyses the breakwaters along the coast and creating hazard disaster response with a special emphasis on the maps on which expected flood zones were clearly disaster evacuation. Risk perception among the marked out. Disaster drills were also regularly affected communities is then examined in terms conducted. On the day of the disaster, as early of how this perception, prior to the disaster, influ- as three minutes after the earthquake, a tsunami enced the actual disaster response and individual alert was issued advising the local population to decisions to evacuate during the catastrophe, and evacuate. The disaster prevention system against

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the tsunami was thus initiated correctly. Yet it was frustrated with the slow reconstruction process not without limitations in the face of an extreme and the lack of job opportunities, have begun to disaster. Despite its promptness, the tsunami leave for the big cities in order to rebuild their alert lacked gravity in light of the actual threat: lives. Prior to the disaster, Tohoku was already a this in fact reassured the population instead of marginalised region with the chronic problems sounding the alarm. Some residents who thought of a shrinking economy and an aging popula- that the breakwater was high enough to stop the tion. The disaster will simply exacerbate these tsunami decided to stay on the second floor of trends unless acted upon urgently. The affected their house rather than evacuate to higher ground. communities are thus now facing the enormous The research also found that the knowledge and challenge of accelerating the reconstruction previous experience of tsunamis among the popu- process and at the same time ensuring that the lation did not always help save lives during the communities are rebuilt in such a way that they disaster. The tsunami anecdotes from the older will be sustainable both economically and demo- generations embedded in the minds of the local graphically in the future. population led people to expect that the maximum height of the tsunami would be six metres, and Evacuation triggered by the nuclear accident that the wave would arrive 10–15 minutes after the By contrast with the evacuation triggered by the earthquake. Thus, many were taken by surprise tsunami, the evacuation from the nuclear accident when the tsunami actually arrived: it had a can be described as an evacuation without warning, 10–15 metre inundation height and arrived 30–40 preparation or knowledge. The research found that minutes after the earthquake. This created many the affected municipalities were not officially victims among those who had underestimated the informed about the evacuation order issued by the height of the tsunami, or assumed that the wave government at the time of the disaster and there- would not come once that 15 minutes had elapsed fore had no choice but to improvise an evacua- following the earthquake. tion on their own. In addition, an evacuation on It is commonly assumed that local knowledge this scale had never been envisioned – let alone and experience are a key factor in reducing the exercised – prior to the accident. As a result, the population’s vulnerability in the face of disas- evacuation was organised in an ad hoc and chaotic ters. Yet our research found otherwise: in the manner, leaving the population in great confusion. case of the Japanese disaster, previous experi- From the field interviews, it became clear that the ence proved to be the key factor in creating their local population had indeed never prepared for vulnerability. such a serious accident, as the myth of absolute safety of nuclear installations had been nurtured Consequences of the displacement due to over the years, leading people to believe that such the tsunami an accident would never occur. Furthermore, no One year after the disaster, the issue of resett- information on the gravity of the accident was lement for the tsunami evacuees is a key prio- communicated to the residents at the time of their rity in the affected communities. Consultations displacement. Thus, the residents were forced to between evacuees and local authorities have flee without any idea of how long their displace- been organised regularly in order to come up ment would last or how far they should go. Nor with a resettlement plan that meets the expec- were evacuees informed about the risk of radia- tations of most evacuees and ensures their safety tion exposure or instructed on how to protect from another disaster. But this process has themselves against irradiation during their flight. reached stalemate due to financial and adminis- The central government later admitted that it had trative obstacles. The resettlement scheme has had such information from the outset, but did not indeed been poorly coordinated and synchro- disclose it to the public in order to ‘avoid panic nised among the different municipalities, crea- among the population’. ting disparities in the assistance provided to the evacuees. This has created resentment among the Consequences of the displacement due to communities that received less financial assis- the nuclear accident tance, with the result that the evacuees refused The prospect of return for nuclear evacuees the resettlement plan initially agreed with the remains uncertain. One year after the accident, local authorities. With the evacuee resettle- the question of return became a highly politi- ment plan at a standstill, the reconstruction of cised issue and the authorities have encouraged social and economic activities for the whole area evacuees to return, while the evacuees them- has been put on hold or further delayed. Under selves remain concerned about the radioactive these circumstances, young people, who are contamination of their communities and the

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effects of radiation on their health. In March Disasters and democracy 2012, the government proposed a plan to reorga- The 11 March disaster induced two patterns of displa- nise the evacuation zone according to radiation cement that were highly dissimilar. The disaster dose levels, thus creating an area recommended response of the authorities in dealing with these for early return. The field research found that this evacuations also differed in many ways. Despite the was done with very little consultation with the fact that Japan is a developed nation with highly affected municipalities or evacuees, which thus advanced technologies, many vulnerabilities have caused a division among the displaced communi- been revealed in the way the country has dealt ties between those who wished to return and those with the chain of impacts triggered by the 11 March who hesitated to do so. As the return is regarded catastrophe. No evacuation or contingency plans as a symbol of community survival and resilience, had been prepared for a nuclear accident of such those who are reluctant, often from fear of radia- magnitude, while the tsunami was far beyond the tion effects, are considered selfish and disloyal authorities’ expectations. This leads us to question towards other community members. Similarly, the common assumption that industrialised demo- the issue of evacuation is dividing communities cracies are better prepared to deal with disasters. affected by the radiation but located outside the In the aftermath of the disaster, a key question evacuation zone in the Fukushima Prefecture. In that arose was whether the disaster, particularly these communities, the authorities are reassuring the nuclear accident, was intrinsically Japanese residents so that they will stay put, emphasising in nature, or whether it could have happened in that it is safe to live in the area despite signifi- other countries. Though elements of the Japanese cantly high radiation levels. In this context, those culture and political system indeed played an im- who voluntarily evacuated by their own means, portant role, we believe that no country is immune so-called self-evacuees, are regarded as cowardly, to such disasters. Advanced democracies are not selfish or disloyal towards the community to necessarily more resistant or better prepared than which they belong. The nuclear disaster is also developing countries to deal with such events. a social disaster creating many tensions and divi- The 11 March disaster shook the very foundation sions in the affected communities, where those of Japanese society, shattering the idea of a safe who choose not to follow the policy line set by the and secure society guaranteed by the authorities. authorities are often marginalised. In addition, The Japanese public has started to question the the information on radioactive contamination level of risk that they were willing to accept and and health risks from radiation provided by the the model of society that they had aspired to prior authorities is neither forthright nor comprehen- to the disaster. Though Japan certainly has both sive, leaving the evacuees in great confusion and the technical and financial capacities to rebuild the anxiety. Under these circumstances, evacuees towns affected by the disaster, the social tensions continue to suffer from uncertainties about their and divisions created as a result will probably take immediate future and the affected communities much longer to heal. The Japanese experience thus are at risk of disintegration. Reconstruction is offers many unique lessons for other democracies still a distant prospect for the nuclear evacuees. in terms of dealing with future disasters.

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Disaster Evacuation from Japan’s 2011 Tsunami Disaster and the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

1. INTRODUCTION the affected communities one year after the disas- ter. Finally, the section attempts to identify major The DEVAST project was designed to analyse the social consequences induced by the disaster. Sec- disaster response, the population displacement, tion 4 examines the case of the Fukushima nuclear and the social consequences of the 2011 Japanese accident from the same angles of analysis. Lastly, triple disaster. It is a joint research project between Section 5 makes a comparative analysis of the char- French and Japanese research teams financed by acteristics of both displacements. The conclusion the ANR and the JST respectively. The French in Section 6 provides a summary of these analyses DEVAST team consists of five researchers in addi- and some lessons learnt from the Japanese disas- tion to two interns from IDDRI, Sciences Po. The ter in the nexus between disasters and democracy. Japanese team comprises three professors and four graduate students from TITech and Waseda University, as well as two post-doctoral fellows 2. METHODOLOGY from the United Nations University (UNU). The project runs from October 2011 until March 2013. The research involved collecting primary data This study presents the major findings from the (field interviews) and analysing secondary data field research conducted in Japan as part of this (media reports, government documents, opinion project. The fieldwork was carried out by the ID- surveys and scientific papers) available in three DRI research team in close cooperation with the languages (Japanese, English and French). Japanese team from January to June 2012. The survey consisted of face-to-face interviews with Interview method evacuees, affected municipalities and other stake- In order to collect the primary data, semi-struc- holders such as government officials and aid work- tured interviews were conducted with evacuees ers. Secondary data were also collected during this and municipalities, while unstructured inter- period to complement the information gathered views were organised with government officials, from the field interviews. aid workers from non-governmental organisa- The paper is organised in six sections. Follow- tions (NGOs) and other researchers. Three ques- ing the introduction and methodology (Sections 1 tionnaires, with 40 to 60 questions each, were and 2), Section 3 analyses the disaster response to prepared and used to interview different target the tsunami, examining how the authorities and groups: evacuees, self-evacuees1 and munici- population reacted to the disaster and, in particu- palities (see Appendices 1–3). The interviews lar, how the evacuation was organised. This sec- were organised so that the interviewees could tion then shifts its focus to the affected commu- feel free to elaborate and express themselves on nities’ perception of risk: the extent to which the certain subjects, which enabled the interviewers risk perception prior to the disaster influenced the disaster preparedness as well as individual deci- sions to evacuate during the crisis, and how this 1 During this study, ‘self-evacuees’ refer to those displaced perception evolved after the event. The prospect due to the Fukushima nuclear accident, who decided to flee voluntarily for fear of radiation effects, as opposed of resettlement or return for the evacuees is also to ‘evacuees’ who were displaced on the government’s closely analysed to illustrate the challenges facing order.

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to interact and ask the interviewees additional on two occasions. A group interview of ten tsu- questions when required. Thus, the questionnaires nami evacuees from Ofunato City was organised were used more as a guiding tool for the inter- in April 2012 and a group of five nuclear evacuees viewers, with key questions being systematically from Futaba town was conducted in June. In to- asked while other questions were asked when time tal, 66 interviews were conducted during the field allowed. The interviews with government offi- research, while the total number of interviewees cials, NGOs and other researchers were conducted reached 106. Thus, the average number of inter- without questionnaires, which enabled the IDDRI viewees for each interview was 1.6 persons. research team to discuss in depth and exchange views on the research topic. As a result, the inter- Selection and profiles of interviewees views carried out during this fieldwork were of The IDDRI research team interviewed a total of a qualitative rather than quantitative nature. In 106 persons, including 66 evacuees, 13 municipal order to supplement the quantitative aspect of officers, 11 aid workers, 7 residents and other non- our research, evacuee surveys conducted by other evacuees of the affected towns, 7 researchers/ researchers (Imai and Tanba2) and public autho- academics and 2 government officials. Out of the rities (NAIIC and Naraha Town3) were also drawn total 106 interviewees, 49 persons were involved on and analysed in this study. in the tsunami evacuation and 57 persons in the One of the major difficulties in interviewing the nuclear evacuation. Among the 66 evacuees inter- displaced population is that it is difficult to ask viewed, 37 were displaced because of the tsunami what happened during the disaster as they are of- (‘tsunami evacuees’) and 29 due to the nuclear ten deeply traumatised by the event: they had lost accident (‘nuclear evacuees’). Among the 29 their family members, close friends or their homes. nuclear evacuees, 4 persons are self-evacuees who In view of the circumstances, the research team decided to evacuate on their own initiative from paid particular attention to creating an atmos- fear of radiation effects, and the other 25 persons phere that allowed a certain level of confidence to are evacuees from the official evacuation zones. become established between the interviewer and Table 1 shows the total number of interviewees interviewee, so that the interviewee felt at ease to according to the different categories. It is impor- tell his/her story. For this purpose, each interview tant to note that the name of towns and cities listed was organised with an ample time frame, averag- in the table are the places where the interviewees ing from two to three hours. This meant that only are originally from and do not always indicate two interviews were held per day (with some ex- the places where the interviews were held. For ceptions): one in the morning and the other in tsunami evacuees, the interviews were conducted the afternoon. In order to increase the number of in their towns of origin as they had often been interviewees and thus obtain more robust results, displaced within their hometown. On the other interviews were also conducted with more than hand, nuclear evacuees had been forced to leave one interviewee at a time. The group interview their hometowns in order to avoid radiation effects with more than five interviewees was organised and the interviews were thus conducted in their places of refuge, which were often scattered and far from their hometown. The names of cities and 2 Professor Akira Imai from Fukushima University con- ducted a panel survey among the nuclear evacuees in towns listed in Table 1 for nuclear evacuees and which the same questions were asked to the same inter- municipalities thus refer to the origin of the inter- viewees over time, thus allowing an analysis of how their viewees and not the location of interviews. opinions evolved. The first survey was conducted three Figures 1 and 2 indicate the age and gender dis- months after the accident in June 2011, while the second was six months later in September 2011 and the third 12 tribution of the evacuees interviewed during the months after in February 2012 (Imai, 2011a; 2011c; 2012). field research. Figure 2 shows that the majority of In the survey, 300–400 evacuees were interviewed interviewees (67%) were female. This is mainly either face-to-face or by telephone. Associate Professor Fuminori Tanba from Fukushima University conducted a due to the fact that in the traditional communities survey among the nuclear evacuees from eight affected of the Tohoku region women tend to be available municipalities between September and October 2011 during the day for interviews as they stay at home (Tanba, 2011). A total of 13,576 evacuees responded to while their husbands go out to work. the questionnaires sent by post. The research team used the following ways to 3 NAIIC is the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission created by the National Diet find and select the evacuees for interviews. First, of Japan in order to investigate the cause of the accident the team approached each municipal office and and make policy recommendations. It produced a final asked them to identify possible candidates for report in July 2012 (NAIIC, 2012). Naraha town com- interviews. The evacuees they proposed were missioned Associate Professor Ryusuke Takaki of Iwaki Meisei University in Fukushima Prefecture to conduct a often the representatives of evacuee communi- resident survey in February 2012 (Takaki, 2012). ties or the community service officers who were

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Table 1. Number of persons interviewed Interviewee Tsunami Nuclear Accident Central government 0 2 1: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) 1:Reconstruction Agency Local government (Municipalities) 4 2: Ishinomaki City 9 3: Naraha town 1: Ofunato City 2: Minami-Soma City 1: Rikuzentakada City 2: Futaba town 2: Iwaki City Evacuees 37 28: Ofunato City 29 11: Naraha town 4: Ishinomaki City 7: Futaba town 2: Rikuzentakata City 2: Minami-Soma City 3: Iwaki City 2: Iwaki City (Hisanohama District) 1: Namie town 1: Okuma town 1: Tomioka town 2: Fukushima City 2: Koriyama City NGOs 4 1: Child Fund Japan 7 3: AAR2 1: Peace Winds Japan 2: Fukushima CRMS3 1: Peace Boat1 1: Kodomo Fukushima4 1: Platform Japan 1: ADRA5 Academics 3 1: Aoyama Gakuin 4 3: Fukushima University University 1: Tohoku University (at the time) 1: California Institute for Technology 1: University Affected residents (and other 1 1: Rikuzentakada City 6 4: Iwaki City non-evacuees) 1: Gumma City 1: Fukushima City TOTAL 49 57 GRAND TOTAL 106

Figure 1. Age of evacuees interviewed Figure 2. Gender of evacuees interviewed

80s and over 5%

Male 60s-70s 33% 23% 20s-30s 37%

Female 67% 40s-50s 35%

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evacuees themselves but temporarily employed by these meetings and workshops were extremely the municipality to assist evacuees living in tem- valuable for the field research with respect to porary shelters. Secondly, we asked NGOs assist- understanding and analysing the phenomenon of ing evacuees in the field to introduce us to some voluntary evacuation, since it was very difficult for of their beneficiaries or their local contacts. Lastly, the research team to establish individual contacts the team met evacuees through the personal con- with self-evacuees given that these people were tacts that the researchers had established prior to dispersed throughout Japan and the municipali- the project implementation. For example, a mem- ties did not have much information about them. ber of the IDDRI research team had made many contacts when she worked as a volunteer in one of Selection of target cities/towns for temporary shelters in Ofunato City. Many evacu- interviews ees in this shelter agreed to be interviewed and Table 2 lists the target municipalities for inter- introduced us to other evacuees willing to be in- views. The target cities for the tsunami evacuation terviewed. Finding evacuees through these three were selected according to the scale of damage or different channels enabled the team to gather the contacts that the research team had already diverse opinions on the questions asked and thus established prior to the field research. Ishino- obtain a balanced and representative view of the maki City is the municipality that had the highest evacuees. number of deaths due to the 11 March tsunami (3,4716), while Rikuzentakata City had one of the Participation in meetings and seminars on worst mortality rates compared to total population voluntary evacuation (7.63%7). Moreover, the Japanese DEVAST team In addition to interviews, the IDDRI research team had already visited Ishinomaki City before the attended seminars and meetings organised by civil arrival of the French team and already established associations in order to collect more information contacts within the municipality, which facili- and stories on the evacuation triggered by the tated our interviews. Ofunato City was selected nuclear disaster (the list of these seminars is atta- due to the number of contacts that one of the ched in Appendix 4). The team attended a seminar IDDRI research team had already made through in May 2012 in Tokyo organised by ‘Fukushima her previous volunteer activities. Iwaki City was hinan boshi no kai in Kanto’ (the Association chosen because it was affected both by the tsunami for Fukushima Evacuee Mothers & Children in and the nuclear accident and is also the city that Kanto4), during which a self-evacuee from Otama hosts a large number of evacuees from the evacua- village, Fukushima Prefecture, presented her story tion zone due to its proximity to the zone. of evacuation. Another workshop was organised As regards nuclear evacuation, the target mu- in June 2012 by ‘3.11iko no kosodate wo kangaeru nicipalities for interviews were selected on the ba- kai’ (the Association to Consider Child-Rearing sis of their relationship with the crippled nuclear since 3.11 in Tokyo5), where a self-evacuee from power station, the accessibility to the evacuees’ Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, told her place of refuge or the contacts that the research evacuation story and a member of the civil asso- team had already established. Futaba town was ciation, Kodomo Fukushima, presented the situa- selected because it is one of the two towns that tion of radioactive contamination and the diffi- host the crippled Fukushima Daiichi (No.1) nu- culties that the residents face in Fukushima City. clear power plant.8 In addition, most of the Futaba In addition to the seminars, a research member residents evacuated to Iwaki City, which has rela- attended, as an observer, two meetings organised tively lower airborne radiation levels compared to by a member of Kodomo Fukushima in Kyoto City, other cities within Fukushima Prefecture and it both of which were closed to the public. These was thus easier for the research team to visit this were consultation meetings between a member of the Fukushima prefectural assembly and the 6 Source: Miyagi prefectural government (http://www. evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture, during pref.miyagi.jp/kikitaisaku/higasinihondaisinsai/ which the evacuees’ grievances were presented to pdf/09071600.pdf) (in Japanese) the member of the prefectural assembly. In total, 7 Source: Iwate prefectural government (http://www. pref.iwate.jp/~bousai/taioujoukyou/201209051700 19 evacuees were present at the meetings, inclu- jintekihigai.pdf) (in Japanese); The Statistics Bureau ding 16 self-evacuees and 3 evacuees from the of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communica- official evacuation zone. The stories collected at tions (http://www.e-stat.go.jp/estat/html/NewL- ist/000001039448/NewList-000001039448.html) (in Japanese) 8 The Fukushima Daiichi (No.1) nuclear power plant is 4 Author’s translation. located on the border between Futaba town and Okuma 5 Author’s translation. town.

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location. Moreover, the Futaba municipal office Table 2. Target municipalities for interviews was relocated to Kazo City, Prefecture, Tsunami Nuclear which is very near to Tokyo and thus more easily Municipality Ishinomaki City Futaba town 9 accessible to the research team. Naraha town was Rikuzentakada City Naraha town chosen because it is one of the two towns that host Oofunato City Minamisoma City the Fukushima Daini (No.2) nuclear power plant,10 Iwaki City Iwaki City which is situated 10 km south of No.1 station. The Naraha municipal office and most of its residents Interviews for the tsunami disaster evacuated to Iwaki City, which facilitated our visit. In addition to the affected municipalities and Minami-Soma City was selected because of its par- evacuees, the research team conducted interviews ticular situation as a nuclear community, as well with NGO workers, researchers/academics, and as due to the contacts that had already been es- residents (non-evacuees) of the affected towns in tablished by the Japanese DEVAST team. Minami- order to collect more objective analyses and facts Soma City is located at 20–30 km north of No.1 from third parties. Four NGOs were contacted: station. Only one part of the city was included in Peace Winds Japan, Child Fund Japan, Peace Boat the official evacuation zone. As a result, the mu- Disaster Relief Volunteers Centre (PBV), and Plat- nicipal office stayed in the city while most of its form Japan, all of which provide assistance to the residents evacuated either voluntarily or following municipalities and evacuees affected by the earth- evacuation orders. One year after the disaster, the quake and the tsunami. Three professors were also city was trying to facilitate the return of its resi- interviewed for an exchange of views: Professor dents despite the high airborne radiation levels. Toshiya Tsukamoto in Aoyama Gakuin University The fourth target city, Iwaki City, is situated 30– (at the time), Professor Haruo Hayashi in Kyoto 40 km south of No.1 station. One part of the city University, and Emeritus Professor Hiroo Kana- was declared by the government as a zone for shel- mori of California Institute of Technology. One ter indoors. This caused many residents from the resident of Rikuzentakada City who was not an other parts of the city to flee for fear of radiation evacuee but part of the volunteer fire brigade for effects despite reassurance from the city authori- search and rescue operations was also interviewed ties and the government. The city was selected for to gather complementary information on what the research due to its relatively low radioactive happened at the time of the disaster. contamination compared to other cities in Fuku- shima, thus making it easier for the researchers to Interviews for the nuclear disaster visit. In addition, it is the city that hosts the high- In addition to the affected municipalities and est number of evacuees from the evacuation zone evacuees, two government officials were inter- (23,00011) and tensions have arisen between the viewed: one from the Ministry of Economy, Trade residents and the evacuees. In summary, the target and Industry (METI) and the other from the cities include two towns hosting the nuclear power Reconstruction Agency.12 As for NGOs, four orga- plants (one of which hosts the crippled nuclear nisations were contacted: the Fukushima Network power plant) and two others without the plants of Parents to Protect Children from Radiation but heavily affected. (Kodomo Fukushima) and the Citizens’ Radioac- tivity Measuring Station (CRMS), both based in Fukushima City, and the Association for Aid and Relief (AAR) and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) based in Tokyo. The first two NGOs are local associations created by the Fukushima residents after the disaster while the latter two are international NGOs that usually provide assistance abroad. Four professors who 9 In general, the affected population evacuated to the have conducted research on nuclear evacuation place of relocation chosen by their municipalities. But were also interviewed: Professor Akira Imai, Asso- there were also many who chose the place of refuge independently. As a result, evacuees are not necessarily ciate Professor Fuminori Tanba and Associate living in the town where the municipalities set up their Professor Hazuki Ishida from Fukushima Univer- temporary offices. sity and Associate Professor Yuzuru Isoda from 10 The Fukushima Daini (No.2) nuclear power plant is Tohoku University. located on the border between Tomioka town and Naraha town. 11 Source: Iwaki City Council (http://www.city.iwaki. 12 This agency was established in December 2011 by the fukushima.jp/info/dbps_data/_material_/info/zhi- Prime Minister and is charge of reconstruction pro- gai20120912.pdf) (in Japanese) grammes for the affected Tohoku region.

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Map 1. The Tohoku region and three heavily affected prefectures

Iwate Prefecture

Tohoku Oofunato

Rikuzentakada

Miyagi Prefecture Ishinomaki

Sendai

Tokyo Fukushima Prefecture Iwaki

Map 2. Map of Fukushima Prefecture

Key :

Fukushima Fukushima Daiichi (No.1) Minamisoma Nuclear Power Plant Namie Otama Fukushima Daini (No.2) Futaba Nuclear Power Plant

Koriyama Okuma Hama-dori region Tomioka Naka-dori region Naraha region Iwaki

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3. THE GREAT EAST JAPAN to house the displaced population. By May 2012, EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI a total of 52,858 prefabricated houses had been constructed for the disaster evacuees, of which 48,884 units are currently occupied.18 There were 3.1. Overview of the event 68,317 families living in private apartments, with rent covered by the government. Public-sector On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake apartments, which were initially built to provide struck off the Pacific coast of Tohoku in north- housing for public servants, were also utilised as eastern Honshu, the main island of Japan. The evacuee accommodation. There were 19,041 of tremor triggered a tsunami that had a mean inun- such apartments occupied by the evacuees. dation height of 10–15 m and a run-up height of 40 m in some places (Mori and Takahashi, 2012: 3.2. Disaster response pp.1 and 13). According to the National Police and evacuation Agency, 15,871 people lost their lives, with 2,778 people missing (feared dead) and 6,114 people This sub-section presents the major findings from injured, as on 10 October 2012.13 Nearly 400,000 the field interviews on the disaster response and houses were either severely damaged or comple- evacuation process induced by the earthquake and tely destroyed. The Cabinet Office estimates tsunami. the direct financial damage from the disaster at approximately 16.7 trillion yen (€167 billion).14 It Evacuation with a tsunami warning that was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded underestimated the gravity of the situation in Japan,15 and one of the world’s biggest earth- Japan is a country prone to earthquakes and quakes after the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake tsunamis due to its geological conditions. Over (M 9.1–9.3). The then Japanese Prime Minister, the years, it has thus developed an adaptation and Naoto Kan, described the disaster as the worst disaster prevention mechanism using advanced crisis that Japan has had to face since the Second technologies. The coastal communities of Tohoku World War. in particular had prepared themselves for the According to the official figure, the disaster dis- eventuality of a disaster, as they have already placed a total of 386,739 people, recorded at one experienced many tsunamis. When the earth- week after the disaster.16 In March 2012, one year quake hit the Tohoku region on 11 March 2011, the on from the disaster, the number was still as high tsunami warning was issued by the Japan Meteo- as 344,290,17 which indicates that most of the evac- rological Agency (JMA) only three minutes after uees had not yet returned to their home or reset- the earthquake, and immediately disseminated tled in permanent shelters. Half of these evacuees to the municipalities likely to be impacted (JMA originate from the Fukushima Prefecture and most 2011b: p.3). The warning was then transmitted were displaced following the nuclear accident. through loudspeakers installed in these coastal The number of evacuees who left on account of towns for the purpose of public broadcasting. The the earthquake and tsunami alone can thus be es- disaster prevention mechanism was thus acti- timated at around 170,000 people. vated as planned. However, the field interviews These evacuees are currently accommodated revealed that the system had many shortcomings. in three types of temporary shelters: prefabricat- First, the estimated tsunami height announced in ed houses, private apartments and public-sector the warning was considerably different from the apartments. As early as April 2011, one month af- actual tsunami height. The JMA issued a warning ter the disaster, prefabricated houses were erected of a 6 m tsunami for Miyagi Prefecture and no more than a 3 m tsunami for Iwate and Fukushima Prefectures (JMA 2011a: p.3). On hearing this 13 Source: National Police Agency (http://www.npa. go.jp/archive/keibi/biki/higaijokyo.pdf). (in Japa- alert, some residents decided to stay on the second nese) floor of their house instead of evacuating to higher 14 Source: Cabinet Office (http://www.bousai.go.jp/oshi- ground. In addition, the fact that these coastal rase/h23/110624-1kisya.pdf). (in Japanese) towns had 5–10 m breakwaters built along the 15 Source: Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). (http:// coast for protection against the inflow of tsunami www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/2011_Earthquake/2011_Earth- waves further delayed the residents’ decision to quake.html). (in Japanese) flee. One evacuee from Ofunato City said: 16 Source: Cabinet Office (http://www.cao.go.jp/shien/1- hisaisha/pdf/5-hikaku.pdf). (in Japanese) 17 Source: Reconstruction Agency (http://www.recon- 18 Source: Reconstruction Agency (http://www.recon- struction.go.jp/ topics/ 120413hinansya.pdf). (in Japa- struction.go.jp/topics/120521genjototorikumi.pdf). (in nese) Japanese)

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When I first heard a tsunami warning for 3 over town. The interviews with evacuees and local metres, I thought that it would be all right be- authorities found that many of these loudspeak- cause the breakwater in our town is higher than ers did not function either because the earthquake that. had knocked down the speaker poles or because transmission had been disrupted by the power cut The survey conducted by the JMA in June 2011 following the earthquake. According to the survey on the post-disaster evacuation following the conducted by the JMA after the disaster, 17 out of tsunami alert also collected the similar testimo- 27 affected municipalities responded that their tsu- nies from tsunami survivors (JMA, 2011a: p.5). nami alert transmission system had broken down During our interviews, a couple of evacuees also and did not function properly at the time of the mentioned that those who had already evacu- disaster (Fire and Disaster Management Agency, ated to higher ground even went back home after 2011: p.7). This indicates that the installed system hearing the expected height of tsunami, thinking was simply not well adapted to the magnitude of that they would survive in their house. Further- the disaster and thus not reliable during the actual more, citizen volunteers from the Community crises. Fire Brigade19 went to the coastal area to close the Thirdly, according to the interviewed survivors, breakwater gates, a task allocated to them by the even when the public speakers were functioning, contingency planning, expecting the breakwater the warning message issued by the municipal to be high enough to stop the tsunami. Many of office was given in such a polite and calm tone them lost their lives as the tsunami engulfed the (‘Please evacuate’) that the residents did not fully breakwaters. In reality, the tsunami that hit the appreciate its gravity. The field research found three prefectures had a 10–15 m mean inundation that only 3 out of 28 interviewed evacuees had height and a 40 m run-up height in some places. It been prompted to flee on account of the tsunami was only after the arrival of the tsunami that the warning transmitted by the local authority over JMA amended the height to ‘more than 10 m’ for the loudspeakers. The majority of residents fled all three prefectures. As a result, despite the early after actually witnessing the tsunami, on the ba- tsunami warning, many residents were caught by sis of their own judgement or previous experience, surprise when the actual tsunami arrived. listening to the radio broadcasts, or being directly Later, it was also discovered that the govern- warned by the community fire brigade on patrol. ment possessed GPS-controlled tide gauge equip- In summary, the tsunami warning during the ment, installed off the coast of Tohoku by the 11 March disaster, although timely, suffered from Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and failings with respect to an assessment of the grav- Tourism (MLIT), which had accurately predicted ity of the tsunami, the transmission system used the height of the tsunami prior to its arrival on the and an inadequate communication of the level of coast. According to the presentation made by the risk. Member of Parliament, Itsunori Onodera, at the House of Representatives on 2 February 2012, the Relief operations and a limited capacity information from the GPS gauge was transmitted to accept aid to the JMA before the tsunami arrived, but the In the field, local governments – both municipal JMA did not take this into account until after the and prefectural authorities – were the main coor- event as it was neither part of their procedure nor dination bodies for relief operations. The inter- integrated into their method of calculating the tsu- views with municipal officers and aid workers nami height.20 from NGOs made it clear that the affected local The second shortcoming of the tsunami warning authorities in the remote coastal region of Tohoku was the way in which the warning was disseminat- often lacked experience in working with civil orga- ed. The alert is usually transmitted by the relevant nisations such as NGOs and citizen volunteers, municipal offices via loudspeakers installed all and were simply overwhelmed by the number of offers. In Ishinomaki City, according to the Director of Peace Boat Disaster Relief Volunteers 19 This is a voluntary fire corps formed by the residents of Centre (PBV), the offer of volunteers was initially each community/district in towns and cities. It partici- pates in and helps the activities of fire fighters on a com- turned down by the local authority on the grounds munity level in case of fire and disasters. that the city had no coordination or reception 20 The testimony of Itsunori Onodera (Liberal Demo- arrangements in place for the volunteers. In addi- cratic Party) at the House of Representatives during the tion, one municipal officer from the same city Budget Committee of the House of Representatives on recalled during the interview that food aid was 2 February 2012 can be viewed on the following site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efGa86LURHg (in sometimes wasted when the person in charge of Japanese). evacuation centres, often municipal officers, did

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Map 3. Example of a hazard map (Rikuzentakada City)

Hazard map of Takada district

Municipal Office

Stairs First Evacuation Point Public loud speakers Evacuation Centres Evacuation route Watergate

not know how to distribute it properly. According ‘No, don’t worry about me. There are people who to him, when food aid of rice balls arrived in an are in greater need than I am’. evacuee camp, the camp manager realised that the number of rice balls was not enough to distri- In Japan, an industrialised country with a func- bute to everybody in the camp and thus decided to tioning social welfare system, the local authori- simply throw them in the garbage in order to avoid ties were simply not used to receiving help and strife and chaos in the centre. In other instances, thus quickly became overwhelmed by all the of- the municipal officials managing the distribution fers of assistance that came in from all over Japan of relief items required the donating organisa- and abroad. Thus, the field interviews found that tions and companies to provide ‘each survivor the population’s cultural hesitancy to receive as- with items that were exactly the same in brand, sistance compounded the difficulties that volun- type and size’ and, as a result, ‘many resources teers, NGOs and other private donors encountered were wasted or used inefficiently’ during the relief in delivering aid to the needy during the relief operations (Yeoh, 2012: p.8). operations. The Secretary General of the Association for Aid and Relief (ARR), which operates mainly in devel- 3.3. Perception of risk oping countries, also pointed out the cultural hesi- tancy to accept aid, specific to Japanese society. The affected region of Tohoku had long been aware The relief operation in Tohoku made him aware of the tsunami risk and was thus highly prepared that, compared to beneficiaries in other countries, for the eventuality prior to the disaster. This sub- the Japanese population generally lack the capac- section attempts to analyse how this perception ity to seek help and accept assistance. When help is influenced individual decisions to flee and disaster offered, Japanese people tend to decline, either to mitigation during the actual crises. preserve their dignity or out of concern not to in- convenience others. Another aid worker from AAR High perception of tsunami risks recalled one scene: Prior to the 11 March disaster, the affected When I arrived at a house badly damaged by coastal cities had already been expecting a major the tsunami, there was a woman still living in- earthquake (M 7.4) to occur with a 99% prob- side the house without any electricity, water or ability within the next thirty years, and the To- food. There was no heating stove either. When I hoku region had thus prepared intensively against asked her what I could bring to help her, she said such risk (Mori and Takahashi, 2012: p.2). In the

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estimation, the tsunami was predicted to have a cause of this high fatality rate. One of their accusa- 10.2 m run-up height in Rikuzentakada City and tions targets the location of emergency evacuation 7.3 m in Naraha town.21 On the basis of these esti- points. These points were generally designated at mates, the municipalities had created hazard maps schools and public buildings but also at public car to mark out the zone at risk of flooding in the re- parks or a flat field. Originally intended as gathe- spective cities (Map 3). Based on the hazard maps, ring points in case of fires or earthquakes, some of evacuation drills were organised regularly. All of them were situated on lower ground close to the the evacuees interviewed mentioned that they had shoreline or on river banks. When the earthquake been informed of such risk prior to the disaster. In hit on 11 March 2011, many inhabitants gathered addition, most of them were familiar with tsunami at these emergency points instead of taking refuge disasters and knew what to do in such an event, on higher ground, quite simply because these having learnt from previous experiences and sto- places were regularly used during disaster drills ries told by the elderly. as the first assembly points. As a result, some of these residents lost their lives as the locations were The shortcomings of hazard maps completely inundated by the tsunami. One of the The field survey found that the hazard maps desi- most tragic examples is the case of Okawa primary gned to prepare the residents against tsunamis did school in Ishinomaki City. Teachers decided to not always help to save lives in the actual disaster. take the children to the emergency evacuation According to the local government employee of point located on the river bank instead of climbing Rikuzentakada City that we interviewed, the map the hill just next to the school, because it was the had indeed helped to raise the awareness of those evacuation point designated in the contingency residents living in the predicted inundation zone manual. As a result of this decision, 70% of the and prepare them for an eventual tsunami. On school children and teachers lost their lives when the other hand, it also created a feeling of reas- the tsunami travelled up the river.24 surance for those who lived outside the predicted These instances indicate that the evacuation inundation zone, giving them the impression that points were not necessarily adapted to tsunami they were safe from the tsunami risk. Another map disasters and that the residents were not adequate- shown by the same official during the interview ly informed or trained for tsunami evacuations in indicated the location of houses whose residents Ishinomaki City. This lesson needs to be properly lost their lives, and clearly shows the causal rela- addressed in future disaster planning. tionship between the hazard map and the survival of individuals. On the map,22 it was evident that Vulnerability created by previous tsunami victims resided just outside the predicted inun- experiences dation zone indicated on the hazard map – those During the interviews, municipal officials and residents who were not included in the tsunami evacuees mentioned that having previous tsunami drills. This suggests that the perception of risk and experiences had sometimes adversely affected the disaster preparedness did, in the vast majority individuals’ decision to flee and hence their of cases, influence the survival of individuals at survival during the 11 March tsunami. It is often the time of disaster. assumed that people with previous disaster expe- rience respond more effectively to a subsequent Location of emergency evacuation points disaster and that the lessons learnt from past All four evacuees interviewed in Ishinomaki City experience help them to avoid similar mistakes referred to the disaster as ‘man-made’, critici- in the future. As Alexandre Magnan argues in the sing the local authority for insufficient prepare- context of adaptive capacity to climate change, in dness against a tsunami risk. In Ishinomaki City, societies regularly exposed to natural hazards, the which had the highest death toll (3,47123) of all the experience of risk may confer a certain ability to affected towns, survivors accuse the shortcomings respond to a changing climate and to integrate its of the municipality’s disaster preparation as a main effects (Magnan, 2010: p.8). Yet in the case of the 11 March disaster, although experience did help to 21 Information provided by Rikuzentakada City and Naraha town councils during the interview. 24 The , , ‘3.11 shogen: jidou, 22 The map was shown to us by the official of Rikuzen- nakisakebi outo, gakkou saita no giseisya’ (Author’s takada City during the interview but he declined to pro- translation: Testimony of 3.11: screaming and vomiting vide us with a copy of such a sensitive document out of pupils, the worst death toll for schools), 19 April 2011; respect for the victims’ families. the newspaper, , ‘hinan yori giron data 23 Source: Miyagi Prefectural Government (http://www. 40 fun, giseisyatasuu no ookawasyou’ (Author’s transla- pref.miyagi.jp/kikitaisaku/higasinihondaisinsai/ tion: 40 minutes of discussion instead of evacuation pro- pdf/09071600.pdf) (in Japanese). duced many victims), 13 June 2011.

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save lives of many, it also created a feeling of reas- of many, in the face of an extreme disaster that ex- surance with respect to risk and thus made some ceeded all assumptions in terms of its magnitude, of the population more vulnerable. The popula- it also produced the reverse effect by creating false tion in these coastal cities had their perception of assumptions as to the level of risk. the tsunami risk shaped mainly by the experiences of the 1960 Chile Earthquake (M 9.5), which 3.4. Prospects of resettlement produced a 6 m-high tsunami that took 142 lives, and the 2010 Chile Earthquake (M 8.8), which From the interviews, we learnt that most of the occurred almost one year before the 11 March evacuees wish to resettle on new land located disaster and induced a 1 m-high tsunami affecting on higher ground either because they no longer the region. The field interviews found that these feel safe living in the place where their houses recent experiences had given the inhabitants a had been swept away or because it is not emotio- rather fixed idea that the biggest tsunami likely nally possible to return as they are deeply trau- to hit their cities would be around 6 metres high. matised by the loss of family members. One year Moreover, in the past, all of the tsunami warnings after the disaster, the resettlement process began issued by the JMA and transmitted via the munici- but evacuees were encountering many adminis- palities had always predicted much higher waves trative and financial obstacles. The resettlement that those that actually occurred, thus creating a misperception that an actual tsunami would always be much smaller than the one predicted Figure 3. Photos of temporary shelters (prefabricated by official warnings. Given such convictions, the housing) population underestimated the height and gravity of the tsunami that hit on 11 March 2011. Several evacuees also asserted that the experience of the foreshock (M 7.3) that struck on 9 March 2011, two days before the 3.11 also led the population to underestimate the tsunami risk of 11 March. At the time of the foreshock, a tsunami warning was announced but the tsunami that actually arrived was only 0.5 m high. Another fixed idea based on previous experi- ences involves the time lag between the occur- rence of an earthquake and the arrival of the ensu- ing tsunami. According to the interviews, the past tsunami experiences of the local population had given them the idea that a tsunami would arrive 10–15 minutes after an earthquake. During the 11 March disaster, the tsunami reached the shoreline 30–40 minutes after the earthquake in the towns (JMA, 2011b: p.10), contrary to the population’s expectations. As a result, many of those who had evacuated to higher ground immediately after the earthquake decided to return home once the fif- teen minutes had elapsed, convinced that no tsu- nami would follow on from the earthquake, and were hit by the enormous tsunami that arrived thirty minutes later. From these instances, we discovered that the lessons learnt from previous experiences had para- doxically sometimes been a contributing factor to the population’s underestimation of the risk or its misinterpretation of the danger signs during the 11 March disaster, and that their experience had not Photo (top): A prefabricated housing unit in Ofunato City, Iwate always helped to mitigate the impacts. The inter- Prefecture, for tsunami evacuees. Taken by R. Hasegawa on 22 views with tsunami survivors led us to the follow- March 2012. Photo (bottom): A prefabricated housing unit in ing factual conclusion: while risk perception based Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, for nuclear evacuees. Taken by on former experience did indeed help to save lives R. Hasegawa on 5 April 2012.

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plan proposed by the government has three main For example, Ishinomaki and Rikuzentakada Cit- components. First, the local authority purchases ies have proposed to purchase the tsunami-affect- the land owned by each evacuee affected by the ed land for 70–80% of its original value, while tsunami. With the money from this sale, evacuees Higashi- City (just next to City) are expected to purchase new land for resettle- has offered the evacuees up to 80–97% of the land ment. Although the cost of house construction is value.26 As a result, evacuees in some localities not covered by the scheme, evacuees are entitled began to renegotiate the terms of resettlement to receive financial assistance of up to around schemes with the municipal administration, thus €30,000 as well as a special low-interest housing causing further delay in the whole resettlement loan set up by the government worth up to process. €146,000 in order to rebuild their houses.25 In this context, the resettlement process for The field research found that evacuees were evacuees is not advancing at a full speed. The situ- finding it very hard to resettle despite the various ation is exerting an additional psychological strain forms of government assistance. First, there is a on the evacuees, who have already suffered from problem of ‘double loans’. Some evacuees contin- the loss of close relatives or friends and now find ue to pay for the mortgage of a house swept away themselves in the plight of displaced persons in by the tsunami. For these evacuees, it is extremely camps and temporary shelters. difficult to commit to another housing loan, even if it is part of the government scheme. Furthermore, 3.5. Post-disaster challenges many of them are still unemployed as their offices and factories were destroyed by the tsunami and The following points are developed to illustrate the have not yet been reconstructed. Secondly, pur- situation and challenges facing tsunami evacuees chasing the new land for resettlement is difficult and the affected communities one year after the simply because land located on higher ground is disaster. scarce in some cities or because landowners are sometimes unwilling to sell land that has been in Reinventing the affected communities – the family for generations. In other instances, the ‘building back better’ land is sometimes protected as a natural reserve Prior to the disaster, Tohoku was already a margi- and cannot be purchased, or landowners cannot nalised region facing the challenge of an aging be found as they are either dead or living abroad. population and the migration of its youth to Another obstacle stems from one of the condi- larger cities in search of better job opportunities. tions laid down by the government resettlement In 2010, 26.3% of the population in Tohoku was scheme: at least five evacuee families must join over 65 years old, 3.3% higher than the national together and decide collectively to resettle in the average (and compared to 16.8% in France).27 The same place in order to benefit from the scheme. economy of Tohoku was mainly based on agricul- This condition was initially aimed at maintaining ture and fisheries, with the average wage standing community ties, but it is instead creating many 17% lower than the national average.28 This trend problems on the ground as the population is now is likely to accelerate in the wake of the disaster. scattered around different parts of the town or One year after, reconstruction operations were sometimes outside the town. This means that it is intensified in the affected towns. The govern- extremely difficult for the evacuees to get in touch ment budget for reconstruction amounts to €150 with friends and former neighbours who would billion for the year 2011 and €37 billion for 2012.29 agree to resettle together. Yet, so far, the authorities’ reconstruction efforts Lastly, the field interviews found that the man- have seemed to focus more on rebuilding the agement of resettlement schemes was very poorly physical infrastructures – the traditional notion of synchronised by the local authorities. Many mu- nicipal governments lost patience with what they considered to be a slow or inadequate process and 26 Source: Japan Institute of Construction Engineering (JICE) (http://www.jice.or.jp/sinsai/sinsai_result. began their own assistance schemes to comple- php?q=%93y%92n%94%83%82%A2%8E%E6%82%E ment the government scheme. The problem is that 8&t=2). (in Japanese) they started these without consulting neighbour- 27 Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communica- ing towns, which has sparked off jealousy among tions (http://www.stat.go.jp/data/kokusei/2010/ kihon1/pdf/gaiyou1.pdf) (in Japanese). the different communities and made it difficult to 28 Source: Cabinet Office (http://www.esri.cao.go.jp/jp/ reach a consensus within the evacuee community. sna/data/data_list/kenmin/files/contents/pdf/gai- you2_1.pdf) (in Japanese). 29 Source: Reconstruction Agency (http://www.recon- 25 Source: Cabinet Office. struction.go.jp/).

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reconstruction – and less on smaller but innovative and could not assist those who needed help to social and economic projects to revitalise the com- evacuate. As a result, many lost their life as they munities.30 During the interviews, several evacu- were unable to move from the house. According ees expressed concern that many young people to the 2011 White Paper on Disaster Prevention were leaving the town due to the lack of job op- edited by the Cabinet Office, 64.4% of fatalities portunities after the disaster. According to them, from the 11 March disaster were over 60 years old, the reconstruction works created many temporary whereas the proportion of the population over 60 job opportunities but these were confined to the in the region was 31%. The mortality rate for those construction sector and contracts were on a short- in their seventies rose as high as 23.7%, and 21.8% term basis. Unable to find stable employment, for those in their eighties. many young people, especially those with qualifi- As for persons with reduced mobility, it was re- cations, began to leave the town for big cities. Ac- ported that their fatality rate was 2.5 times higher cording to a survey of 1,033 evacuees in Iwate, Mi- than that for all the affected populations.33 Accord- yagi and Fukushima Prefectures conducted by the ing to a survey conducted by a network of associa- newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, between January and tions for disabled persons, Japan Disability Forum March 2012, 40% of them were still unemployed Miyagi, the average fatality rate among 13 affect- either because they had lost their jobs or their em- ed municipalities in Miyagi Prefecture was 1.4% ployers had suspended activity following the dis- while the rate for the persons with disabilities was aster.31 The results of the same survey showed that as high as 3.5% and 3.9% for those with physical the affected cities, including Ishinomaki City, had disabilities. on average lost 6% of their population between These statistics show that the disaster preven- 2011 and 2012 (excluding the number of dead and tion measures were flawed when it came to ad- missing due to the disaster) and, in the case of Ri- dressing the needs of vulnerable groups in case of kuzentakada City, the figure was 13.8%.32 disaster, a lesson that should be taken into account Under these circumstances, rebuilding the af- for the future disaster preparations. fected communities as they were before the dis- aster seems not only inefficient but also unsus- Divided communities tainable both demographically and economically. The field interviews with evacuees found that the The affected municipalities are thus dealing with disaster had caused tensions and divisions among the enormous challenge of implementing a well- the local population, which still persisted one year thought-out reconstruction plan to ensure a rapid on. While stories of mutual help and solidarity recovery from the disaster, whilst at the same time were often emphasised by the evacuees, they also dealing with the chronic problem of a shrinking pointed up the different treatments and discrimi- economy and aging population. nations in the distribution of the aid received at the time of disaster. It emerged from the inter- The elderly and persons with reduced views that the evacuees categorise themselves into mobility were the hardest hit three groups: those who lost their houses and all The tsunami claimed many lives among the elderly their belongings in the tsunami; those who lost and persons with reduced mobility living at home their houses but not their belongings due to the or in specialised facilities. During one interview, an earthquake; and those whose houses were only Iwaki City employee explained that, for those who partially destroyed. The third group of evacuees were living with their families, it was expected that was considered ‘less affected’ compared to the first the family members would help them to evacuate. two groups and thus regarded as ‘less qualified’ But as the earthquake hit during the day, these to receive aid. As an evacuee from Rikuzentakada members were either at work or at school and were City explained: unable to return home in time to rescue them. When someone from a partially destroyed The elderly and persons with reduced mobility house came to an evacuation centre to get food living alone at home were allocated to designated and relief items, the evacuees in the centre open- neighbours to assist them in case of disaster. But, ly complained that the person did not have the likewise, these designated helpers were at work right to receive assistance because her house was not completely destroyed. After such experiences,

30 , ‘Reconstructing Tohoku to fit today’, 2 April 2012. 33 The newspaper, Nikkei Shimbun, ‘Higashinihon- daishinsai no shougaisyasibouritsu, zentaino 25 bai. 31 Asahi Shimbun, ‘Jinko-gen keieishano-urei’ (Author’s Nigeokureta kanousei’ (Author’s translation: The fatal- translation: Falling population, business owners’ grief), ity rate from the Great East Japan disaster is 2.5 times 11 March 2012. higher among the disabled population: a possibility that 32 Asahi Shimbun, Ibid. they were unable to evacuate in time)’, 30 July 2012.

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those who were living in partially destroyed 4. THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR houses with no electricity, water or food often POWER PLANT ACCIDENT had to survive by their own means, hesitating to seek help. 4.1. Overview of the event In addition, disparities also appeared depending on the evacuation centres. Large evacuation cen- The earthquake and the ensuing tsunami caused tres that attracted media attention received many serious damage to the installation of Fukushima offers of assistance from all over Japan, while small Daiichi nuclear power plant situated 230 km north centres were most often ignored. These experi- of Tokyo. This resulted in hydrogen explosions ences have created jealousy and mistrust among and nuclear meltdowns of three of the six reac- neighbours and friends, leaving deep scars in rela- tors on site, due to the loss of all power supply and tionships that had been nurtured over generations subsequently of control of the cooling systems. in these remote coastal communities. Tens of thousands of residents had to evacuate While the public service is overwhelmed by re- their homes as radiation leaked into the atmos- construction projects and the evacuee resettle- phere, the sea and the food chain. Japanese offi- ment process is stagnating, the economic and so- cials rated the incident at level 7 (the maximum) on cial disparities that existed among the inhabitants the International Nuclear and Radiological Event before the disaster are also growing larger and Scale (INES) defined by International Atomic more visible. According to the aid workers inter- Energy Agency (IAEA), which ranks the accident viewed from Child Fund Japan in Ofunato City and as the largest nuclear disaster since the 1986 Cher- PBV in Ishinomaki City, both of which assist evacu- nobyl accident (which is also rated at level 7). The ees in prefabricated housing units, evacuees with post-accident management measures, including financial means tend to move out of the temporary the decommissioning of the crippled reactors and shelters quickly as they construct their new home compensation for the nuclear evacuees, are esti- without waiting for financial assistance from the mated at a cost of more than €200 billion.34 government, whereas the vulnerable and the mar- One year after the disaster, there were more than ginalised are left behind. Those with a strong so- 160,000 evacuees, known as nuclear evacuees, cial network and personal connections also move from the Fukushima Prefecture. They represent out rapidly as they easily find new job opportuni- 47% of all the persons displaced by the 11 March ties. Information Technology (IT) literacy is also catastrophe.35 A total of 11 municipalities (113,000 creating a new disparity. Evacuees who know how residents) were forced to evacuate following the to surf the Internet are able to find more informa- government’s evacuation orders. In addition to this tion on the various forms of assistance offered by forced displacement, there were also cases of vol- the authorities, NGOs and individuals, while those untary evacuation where residents living outside who are not IT-literate have little access to such in- of the official evacuation zone became worried formation as they rely solely on written material. about radiation effects and decided to flee on their In the absence of an effective public service during own. As the Japanese government and TEPCO re- post-disaster recovery, this disparity is exacerbat- vealed the true scale of the radioactive contamina- ing the rifts in communities and leaving vulner- tion, there was a gradual increase in the number able populations in even greater destitution and a of voluntary evacuees, also referred to as self-evac- state of traumatism. uees. It is very difficult to obtain official statistics on the number of self-evacuees but we can esti- mate these at 47,000 from the difference between the total number of evacuees from the Fukushima Prefecture and the number of forced evacuees from the evacuation zone. In September 2011, the number was estimated at 50,327 by the Fukushima Prefecture.36 This trend was continuing one year

34 Source: Japan Centre for Economic Research (JCER) (http://www.jcer.or.jp/policy/pdf/pe%28JCER20110 719%EF%BC%89.pdf). (in Japanese)

35 Source: Reconstruction Agency. 36 Source: MEXT. (http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/ shingi/chousa/kaihatu/016/shiryo/__icsFiles/afield- file/ 2011/11/25/1313502_3.pdf).(in Japanese)

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Figure 4. Changes in the number of Fukushima evacuees Figure 5. Changes in the total number of evacuees

164 000 350 000

162 000 345 000 160 000 340 000 158 000

156 000 335 000

154 000 330 000 152 000

150 000 325 000 NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN 2011 2011 2012 2012 2012 2012 2012 2012 2011 2011 2012 2012 2012 2012 2012 2012

Source: Japanese Reconstruction Agency.

after the disaster: the number of nuclear evacu- for the zone within a 2 km radius37 from the ees is increasing rather than decreasing (Figure 4) crippled station and then, in the space of twenty- and is also pushing up the overall number of evac- four hours, this was extended to a 20 km radius. uees from the 11 March disaster (Figure 5). This This area was designated as a ‘Restricted Zone’ phenomenon is specific to the 11 March catastro- with entry prohibited. Three days after issuing phe and is not often observed for other types of the compulsory evacuation order, the government disaster. then instructed residents living within a 20–30 km radius from the station to shelter indoors, in what 4.2. Disaster Response was called the ‘Evacuation Prepared Area’. This and Evacuation ‘shelter indoors’ order continued for more than a month and finally, on 22 April, the same residents This sub-section describes the evacuation process were advised to self-evacuate. On the same day, implemented following the Fukushima nuclear the government issued a new evacuation order accident. The field interviews found that the to the area where a high airborne radiation level affected municipalities and population were had been detected and which was located outside taken by surprise and that the evacuation was of the 20 km radius evacuation zone (‘Deliberate organised in a chaotic manner, which reveals that Evacuation Area’ shown in Map 4). The residents the scenario of a serious accident had never been living in this area were instructed to evacuate envisaged or adequately prepared for prior to the within a month. It was at this time that the govern- accident. ment began to take the threshold radiation dose of 20 millisieverts38 per year (mSv/year) as a basis Changes to the evacuation zones for recommending evacuations. In June 2011, the From the onset of the crisis, the Japanese govern- government began to identify ‘hot spots’ where ment issued various evacuation orders with vastly an air radiation dose of more than 20mSv/year differing instructions and timing. From what had been detected outside the evacuation zones evacuees said in the interviews, this created a (‘Specific Spots recommended for Evacuation’ great deal of confusion, uncertainty and distress among the affected population. Table 3 gives the 37 This first evacuation order was issued by the Fukushima chronology of the different evacuation orders prefectural government as a precautionary measure. issued by the government. As shown in the list, 38 The sievert (Sv) is a unit to measure the radiation dose. these orders were gradually expanded over a 1 sievert (Sv) = 1,000 millisieverts (mSv). The Interna- three-month period starting on 11 March 2011 and tional Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends limiting artificial irradiation of the public created four different evacuation zones (Map 4). to an average of 1 mSv per year, not including medical First, a compulsory evacuation order was issued and occupational exposure (ICRP 2007).

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Table 3. Chronology of the Government’s evacuation orders/recommendations 2011 Target Orders Name of the Zone 11 March 2 km radius from the station Compulsory Evacuation (issued by the Restricted Zone Fukushima prefectural government) 3 km radius Compulsory Evacuation Restricted Zone 12 March 10 km radius Compulsory Evacuation Restricted Zone 20 km radius Compulsory Evacuation Restricted Zone 15 March Between 20–30 km Shelter indoors Evacuation Prepared Area 22 April Between 20–30 km Shelter indoors or evacuation by own Evacuation Prepared Area means Areas with air radiation dose more than Evacuation within 1 month Deliberate Evacuation Area 20 mSv/year 16 June Spots with air radiation dose of over Recommended for Evacuation Specific Spots Recommended for 20 mSv/year Evacuation 30 Sept. Between 20–30 km Lifting of the order to shelter indoors or Lifting of Evacuation Prepared Area evacuation by own means

Map 4. Official evacuation zones prior to 30 September 2011

Specific Spots recommended for evacuation Iitate Fukushima Deliberate Evacuation Area

Kawamata

Minamisoma

Katsurao Restricted Area Namie Tamura Futaba Fukushima Nuclear Evacuation Prepared Power Plant (No.1) Area Ookuma

Tomioka Koriyama Kawauchi Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (No.2) Naraha

Hirono

Source: Ministry of Industry, Trade and Economy.

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shown in Map 4). In this fourth category, the example, had nothing but the televised broad- government first designates the spots after measu- casts to guide its decision. According to the survey ring radiation levels on a house-by-house basis conducted by NAIIC (NAIIC, 2012: pp.50-61),42 upon a resident’s request and then issues a ‘recom- none of the affected municipalities, except two mendation for evacuation’ instead of ‘orders’. If towns hosting the damaged nuclear power station, the residents of the house qualified as a hot spot were informed officially of the evacuation order: decide to evacuate, the government provides they had to decide on their own to evacuate their financial assistance. residents. On 30 September 2011, the government decid- According to the Disaster Prevention Guideline43 ed to do away with the second evacuation zone, drawn up by the Nuclear Safety Commission of ‘Evacuation Prepared Area’, situated within a 20– Japan (NSC) in 1980 based on the Act on Special 30 km radius from the station. Then in March 2012, Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Prepar- it proposed reorganising the ‘Restricted Zone’ and edness, Field Emergency Response Headquarters ‘Deliberate Evacuation Area’ into three new areas (referred to as the Off-Site Centre) should be set according to the airborne radiation level, thus cre- up within 5 km of the power station in case of an ating a zone to which evacuees were expected to accident. The Off-Site Centre, comprising per- return. This latest government proposal will be sonnel from the nuclear regulatory agencies, the analysed in detail in the following sub-section. nuclear operator and the concerned municipali- Through these different decisions, taken one ties, is in charge of managing the crisis and mak- after the other by the government in a rather ad ing decisions about the evacuation zone. During hoc manner, both the affected municipalities and the 11 March disaster, this Off-Site Centre could residents were obliged to evacuate repeatedly from not function properly given that communication one place to another with scant information about equipment was damaged by the earthquake and their future prospects. The field interviews with that the personnel who were supposed to assemble evacuees found that this caused significant psycho- there did not arrive as they judged the location of logical stress for the evacuees during their flight. the centre too close to the affected station and thus too dangerous (Asahi Shimbun Special Reporting Improvised evacuation orders Unit44, 2012: pp.72-74). Given these circumstances, The field survey revealed that at the outset of the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo took over the the crisis, the municipalities had very little infor- role of the Off-Site Centre when the crisis broke mation on the accident or the evacuation orders out. As a result, the procedure for issuing evacu- issued by the government. Only Futaba town, one ation orders was never applied as planned in the of the two towns39 hosting the crippled nuclear disaster manual and the municipalities were left power plant, received the initial evacuation order without any specific advice as to how to proceed from the central government.40 The other three with the evacuation.45 Thus, the mayors had no municipalities that we interviewed, Naraha, Mina- choice but to act on their own initiative and evacu- misoma and Iwaki, learnt of the first evacuation ate all the inhabitants regardless of the govern- order only through a television broadcast and ment’s decisions. were not directly notified by the government. As the municipalities were at a loss at what to Naraha town, which hosts another nuclear power do, local residents took the advice of TEPCO em- plant (Fukushima No.2), managed to obtain some ployees, families and friends and fled before re- information on the situation of the Fukushima ceiving the official evacuation orders. Among the No.1 nuclear power plant from the plant operator, 23 evacuees interviewed, only 9 had decided to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO),41 thanks flee on the basis of the evacuation order from the to the relationship that it had built up with TEPCO local authority. According to them, those who had over the years. On the basis of this information, information from TEPCO employees were the first Naraha town made the decision to evacuate the to evacuate, as early as the night of 11 March, while entire population, while Minamisoma City, for the majority fled on the following day.

39 The other town that jointly hosts the crippled nuclear station is Okuma town. 42 The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investi- gation Commission (NAIIC) set up by National Diet of 40 From the DEVAST interview with the municipality; Japan. NAIIC, 2012: pp.50-61. 43 http://www.bousai.ne.jp/vis/shiryou/pdf/bousai_ 41 TEPCO is the largest of the ten electric utility companies shishin_h2208.pdf in Japan and the fourth largest in the world after the German RWE, the French EDF and the German E.ON. It 44 Author’s translation of Asahi shimbun tokubetsu houduo bu. was set up in 1951 and de facto nationalised in July 2012 45 Information collected from the interview with the after the Fukushima nuclear accident. affected municipalities.

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Privileged evacuees used had been of a minimal nature. Out of all the Information on the preoccupying situation at the 29 nuclear evacuees interviewed during the field power station thus first reached those who had research, one person had ever participated in such relatives and friends working for TEPCO at the an exercise. A municipal worker also admitted that damaged station. Many evacuees interviewed told the participation of the residents was limited, a the same story. On the night of 11 March, a large maximum of 30 persons at a time, mainly elderly, number of residents had gathered in the evacua- who were available during the day. The evacuee, tion centres as aftershocks were continuing and a school teacher in Futaba town, had taken part in many houses had lost electricity. In the middle of one nuclear disaster drill and described the exer- that night, a handful of residents who had relatives cise as follows: and friends working for TEPCO started to receive These drills lacked seriousness. The partici- calls from these contacts on their mobile phones pants were gathered in the school yard where a and discreetly began to leave the evacuation hot meal was prepared and served to everybody. centres as they had been informed on the real state The atmosphere was rather festive. What’s more, of the accident and had been urged to evacuate we were eating and chatting outside during the immediately. They thus learnt about the severity exercise as if a radiation leak in the air was never of the accident and the need for evacuation even expected from a nuclear accident. before the municipality and most of the popula- tion. What made matters worse is that they did According to the Disaster Prevention Guideline not inform their fellow residents in the evacuation of the Nuclear Safety Commission, the zone with- centres why they were leaving. As one evacuee in an 8–10 km radius from the nuclear power sta- from Futaba town explained: tions is considered as an Emergency Planning Zone On the night of the accident, the families of (EPZ), targeted for nuclear disaster drills and prep- TEPCO employees started to receive calls on their arations. The guideline explains that the EPZ was mobile phones. After the conversation, they dis- set up ‘based on the assumption that it is almost appeared from the centres. I managed to catch impossible to occur technically’46 and that ‘between one of them and asked why she was leaving. She 8 and 10 km there would be little difference in the answered that she wanted to go back home in or- response to the radiation effect’. In other words, as der to pick up something. After she left, I realised Akira Imai puts it, ‘the nuclear disaster preparation that her house had been completely destroyed by was to be implemented only within 8 km and no the tsunami and so it was impossible for her to go further as the EPZ was designated on the basis of a back home. Then, I understood that she did not nearly impossible scenario’ and ‘this, indeed, con- want to tell me that she was actually fleeing from stitutes the basis of the notion in public policy that the town. I felt I was going crazy with fear when I nuclear power stations were accident-free’47 (Imai, saw people sneaking out of the evacuation centre 2012a: p.24). The NSC’s report on nuclear disaster in the middle of the night, one by one, while I was drills conducted during 2008 in 11 prefectures, for left stuck and couldn’t do anything. example, shows that the evacuation exercise for residents was conducted only within a radius of Those residents fortunate enough to know 1–3 km from the stations.48 Therefore, at the time someone in TEPCO thus escaped sooner, leaving of the crisis, the municipalities and residents were the others behind with no information. This inci- not at all prepared for such an evacuation and thus dent deeply traumatised relationships among resi- completely at a loss. As a result, in the absence of dents, a trauma that will probably take a long time an organised evacuation led by the municipalities to heal. as planned in the disaster manual, many people self-evacuated, using their own cars if they were Evacuation without preparation lucky enough to have some fuel left. This created The interviews with affected municipalities and an enormous traffic jam on the escape route and evacuees revealed that the organisation of the delayed the whole evacuation process, leaving the evacuation had been chaotic, as the municipali- population significantly distressed. ties had been trying to find ways to evacuate all of their residents, a situation for which they had never practiced before. Prior to the accident, nuclear disaster drills were conducted mainly for the employees of the plant operator and the 46 Author’s translation. municipal offices along with a limited number 47 Author’s translation. of residents living in the immediate vicinity of 48 Source: NSC (http://www.nsc.go.jp/senmon/shidai/ the nuclear power station, and the crisis scenario sisetubo/sisetubo019/ssiryo5.pdf). (in Japanese)

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Evacuation without information Box 1. Basic information on air radiation dose The field research also found that evacuees had levels not been informed on the severity of the acci- dent or the eventual radiation risk at the time of m Airborne radiation can be measured by a Geiger counter, which detects evacuation. Even when residents were ordered to particles of ionising radiation. evacuate by the municipal authorities, they were m 1 millisievert (mSv) per year is the reference dose level in normal not told how long the displacement was going to exposure situations, recommended by International Commission on last or what was happening at the nuclear power Radiation Protection (ICRP). It is the dose limit for artificial radiation exposure (thus excluding natural radiation exposure) set for the public, station, let alone what the radiation risk would be. excluding medical and occupational exposures. As a result, many residents left without any extra m 1 mSv/year can be calculated on average as 0.11 microsievert (µSv)/ clothes, food or money, thinking that it would be hour. a matter of three or four days before they could m 0.001 Sv = 1 mSv = 1,000 µSv go back home. According to the NAIIC report, m The average air radiation dose rate in Fukushima Prefecture before the only 20% of the residents in Futaba and Naraha accident was 0.038 µSv/hour.6 towns, both of which host nuclear power plants, knew about the accident on the first day (NAIIC, 2012: p.52). The remaining 80% of residents learnt about the accident only on the following day when most of these e-mails.49 When interrogated as to the evacuation order was finally issued by the why this SPEEDI information had been deleted, municipalities, twelve hours after the first evacua- the Fukushima Prefecture explained that ‘these tion order issued by the government. The same e-mails contained attachment files that were too report revealed that only 10% of the residents were heavy for our system to deal with’. When the gov- aware of the first evacuation order issued by the ernment was interrogated as to why the informa- government. tion from SPEEDI was not made public in a timely The interviews with evacuees and municipali- manner, Special Advisor to the then Prime Minis- ties confirmed that the information on radia- ter Goshi Hosono explained that it was in order to tion risk was not communicated to them by the ‘avoid panic among the population’.50 central and prefectural governments, despite the While the SPEEDI information was kept from fact that this (albeit incomplete) information had the public, MEXT dispatched a radiation monitor- been in authorities’ possession from the outset of ing team to Namie town, which lay in the radioac- the crisis. The Japanese government had invested tive pathway predicted by SPEEDI, as early as 15 a total of €130 million in developing the System March 2011 (Asahi Shimbun Special Reporting for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Unit, 2012: pp.61-62). There, the team measured Information (SPEEDI) since the 1980s (Asahi a radiation dose rate as high as 330 microsieverts Shimbun Special Reporting Unit, 2012: p.21; Mat- (μSv) per hour (see Box 1).51 Namie town was situ- suoka, 2012: p.130). The system is designed to ated outside of the official evacuation zone (31 km predict the likely pathway of radioactive materi- north west of the nuclear station) and thus all the als emitted from a damaged nuclear power plant residents were still living in the town. Information and carried by winds and rains, by calculating on this high radiation dose rate was not communi- the weather and geographical conditions of the cated to the Namie administration or the residents concerned area. After the accident, it was dis- and was made public only on the MEXT website covered that the Ministry of Education, Culture, the following day: a point was indicated on a blank Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) was ac- map with no name shown for the place where this tively utilising the SPEEDI from the first day of dose rate had been detected. In the meantime, the accident to predict the pathway of radiation the government spokesman repeated a televised leaks from the crippled station. This information message that ‘this radiation dosage poses no had even been communicated to the US army as early as 14 March 2011, three days after the ac- cident, through the Japanese Ministry of Foreign 49 The newspaper , ‘Kakusan yosoku: fuku- shima-ken ga sakujo syazai’ (Author’s translation: Affairs upon a specific request made by the US The Fukushima Prefecture apologizes for deleting the government (Matsuoka, 2012: p.130). Further- SPEEDI information’, 21 April 2012. more, this information was also transmitted to 50 Asahi Shimbun Special Reporting Unit, 2012: p.76; the prefectural government of Fukushima as ear- Joint Government/TEPCO Press Conference held on 2 May 2011 (http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/genpatsujiko/pdf/ ly as 12 March 2011 via 86 e-mails sent by MEXT’s godokaiken_110502.pdf). (in Japanese) Nuclear Safety Technology Centre. However, the 51 The newspaper, Tokyo Shimbun, ‘SPEEDI information Fukushima Prefecture not only failed to inform used by the government prior to being made public’, 12 the concerned municipalities but also deleted June 2012; Asahi Shimbun Special Reporting Unit, 2012.

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immediate risk to human health52’ (Asahi Shimbun screening level to 100,000 cpm: eight times higher Special Reporting Unit, 2012: p.54). Consequently, than the pre-accident level. The Nuclear Safety many evacuees were unnecessarily exposed to Commission of Japan (NSC), although it had ini- high levels of radiation during the initial phase of tially expressed some concerns, finally endorsed the evacuation, especially those who fled to the this threshold level on 19 March 2011. As a result, north-west of the station. This zone was in fact the full-body decontamination procedures, including pathway of the radiation clouds that SPEEDI had removal of contaminated clothes, showers and already predicted, but such information had not other preventive measures such as administration been shared with those concerned. The SPEEDI of iodine tablets, were not systematically applied information was finally released to the public on to people whose external contamination level read 23 March 2011, twelve days after the accident, and below 100,000 cpm. additional evacuation orders for residents living in On 16 March 2011, the NSC recommended the the area with high radiation levels were not issued administration of stable iodine tablets for those until 22 April 2011, one month after the public re- residents still inside the restricted zone within a lease. As the NAIIC report states: ‘Some residents 20 km radius from the crippled power station. In were evacuated to areas with high radiation lev- line with the Basic Disaster Prevention Plan, all the els and were then neglected, receiving no further concerned municipalities had a sufficient stock of evacuation orders until April’ (NAIIC, 2012: p.19), stable iodine tablets for the residents in case of and by acting in this way, ‘the government effec- an accident. However, the Fukushima prefectural tively abandoned their responsibility for public government did not communicate the NSC’s in- safety’ (Ibid, p.38). struction to the concerned municipalities since it had already confirmed that everybody had evacu- Emergency response measures against ated and that nobody remained in the area (infor- radiation exposure mation that was not correct according to our inter- In addition to the lack of information on the radia- views with evacuees). The ICANPS interim report tion risk, other emergency measures implemented published in December 2011 presents the case of by the authorities came under criticism in the wake Miharu town, situated 50 km from the crippled of the disaster. These measures involved, in parti- nuclear station. Assuming a high level of exposure cular, the emergency medical care aimed at redu- to radiation, the town decided on its own initia- cing the health effects of radiation exposure. The tive to advise residents to take stable iodine tab- final report by the Investigation Committee on the lets. When Fukushima Prefecture was informed of Fukushima Accident commissioned by the Cabinet this decision, it issued an order to the Miharu town Office examined some of these measures in detail, officials to suspend the distribution and recall the notably the full-body screening procedure53 for tablets on the grounds that no such instruction decontamination and the administration of stable had yet been given by the central government. Dis- iodine tablets (ICANPS, 2011: pp.353-361). regarding this instruction, the Miharu municipal- Prior to the accident, the Fukushima Prefec- ity decided to go ahead and distribute the iodine ture had established an external contamination tablets to the residents. As a result, apart from Mi- screening procedure for residents, whereby those haru town, no evacuees or other concerned popu- exposed to high radiation levels would receive de- lations in Fukushima took the stable iodine tablets contamination treatment in case of an accident. during the disaster due to absence of instructions In the procedure, the threshold level triggering from the central and prefectural governments. this treatment was set at 40 Bq/cm2 (equivalent These examples show that the authorities did to 13,000 cpm).54 Two days after the accident, not properly follow the emergency procedures that the prefectural government decided to raise this were inscribed in their contingency manuals and hence failed to provide a maximum protection to the population against radiation exposures. These 52 Author’s translation. incidents led the population to lose trust in the 53 The screening procedure involves measuring the level of handling of central and prefectural governments radioactive contamination on a person’s outer body by in effectively mitigating the effects of the accident placing dose measurement equipment over the body’s surface. The medical team then is able to determine and doing their best to protect their citizens. whether or not a person has been contaminated by radi- oactivity and thus needs to be decontaminated. 4.3. Perception of risk 54 The becquerel (Bq) is a unit of radioactivity. 1 Bq rep- resents the amount of radioactive material that will Prior to the accident, both evacuees and munici- undergo one nucleus decay per second. Counts per min- ute (cpm) is a measure of the detection rate of ionisation palities believed that the nuclear power station events due to radioactivity. was extremely safe and that a severe accident was

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almost impossible. The following section explores in some way with the nuclear facility knew that the the circumstances that existed in these commu- nuclear power stations were not failsafe, but they nities before the accident and analyses how did not share their opinion with others at the time this perception of nuclear risk heightened their as it was considered as taboo for them to question vulnerability when faced with an actual disaster. the safety of nuclear installations. Their ultimate Changes in the risk perception of nuclear energy interest was to maintain the presence of the nu- among both the evacuees and the general public clear power plant on account of the benefits that are also closely examined in order to demonstrate it brought to their community, and questioning its the immediate and profound impact that the acci- safety was regarded as compromising this mutual dent produced on Japanese society. interest (see the section below ‘Nuclear-dependant communities’). The myth of ‘absolute safety’ Since the introduction of nuclear energy in 1955, During the interviews, most of the evacuees the myth of ‘absolute safety’ – according to which pointed out the myth of ‘absolute safety’ that had a severe nuclear accident could never occur in Ja- underpinned their confidence in nuclear power pan – has been nurtured by nuclear advocates in stations prior to the accident. During our field industry, government and academia, initially in survey, the majority of interviewees said that they order to convince rural communities to accept the had believed that the nuclear stations were absolu- installation of nuclear power stations and later to tely safe. Most interestingly, a couple of evacuees gain the population’s continuing support. Accord- responded that they had previously never given ing to Yoichi and Kay Kitazawa, who are thought to the nuclear power plant as it had been the main authors of the report of the Independent built long before their birth and they took its exis- Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Nu- tence for granted. An evacuee from Naraha town clear Accident (IIC) established by the Rebuild Ja- recalls: pan Initiative Foundation, this myth was regarded TEPCO used to tell us that its nuclear power as necessary by nuclear proponents in order to plant was the safest in the world and that the oc- overcome the general public’s strong opposition currence of an accident was impossible. We were to nuclear power, an aversion that had its roots in all brainwashed by them… the atomic bombing of and (Funabashi and Kitazawa, 2012: p.14). The authors As another evacuee from Futaba town explain that the disaster risk in the nuclear energy remembers: sector had been deliberately downplayed by these Every year TEPCO organised a town festival interest groups over the years. As time passed, the through which they carried out their informa- myth became ingrained in the thinking of nuclear tion campaign, telling the residents that the nu- regulators and plant operators, who also finally clear power station was absolutely safe. I won- came to believe that an accident was impossible dered, if it was so safe, why do they have to come (IIC, 2012: p.298). The myth went as far as to mis- every year to tell us the same thing? TEPCO also construe and distort common-sense logic. The IIC transferred 10,000 yen (€100) to all the house- report describes the myth as ‘the notion of safety holds in town every year [as a sign of apprecia- where questioning is forbidden and logic is for- tion for hosting its nuclear facilities]. When I mulated in such a way as to preserve an already think of it now, why did they regularly send us established idea’.56 money if their station was so safe and there was At a symposium organised by Waseda Univer- nothing to feel guilty about? sity in March 2012, Professor Shunichi Murooka of Waseda University presented an interesting ex- Although few in number, there were also evacu- ample to illustrate how this myth functioned prior ees who had been sceptical about this myth. These to the disaster.57 He explained that, in the wake of evacuees are mainly people who had worked on the Chernobyl accident, many nuclear facilities in site for TEPCO or those who, as members of their Europe installed vent filters in order to avoid pol- Local Nuclear Resident Committee, had been in luting the air with highly radioactive materials in regular contact with TEPCO and the state nuclear regulatory agencies.55 Those who were connected 56 P.324; author’s translation. 57 Presentation made by Professor Shunichi Morooka 55 This committee is composed of residents and members (Waseda University) at the Symposium on ‘One Year of the town assembly to represent the residents’ inter- after the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukush- ests in matters concerning the nuclear power plant. It ima Nuclear Disaster: The Cause, Impact, Countermeas- had regular contacts with the plant operator, TEPCO, ure and Reconstruction from a Complex Mega Crisis’, and the nuclear regulatory agencies. held at Waseda University on 8 March 2012.

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the event of a severe accident. In Japan, however, revealed a complete turn-around with those in the authorities and the nuclear operator consid- favour of nuclear energy falling sharply to 28%, ered that, if they fitted such filters, this would send while the proportion of those preferring a reduc- out a message to the public that a severe accident tion or halt of nuclear energy rose to 66%.59 One might indeed happen one day and they therefore year after the accident, in March 2012, the same decided against this precautionary measure. Ac- opinion poll found 71% were in favour of phasing cording to Professor Murooka, had these vent fil- out and abandoning nuclear energy, while only ters been installed, the Fukushima accident would 23% were in favour of promoting or maintai- not have emitted as much radioactive material in ning nuclear energy.60 Figure 6 below summa- the air as it did. The same logic governed the or- rises these results and shows a reversal in public ganisation of disaster drills for residents. When Ni- opinion toward nuclear energy in the wake of the gata Prefecture, host to one of the nuclear power Fukushima disaster. plants, planned to conduct nuclear accident drills Among the nuclear evacuees, this U-turn is even for an earthquake scenario in 2010, the former Nu- more pronounced. According to the survey con- clear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), which ducted by Professor Akira Imai from Fukushima reported to METI, advised that such drills would University in February 2012, the opposition to cause ‘unnecessary anxiety and misunderstand- nuclear energy among the Fukushima evacuees ing’ among residents and thus suggested that they rose to 82% (Imai, 2012a: p.33). Considering that should not be implemented (Funabashi and Ki- an absolute majority of the local population sup- tazawa, 2012: p.14). In Futaba and Naraha towns, ported the nuclear installation prior to the disas- disaster drills were conducted on a minimal scale ter (Kainuma, 2011), a fact also confirmed by our with a minor incident scenario in which only those interviews, the change of opinion is most striking residents within the immediate vicinity of the among the evacuees from those municipalities power station were to be evacuated. In the logic of hosting the nuclear power plants. During the inter- the safety myth, disaster preparation in itself had views, many voiced strong opposition to restarting become a source of contradiction: if the nuclear the nuclear power stations (all the stations were power stations are so safe, why prepare the resi- in temporary shut-down for stress tests at the time dents for an accident that would never happen? As of the interviews) and to nuclear energy in gen- a result, the local population was not sufficiently eral, stating that there was no such thing as 100% prepared for a disaster and eventual evacuation safe nuclear power generation. At the same time, and, prior to the accident, their risk perception they also emphasised that the specific situations of nuclear power plants remained very low or, in of the municipalities hosting nuclear power plants some cases, non-existent. should be taken into account for any decision on whether or not to abandon nuclear energy. Being The safety myth shattered after the disaster acutely aware of the benefits that a nuclear power All the evacuees interviewed, except a few of those plant also brings to a town in terms of job creation who were employed directly by the nuclear power and economic prosperity (see the section ‘Nuclear- plants, said that they had completely lost confi- dependant communities’), they did not wish to dence in the safety of nuclear power plants and impose their opinion in favour of ceasing nuclear wanted their towns to abandon nuclear energy. activities on the other hosting communities. This tendency is also observed within the general public. Opinion polls taken prior to the accident 4.4. Prospects of return showed that the majority of the Japanese popu- lation were in favour of stepping up the nuclear The prospect of return for nuclear evacuees share of the energy mix. In the 2009 census remained uncertain one year after the disaster. The conducted by the Cabinet Office, close to 60% following sub-section analyses the situation facing of the respondents were in favour of promoting nuclear evacuees with respect to their return and nuclear energy and another 20% were for main- explores why the evacuees remain ambivalent on taining the current nuclear energy production.58 this question. In total, almost 80% of the respondents approved of nuclear energy in 2009. However, in June 2011, three months after the accident, the opinion poll conducted by the Nippon Housou Kyoukai (NHK), 59 The survey result available in Japanese at: http:// www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/yoron/social/ Japan’s national public broadcasting organisation, pdf/110709.pdf 60 The survey result available in Japanese at: http://www. 58 The survey result available in Japanese at: http:// nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/yoron/social/pdf/120401. www8.cao.go.jp/survey/tokubetu/h21/h21-genshi.pdf pdf

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Figure 6. Trends in public opinion on nuclear energy Box 2. The government’s compensation scheme for nuclear evacuees 100% 90% The compensation scheme for the nuclear evacuees following the reorganisa- 80% tion of the evacuation zone was disclosed by the government in July 2012. 70% The main elements of the scheme are as follows: 60% Promotion 50% Status Quo Psychological damage caused by the evacuation In addition to the reimbursement of transportation and accommodation costs 40% Abandon (Phase-out) 30% related to the evacuation, TEPCO will pay 100,000 yen (€1,000) per person Don't know 20% per month from the date of the accident until the date when the evacuation 10% orders are lifted by the government. 0% 2005 2009 JUN OCT MAR Damages to fixed-assets (houses and land) 2011 2011 2012 As for private houses and lands located in the third zone (difficult to return Source: Cabinet Office for 2005-2009 and NHK census for 2011-2012. to for 5 years), TEPCO will pay compensation equivalent to the pre-accident value of such assets. Those located in the first and the second zones will be compensated proportionally to the number of years the elapse until the lifting The question of return is highly politicised of evacuation orders for these zones. Unlike the return of tsunami evacuees, the return Damages to household effects of nuclear evacuees has become a highly politi- The amount of compensation varies according to the size of families. For cised issue one year on from the disaster. In the example, a family of two adults and two children will receive between aftermath of the Fukushima accident, as early €50,000–67,000 on the basis of the newly classified areas. as 19 April 2011, the government raised the dose Economic damages limit for public exposure to radiation from 1 mSv/ TEPCO pays an amount equivalent to the salary that an evacuee was earning year to 20 mSv/year.61 Accordingly, the authori- prior to the accident (for a period of two years) and compensates for loss of ties, including the Fukushima prefectural govern- business earnings based on the average profits that business owners were ment and several affected municipalities, began making before the accident (calculated on the previous five years for agricul- to emphasise that it was safe to return and live ture and forestry businesses, and three years for other business activities). in areas with an annual radiation dose of less Source: METI. For further details, the following documents are available on the METI website in than 20 mSv. Policy priorities have thus focused Japanese: http://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/pdf/institution.pdf; http://www.meti.go.jp/pr ess/2012/07/20120720001/20120720001-1.pdf on decontamination operations to ‘cleanse’ the affected communities of radiation and on the early return of evacuees. On the other hand, our field research found that the majority of evacuees are decontamination operations and the early return still anxious about the radioactive contamina- of evacuees. The second zone is defined as an area tion of their houses and communities and remain with a radiation dose of between 20–50 mSv/year, highly sceptical about the effectiveness of deconta- with return not deemed feasible for at least two to mination operations. They are thus still undecided three years. The third zone is the area with more about their return. than 50 mSv/year, where the return will be diffi- In March 2012, one year on from the accident, cult for at least the next five years (Table 4). the government proposed a new plan to reorgan- ise the evacuation zone into three categories de- Table 4. The government’s proposal on the reorganisation pending on the air radiation doses measured.62 of the evacuation zone The first area, which has an air radiation dose of Area Name Threshold Timing of Return less than 20 mSv/year, is designated for intensive Radiation Dose (airborne) 1 Areas for which Less than 20 mSv/ Intensive 61 The reference dose for artificial irradiation for the pub- evacuation orders year decontamination lic, excluding medical and occupational exposures, are ready to be and early return in ‘regular exposure situations’ defined by Interna- lifted tional Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is 1 mSv/year (ICRP, 2007). The Japanese government 2 Areas in which the Between 20-50 Evacuees cannot refers to the ICRP’s recommendation on the reference residents are not mSv/year return for at least dose fixed for ‘existing radiation exposure conditions’, permitted to live 2-3 years applied to occupational exposure situations and residual 3 Areas where it is More than 50 mSv/ Evacuees cannot exposure situations after a nuclear reactor accident, to expected that the year return for at least justify its decision to raise the dose limit to 20 mSv/year. residents will find 5 years The reference dose for ‘existing radiation exposure con- it difficult to return ditions’ is between 1–20 mSv/year according to ICRP. to for a long time 62 Source: METI (http://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/ nuclear/pdf/20120330_02f.pdf). Source: Reconstruction Agency.

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Map 5. Reorganisation of the evacuation zone (as from August 2012)

Area 1: Areas to which evacuation orders are ready to be lifted Area 2: Areas in which the residents are not permitted to live Area 3: Areas where it is expected that the residents have difficulties in returning for a long time Restricted Area Deliberate Evacuation Area

Source: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

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However, this proposal raised many concerns government will compensate the medical fees among the affected communities, obliging the when we get sick [from radiation effects] after government to hold consultations with each mu- returning. nicipality. In August 2012, only 5 out of 11 affected towns had officially adopted the plan, while the The authorities’ emphasis on return is thus other 6 were still in consultation and undecided.63 making the evacuee communities mistrustful of According to the interviews, their main cause for the public authorities and becoming a source of concern was that the proposal splits towns into grievances. Meanwhile, the municipalities are three areas each benefiting from different levels confronted with the extremely difficult task of of financial assistance (Box 2), which is likely to making the right choice for a future that both en- create jealousies among the residents and threat- sures the evacuees’ best interests and maintains en the cohesiveness of the community. Secondly, their community’s cohesiveness and identity. it creates patches of land to which residents can return while the rest remain restricted access are- The nuclear evacuees’ unwillingness to as (Map 5). During the interviews, several evacu- return ees questioned the feasibility of returning to such During the field research, the majority of evacuees areas if vital social infrastructures such as clinics, said either that they wished to return but knew this schools and shops are located in the second or the would not be possible, or simply that they did not third zone and thus simply not accessible. Third- wish to return. This clearly shows the reality that ly, many evacuees, especially those with small nuclear evacuees are facing on the ground. Most children, are deeply anxious about radiation ef- express a wish to return, which in fact means that fects if they return. They remain sceptical of the they will not probably return considering the situa- new safety standard of ‘less than 20 mSv/year’, tion, but they do not want to state this outright. In despite the government’s reassurances. the field interviews, the DEVAST research team Since the redefinition of the evacuation zone, often felt that the evacuees were hesitant to give a the government, Fukushima Prefecture and sev- clear response to the question of return, as return eral affected municipalities have mobilised to is closely linked to their community’s cohesive- encourage evacuees to return to the localities ness and survival; any expression of unwillingness classified as Area 1, which has annual air radia- to return could be seen as lacking solidarity and tion dose below 20 mSv. For the municipal gov- betraying their community. The issue of return, ernments, the question of return is a matter of therefore, has become an almost taboo subject and their own survival: if the residents do not return, a fault line dividing the evacuee communities. the town will disintegrate and ultimately disap- Professor Akira Imai from Fukushima University pear from the map, thus putting their existence conducted a panel survey among the nuclear evac- and identity into jeopardy. With slogans such as uees in which same questions were asked to same ‘Without the revitalisation of Fukushima, there interviewees over time. He then analysed how is no revitalisation of Japan’64 and ‘Don’t give up their opinions had evolved. The first survey was Fukushima!’, the authorities are setting priority conducted three months after the accident in June on the ‘normalisation’ of the Fukushima disaster 2011, the second six months after in September situation and urging the evacuees to return and 2011 and the third twelve months after in February reconstruct their lives. The majority of evacuees, 2012 (Imai, 2011a; 2011c; 2012a). The survey find- however, are still fearful about the risks of radia- ings show that the willingness to return decreases tion. One evacuee from Naraha town expressed with the passage of time and an increasingly real- his frustration: istic picture of the hometown situation (Figure 7). The government forced us to evacuate in the The evacuees who expressed their wish to return first place. Now it’s trying to force us to return in June 2011 represented 61.7%, whereas in the lat- without much information. When it comes est survey conducted in February 2012 this figure to the issue of return, I feel as if we will do it had dropped to only 36.1%. In addition, a clear di- at our own risk. We don’t know whether the vision of opinion was observed between the gen- erations under the age of fifty and the over-sixties (Figure 8). According to a resident survey con- 63 Minamisoma, Iitate, Tamura, Kawauchi and Naraha ducted by Naraha town in February 2012, the pro- have accepted the government’s proposal. Tomioka, portion of evacuees aged between twenty and fifty Okuma, Futaba, Namie, Katsurao and Kawamata have not yet made a decision. who expressed a willingness to return was around 34%, while more than half of those aged over sixty 64 Prime Minister’s speech at a press conference on 2 Sep- tember 2011 available in Japanese at: http://www.kantei. declared their wish to return (Takaki, 2012). In the go.jp/jp/noda/statement/2011/0902kaiken.html. same survey, over half of the respondents (56%)

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Figure 7. Changes in willingness to return Figure 8. Willingness to return according to age

0,0% 20,0% 40,0% 80,0% 100,0% 120,0% Total 3 months after Over 70s

60s

6 months after 50s

40s

12 months after 30s

20s

Wish to return Wish to return if possible 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Do not wish to return so much Do not wish to return Undecided Others Wish to Return Do not wish to return Do not know

Source: Akira Imai, The Third Resident Survery, 2012. Source: Naraha town’s resident survey in February 2012. stated that a decrease in the radiation level was a the early return of evacuees. They fear that if they condition of their return, with their second biggest accept the installation of an interim storage faci- concern being the rehabilitation of basic social in- lity, they will not be able to return to the commu- frastructure (29.7%). During our own interviews, nity given that highly irradiated soil will be stored evacuees also raised the issues of employment in the vicinity. prospects and the decontamination of their houses The field interviews clearly evidenced a situa- as conditions of their return. But the phrase that tion of ‘passing the buck’ between the central and we heard repeatedly in all the municipalities is: municipal governments on the issue of return. ‘people under sixty years old will probably not re- Municipal governments sometimes asked the cen- turn as they are afraid of the radiation effects on tral authority to make a decision on their return their children’. If this turns out to be the case, the to ensure that the final responsibility for assisting return of the evacuees aged over sixty will also their returning and for assuring the welfare of the pose enormous challenges. Several of those inter- returning communities would remain with the viewed raised the following question: ‘if there are central government. On the other hand, the cen- no shops open in town, no doctors and nurses in tral government insists that it is up to each munici- the clinics and no helpers in elderly homes, how pality whether or not to accept the plan for the re- can we return and rebuild our lives?’. The prospect organisation of the evacuation zone. In reality, the of return therefore remains uncertain and contin- municipalities and evacuees have had little choice ues to cause a great deal of psychological stress for but to accept the plan as no other alternatives are the evacuees. proposed by the government. As things stand, nei- ther the government nor the municipality have The government’s contradictory policies for forced evacuees to return and thus neither party is return ultimately responsible for the future of returnees. During the interviews, the municipal workers and evacuees from the towns hosting the nuclear Decontamination or contamination- power plants often expressed frustration at the transfer? contradictory policies proposed by the govern- Evacuees refer to the decontamination of their ment with regard to return. In March 2012, when community as a key condition for their return. the government proposed a reorganisation of the Yet, during our field survey, most of them were evacuation zones, it also put forward a plan to profoundly sceptical as to its effectiveness. Imai’s set up an interim storage facility for the contami- survey revealed that 80% of the evacuees were nated soil collected during the decontamination unconvinced by the results of the authorities’ operations around the two nuclear power plants decontamination operations since these are in Fukushima Prefecture. To this end, it officially proving much less efficient than initially expected requested the four hosting communities65 to accept (Imai, 2012a). The standard decontamination the plan. However, both the municipalities and the operation involves removing topsoil, cutting away evacuees criticised this plan as being at odds with undergrowth and pressure washing roof tiles and the government’s policy for decontamination and asphalt roads.66 In reality, the Fukushima evacuees

66 Source: Ministry of Environment (http://josen.env. 65 Futaba, Okuma, Tomioka and Naraha towns. go.jp/material/download/pdf/josen.pdf).

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and residents have discovered, using their own question whether it is useful for the government to Geiger counters, that if it rained or snowed after pursue its decontamination policy, which receives the operation, the radiation level went up again.67 a large slice of the reconstruction budget. The survey conducted in Fukushima City by the international NGO, Friends of the Earth, showed 4.5. Post-disaster challenges that, after a decontamination operation, the radia- tion level had decreased by only 6.7% on average This sub-section presents the major challenges at 1 m above the ground (Yamauchi, 2011). Another facing the evacuees, the residents of Fukushima problem is that the removed contaminated topsoil Prefecture, the affected municipalities, the govern- is put into plastic bags and stockpiled next to the ment and the Japanese population at large one site or inside the city limits, given that so far no year after the Fukushima accident. specialised storage facility has been designated to stock the contaminated soil satisfactorily. As long Discrimination towards the ‘contaminated’ as the removed soil is left on site, radiation levels Some evacuees that we interviewed complained in the area are not likely to decrease to any great that they had suffered from discrimination both extent. Furthermore, when roads and roofs are during their displacement and in their place of cleaned with water, the contaminated water ends refuge. In the early stages of the crisis, the evacuees up in the sewers or is absorbed into the surroun- from Fukushima Prefecture were considered as ding fields and remains radioactive. This means ‘contaminated’ by the rest of the population. They that the decontamination operation is merely often met with different forms of discrimination transferring radioactive materials from one place and, in some cases, were openly avoided by the to another. Once materials become contaminated, public. As Japanese vehicle number plates indicate their radioactivity cannot be eliminated simply the place of registration, evacuees who fled by by ‘cleansing’. One evacuee from Futaba town car were easily identifiable. A couple of evacuees expressed his frustration as follows: mentioned that the cars with a Fukushima number There are many farmers in our town. When plate were banned from using certain roads we return, if we cannot eat what we grow on our or entering certain localities. An evacuee from farms and we cannot drink the water because it Okuma town recounted one of her experiences: comes from the contaminated river, how are we When I evacuated to Prefecture going to live? [200 km west of the Fukushima Daiichi plant], I was really discriminated against… For example, Another evacuee also from Futaba town added: when I went to a public bath to take a shower, There are many radiation hot spots in individ- there was a hand-written notice saying ‘Entry ual houses as well. The authorities say ‘it’s safe prohibited to persons from Fukushima’. I was to live in your area because the radiation level is really shocked. Actually, I experienced the same OK but please don’t get close to the four corners thing even in Aizu region [the western part of of your house [where the rain water drops from Fukushima Prefecture; 100 km from the nuclear the gutter]’. When I actually went to my house station]. Although Aizu is part of Fukushima and measured the radiation level, I was shocked Prefecture, I saw a notice saying that the place to detect a very high radiation level around the is reserved for non-Fukushima people. Moreover, gutters and the corners of window frames. It is every time I parked my car in a supermarket car impossible to live in a house that has hot spots in park, when I came back to my car, there were no different places. cars parked around mine. In fact, because of my number plate, everybody could see that I came In addition, radioactivity is often concentrated from the area included in the evacuation zone. in the vegetation and soil of nearby hills, moun- So no one wanted to park their car close to mine. tains and river banks. Many evacuees remarked that decontaminating the mountains was an al- Some evacuees also mentioned that their chil- most impossible task. As the affected communi- dren were often bullied at school in the towns ties are often in a rural setting surrounded by hills where they had taken refuge: they are seen as ‘con- and mountains, the evacuees are highly sceptical taminated’ or called ‘Mr/Miss Fukushima’ by other about the effectiveness of the decontamination op- pupils. As the crippled nuclear power station and erations and the prospects of their eventual return. the Prefecture share the same name, ‘Fukushima’, In this context, some evacuees have started to the accident has been amalgamated with the Pre- fecture and the entire Fukushima region is now 67 Information obtained from the evacuees and the resi- viewed as ‘contaminated’ or ‘condemned’. The ad- dents of Fukushima City during our interviews. ditional traumatism of discrimination is one of the

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key aspects that differentiates the nuclear evacua- in Fukushima City, the prefecture’s capital city tion from the displacement caused by the tsunami. (Kainuma, 2011: pp.130-141). One evacuee from The widespread image of Fukushima as ‘contami- Futaba town recalls: nated’ and the self-image of nuclear evacuees as Thanks to the nuclear power station, our men irradiated and discriminated against will have a did not have to look for a job away from the lasting effect in the minds of the evacuees and the town. Everybody’s life improved and we became rest of the population. the richest in all Fukushima Prefecture. As a re- sult, no industry developed in the town except Nuclear-dependent communities agriculture. When the station was installed dur- When explaining the pre-accident context, the ing the 1970s, I was earning 52,000 yen (€520) municipal workers and evacuees from the towns per month at the agricultural cooperative. If that host the nuclear power plants often referred you worked with TEPCO during that period, you to the ‘special relationship’ they had enjoyed with earned 120,000 yen (€1,200), more than double the plant operator, TEPCO. They describe it as a your salary! relationship of ‘co-existence and mutual pros- perity’. The municipal officers from both Futaba But as the nuclear facility ages, it brings dimin- and Naraha towns confessed that it was difficult ishing financial revenues to the town70 (IIC, 2012: to criticise TEPCO even after the accident, as pp.329-330). Accustomed to a certain level of fis- they were only too aware of TEPCO’s substan- cal expenditure, these towns then begin to show tial contribution to the prosperity of their towns. budget deficits as the income from the nuclear fa- Hiroshi Kainuma explains, in his book entitled cility declines. For this reason, the municipalities Theory of Fukushima: How was the ‘Nuclear often ask the government to install more nuclear Village’ Formed?,68 the process whereby a town facilities in their town in order to offset the short- ends up becoming utterly dependent on the exis- fall. The report from the Independent Investiga- tence of a nuclear power plant for its economic tion Commission71 calls it the ‘nuclear addiction’ survival. Whenever a nuclear installation plan is of the host communities (IIC, 2012: p.330). During proposed, various upstream financial incentives one interview, a municipal employee of Futaba are generally offered by the government and the town murmured: nuclear operator so as to convince local residents TEPCO was good for us. Most of us benefited to support the plan. The sites targeted for these from them in one way or another. I want to de- nuclear facilities were often remote and sparsely nounce them on account of the accident, but I populated regions, largely impoverished and with also feel grateful to them for having given us a little industrial fabric. Traditionally, the men in prosperous life. It’s complicated. You know, be- such localities have to move to bigger towns and fore the accident, all the high school graduates cities to find employment, leaving their wives in Futaba town found jobs in town thanks to the and children behind. However, when a nuclear nuclear power plant. We had a privileged life. plant arrives and creates jobs for a hefty share During the interviews, many evacuees from of a town’s population69 and the local govern- these communities voiced concerns about their ment receives large amounts of tax and subsi- job prospects when they eventually return to their dies, the town’s economy flourishes and the hometowns. Since the government announced the presence of nuclear industry becomes indispen- decommissioning of the four damaged reactors in sable to the residents’ livelihoods. According to Fukushima Daiichi power plant, they are worried Kainuma, before the arrival of a nuclear facility, that they will not be able to return to their former these towns were among the poorest municipa- jobs or find any other employment, given that lities in Fukushima Prefecture. Yet, by 1977, six most of the local jobs were connected with the nu- years after the arrival of the Fukushima Daiichi clear industry. In addition to problem of radioac- nuclear power station, the residents from the two tive contamination, the uncertainty of job oppor- hosting towns were earning the highest salaries tunities further complicates the evacuees’ decision in the whole prefecture, even surpassing salaries to return.

68 Author’s translation from the Japanese title: Fukushima ron, genshiryoku mura ha naze umaretanoka? 69 From the interviews with the municipalities of Futaba 70 The revenue from a fixed property tax paid by the and Naraha. In addition to offering direct employment, nuclear plant operator to the host community dimin- TEPCO also generated a great deal of indirect employ- ishes every year due to the depreciation of assets. ment in these towns, such as restaurants for the plant 71 The independent investigation panel on the Fukushima workers and hotels for the technicians who came peri- accident set up by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Founda- odically to maintain the nuclear reactors. tion.

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Controversy on the health risks of low-dose normally from the 20 mSv annual dose78, this gives radiation exposure72 2.28 μSv/hour. Thus, the hourly dose limit fixed by On 19 April 2011, the Ministry of Education, the government for Fukushima school children is Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) 1.5 μSv higher than the average hourly rate of the set an interim reference radiation dose rate of 20 mSv/year threshold fixed by the same author- 1–20 mSv/year for schools in the Fukushima ity. Compared to school children in other parts of Prefecture, whereas the normal reference dose Japan, where the reference dose remains 1 mSv/ rate for public exposure to radiation73 remained year, the children in Fukushima are exposed to at 1 mSv/year in other parts of Japan (ICPR, the radiation level which is as much as 30 times 2007).74 Since taking this decision, the authorities higher.79 On 1 May 2011, Tokyo University Professor have been using the annual dose rate of 20 mSv Toshiso Kosako, a specialist on radiation safety, re- (which is the upper limit of the 1–20mSv interim signed his position as special advisor to the Cabinet dose rate) as the threshold value to mark out the in protest against this ‘3.8 μSv/hour’ and ’20 mSv/ evacuation zones and declare an area safe for year’ limit for children in Fukushima. He explained return (see section 4.4. Prospects of return). To in his resignation statement80 that ‘it is completely justify this choice, the Japanese government refers wrong to use this standard for schools’ and this to the ICRP’s recommendation on the reference limit must ‘be used in cases of exceptional or ur- dose rate for ‘existing radiation exposure condi- gent circumstances (for two to three days or one to tions’ including occupational exposure situations two weeks maximum)’, emphasising that ‘it is very and residual exposure situations after a nuclear rare even among the occupationally exposed per- accident, which should be limited to between 1 sons to be exposed to radiation of 20 mSv per year’. and 20 mSv/year.75 The field interviews with the He concluded by saying that he could not possibly Fukushima evacuees, residents and local NGOs accept that this dose level be applied to babies, suggest that there are three main controversies on infants and primary school pupils, not only from this governmental decision. his viewpoint as an academic but also on account First, the 20 mSv limit is not only applied to of his humanistic beliefs. Despite many criticisms adults but also to children, who are generally con- from both inside and outside Japan against this sidered to be more sensitive to radiation effects policy, the Japanese government has not yet re- than adults.76 According to the ICRP recommen- viewed its decision, and a radiation exposure dose dation, 1–20 mSv/year is also the reference dose of 20 mSv/year is still tolerated for the Fukushima for occupational radiation exposure applied to population including children, with no fixed time- workers at nuclear facilities or radiological depart- frame (as at September 2012). ments in hospitals (ICRP, 2007). This means that The second controversial issue involves the au- nuclear power plant workers and children in Fuku- thorities’ dissemination of information on the shima are placed under the same dose limit. Fur- health effects of radiation exposure. Since the thermore, MEXT established the threshold dose decision on a new reference radiation dose, the limit per hour for children to play in the school- authorities have started information campaigns yard at 3.8 μSv/hour.77 However, this dose limit designed to reassure the public rather than to alert was calculated from 20 mSv/year on the assump- them and raise their awareness of the radiation tion that children spend only eight hours outside risk. MEXT has issued a number of information per day. If the average hourly rate is calculated booklets on radiation intended for the general pub- lic and schools, in which it repeatedly emphasises 72 Low-dose radiation exposure means an exposure situa- that ‘a causal relationship between radiation expo- tion under the dose of 100 mSv. sure and developing cancer is not clearly proven 73 Here ‘radiation’ means artificial radiation excluding nat- under the accumulative exposure dose of 100 mSv’ ural background radiation. (see Box 3) and that ‘under the exposure dose of 74 Source: MEXT (http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hou- 100 mSv, the probability of developing a cancer dou/23/04/1305174.htm). is higher from other causes such as smoking or 75 http://www.irsn.fr/EN/Research/publications-docu- mentation/Scientific-books/Documents/CIPR_103.pdf. 76 Koide refers to the book, Radiation and Human Health, published in 1981 and written by the late John W. Gof- 78 20,000 μSv (20 mSv) / 24 hours / 365 days = 2.28 μSv/ man, who was Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell hour. Biology at University of California, Berkley. Citing this 79 The regular dose limit is around 0.11μSv/hour calculat- book, Koide mentions that ‘an infant under one year old ing on the basis of 1m Sv/year. has four times more sensitivity to radiation exposure 80 Cf. Professor Kosako’s statement of resignation at a press than an adult aged 20–30 ‘ (author’s translation). conference held in Tokyo on 29 April 2011 (http://www. 77 Source: MEXT (http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/sai- japanfocus.org/events/view/83). (in-text quotations gaijohou/syousai/1305173.htm). translated by Izumi Tanaka and the author).

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Box 3. ICRP guidelines (ICRP 2007) One week after the disaster, the Fukushima Prefecture invited Professor The health effects from radiation: ‘deterministic effects’ and from , appointing him as Ra- ‘stochastic effects’ diation Risk Management Advisor for Fukushima Deterministic effects occur once a threshold dose of exposure is exceeded, Prefecture. He has given talks on radiation risk generally following high radiation exposure events. These effects include in all major cities in Fukushima, reiterating that skin redness, cataracts, infertility and, in the worst cases, death. Stochastic there is absolutely no health risk from radiation effects such as cancer or heritable effects are caused by relatively low radia- tion doses. For exposure to a radiation dose of more than 100 mSv, there is a exposure under 100 mSv per year and that chil- 83 clear causal relationship established between the exposure dose and cancer dren can play outside without any problem. rate. But for exposure under 100 mSv, this causal relationship has not yet However, several months later he corrected this been scientifically proven conclusively. Notwithstanding, the ICRP recom- information stating that ‘it was rather 10 mSv/ mendation is based on a hypothesis that there is also a proportional relation- year, not 100 mSv/year, under which there is no ship between exposure doses and cancer rates even under 100 mSv exposure. health effect’.84 A similar message was dissemi- The reference level* for three different exposure situations nated by other prefectural authorities such as the (ICRP, 2007: p.102; Holm, 2007): Tokyo Metropolitan Government and public re- search institutions such as the National Institute Emergency Radiological emergency situations which Between 85 exposure require urgent action in order to avoid of Radiological Sciences. 20–100 mSv situations undesirable consequences. Thirdly, this reference dose concerns only ex- Occupational exposures in planned situations; ternal exposure to radiation and does not include Between Existing exposure natural background radiation (radon in the effects of internal exposure (Box 3). In its 2007 1–20 mSv situations dwellings); post-accident recovery situations recommendation, ICRP urges that, in the case of Planned exposure emergency exposure situations, an individual’s Under 1 mSv Public exposures in planned situations situations total exposure dose from different sources be * An acute dose or an annual accumulative dose. taken into account when developing radiation Two types of radiation exposure: ‘internal exposure’ and ‘external exposure’ protection measures (ICRP, 2007). People living External exposure is irradiation from external radioactive sources such as in Fukushima most likely consume local produce airborne radioactive materials. Internal exposure is irradiation from radioac- that could be contaminated by radioactive sub- tive sources inside the body such as ingested contaminated food and water. stances. The government policy, which focuses After the intake of radioactive materials into the body, the person is con- only on the air radiation dose and external expo- tinuously exposed to radiation until the radioactive source has completely sure, thus tends to overlook other exposure risks decayed, a process that can take many years. The above reference dose does and fails to fully address the radiation protection not include such internal exposure. needs of the concerned population. According to the field interviews, this situation occasioned a great deal of confusion and distress among the residents and evacuees of Fukushima insufficient consumption of vegetables’81 (MEXT, Prefecture, as they no longer knew whom or what 2011a: pp.10-12). In addition, a booklet issued on to trust concerning the risk related to radiation 24 June 2011 clearly states that ‘there is almost no exposure. Furthermore, such circumstance cre- possibility of developing thyroid cancer due to the ated divisions and tensions among the affected recent Fukushima accident’. It concludes by saying population depending on the individual opinion that ‘the psychological stress caused by the anxiety and perception of the radiation risk, as explored of “being irradiated” has more harmful effects to below. health than radiation exposure itself and that this stress causes many health troubles’.82 These book- lets do refer to the hypothesis underpinning the 83 Author’s translations. Lecture on Radiation Risk organ- ICRP recommendation for radiation protection: ised by Fukushima City Council on 21 March 2011, available the probability of developing a cancer is propor- in Japanese at: http://wwwcms.pref.fukushima.jp/pcp_ tional to the dosage exposed, even under 100 mSv portal/PortalServlet?DISPLAY_ID=DIRECT&NEXT_ (ICRP, 2007). However, this message is only very DISPLAY_ID=U000004&CONTENTS_ID=23695 briefly mentioned, usually in one sentence, and 84 Ibid. the focus is more on reassuring the public that 85 The official statement concerning the ‘safe- under-100 mSv’ level is quoted in many Twitter messages there is little cancer risk for exposure to radiation and on Internet blog sites (For example, http://blog. doses of under 100 mSv. livedoor.jp/wisteriabook/archives/3289454.html), but today it is untraceable on the websites of those institu- tions consulted at the time of the writing (September 2012). The author assumes that the pages were simply 81 Author’s translation. erased or made inaccessible by the institutions after they 82 Author’s translations. received criticisms from members of the public.

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The plight of Fukushima residents – In this context, the residents in the Nada-dori the phenomenon of ‘self-evacuees’ region, fearing the radiation effects, started to In order to fully understand the grave social evacuate from their homes to other parts of Ja- consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, pan without any government assistance.89 Many of we must look at the situation in the Naka-dori these self-evacuees were mothers with small chil- region of Fukushima. Fukushima Prefecture dren90 who had either financial means or family comprises three regions (Maps 2 and 6): Hama- connections outside Fukushima. Moreover, those dori on the coast, most of whose territory was with Internet knowledge and thus able to obtain designated as evacuation zones, Naka-dori in information other than the official announcement the middle, the political and economic centre made by the government and Fukushima Prefec- of the Prefecture, and Aizu located inland to the ture were among the first to flee. Meanwhile, oth- west. In the Hama-dori region, many residents ers, due to financial or family reasons were obliged were forced to evacuate on the government’s to remain in Fukushima, living with high levels orders, whereas the residents in the Naka-dori of anxiety about the radiation risk. To cope with region were reassured by the authorities that it these fears, many of them are trying to convince were safe to stay despite the elevated radiation themselves that they can trust the authorities’ as- dose, which in some places was as high as that surance that it is safe for them and their children of the official evacuation zones. For example, the to live in Fukushima as long as the radiation dose Onami and Watari districts of Fukushima City does not exceed 20 mSv/year.91 As a result, these have spots where radiation doses of 3.87 μSv/ ‘stayers’ started to criticise self-evacuees as well hour and 10.36 μSv/hour were detected by the as other residents who remain sceptical of the of- residents and an NGO (Yamauchi, 2011).86 On 16 ficial reassurances, labelling them as cowardly and June 2011, the government began to designate selfish. As one self-evacuee from Koriyama City the areas identified as having a radiation dose explained: of more than 20 mSv/year (or 3.0 μSv/hour)87 The words, ‘radiation’ and ‘evacuation’, have as Specific Spots Recommended for Evacuation become a taboo in Naka-dori region. Voluntary (Specific Spots), and decided to provide finan- evacuation is considered as an escape from the cial assistance for the evacuation of the resi- hardship that the community is trying to over- dents involved. However, these districts were not come collectively and thus labelled as an act of finally designated as Specific Spots as the autho- betrayal… Mothers who oblige their children to rities’ own readings showed a radiation dose wear masks all the time or to refuse the lunch under the threshold level. Moreover, in May 2011, served at school cafeteria [as schools in Fuku- MEXT disclosed information on the level of soil shima purchase local produce to cook lunch] in contamination in Fukushima Prefecture, which order to protect their children from internal ex- indicated that the amount of cesium-137 detected posure, are often considered by other mothers as in the soil of Fukushima City and other cities in paranoid and annoying. In this situation, many the Naka-dori region was more than 550 kBq/ mothers have become depressive and developed m2 (kilobecquerels per square metre) (Kawata, other psychological conditions, as their level of 2011). This level equals the threshold contami- anxiety and the pressures from society are be- nation level for the Strict Radiation Control Area coming too high. where residents were temporarily resettled after This is a tragic situation for both self-evacuees the Chernobyl accident, fixed by the radioprotec- and the residents who stay on. Self-evacuees often tion regime of the former Soviet authorities at the time.88 89 In December 2011, the government decided to provide compensation for self-evacuees from the selected 23 86 The newspaper, Mainichi Shimbun, ‘Higashinihon cities located mainly in the Naka-dori region of Fuku- daishinsai: fukushima daiichi genpatsujiko onami dis- shima. However, the scheme targeted only those who trict, menteki josen ha isshin ittai jisshi ichinen senryou self-evacuated between 11 March and 31 December 2011, saijousou no basyo mo’ (author’s translation: One year and was a one-off payment of 80,000 yen (€800) for an from whole-area decontamination operation - radiation adult and 400,000 yen (€4,000) for a child or a preg- dose increased in some places), 17 October 2012. nant woman. 87 The threshold hourly radiation dose required for an area 90 In culturally traditional regions such as Fukushima Pre- to be designated as a Specific Spot changes depending fecture, it is mainly the mothers who take care of the on the municipality, as does the method of calculating children and generally stay at home as housewives. It is the hourly dose from the 20 mSv/year threshold value. thus easier for them to flee with the children while their The 3.0 μSv/hour is the threshold dose adapted by Date husbands stay on and continue to work in Fukushima in City, Fukushima (http://www.City.date.fukushima.jp/ order to financially support such evacuation. profile/k-kaiken/pdf/h23/20111125-shiryo01.pdf). 91 From the interviews with the residents and self-evacu- 88 Kawata, 2011. ees from the Naka-dori region of Fukushima.

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Map 6. Radiation contour map of the affected region

8 μSv/h and more 4 μSv/h and more 2 μSv/h and more 1 μSv/h and more 0.5 μSv/h and more 0.25 μSv/h and more 0.125 μSv/h and more

*μSv/h (microsievert per hour)

Sendai

Naka-Dori Fukushima

Hama - Dori Aizu

Koriyama

Iwate

Tokyo ()

Source: map created by Professor Yukio Hayakawa*, 11 September 2011. Professor Yukio Hayakawa is a geologist at Gunma University (http://kipuka.blog70.fc2.com).

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feel isolated and abandoned in their place of ref- willing to return’ (disloyal). Fukushima university uge, as their relationship with their hometown has professor Akira Imai, author of the three afore- been cut off; they have lost friends and sometimes mentioned evacuee surveys, asserts that forcing their husbands if these opposed voluntary evacu- the evacuees to choose between ‘return’ and ‘no re- ation and decided to stay in Fukushima. The re- turn’ should be avoided (as a policy) because this search team also learnt that self-evacuees often transforms a situation of ‘not being able to return’ evacuated during the night without telling any- into one of ‘not wanting to return’ thus leaving body in order to avoid uncomfortable encounters those who are anxious about the radiation risk and with neighbours and friends. Once they evacuate, reluctant to return to condemnation exposed to it is difficult for them to return as they are stigma- judgement from the rest of the community (Imai, tised by the community. For those who stay, the 2012b). Thus, whereas previously individuals had situation is no easier. In particular, mothers who had no choice but to evacuate and this common are worried about the radiation effects on their plight had given them a sense of unity, the choice children but do not have a choice of voluntary of return is now dividing communities, stigmatis- evacuation are experiencing significant psycho- ing those reluctant to return and causing further logical distress. The resident survey conducted trauma to the evacuee communities. in May 2012 by Fukushima City found that 34% Moreover, tension has also arisen between evac- of the residents still wished to evacuate from the uee communities and host communities within City, with 89% of these respondents saying that Fukushima Prefecture. Iwaki City, situated 30–40 they were worried about the future health of their km south of the crippled nuclear station, for ex- children.92 Over a long run, this situation will have ample, hosts the highest number of evacuees devastating consequences for the welfare of the (23,00093) from the evacuation zone due to its population in the Naka-dori region. Yet, neither geographical proximity. The interviews with the Fukushima Prefecture nor the government has evacuees and Iwaki residents revealed friction be- set up any concrete programme to assist the self- tween the evacuee community and the city’s resi- evacuees and the ‘stayers’, thus leaving a deeply dents. This is mainly caused by the government’s divided and broken community. different treatment for the affected population. During the first six months following the accident, Divided communities and families the northern part of Iwaki City was included in The nuclear accident is creating many rifts and the recommended evacuation zone and thus many tensions in Fukushima’s affected communi- residents, including those who were living outside ties. One of the main causes of these divisions of the designated zone, evacuated with or without stems from the government’s decision to raise government assistance. In addition, the city’s agri- the radiation dose reference level for Fukushima culture and tourism industries have been hard hit from 1 mSv/year to 1–20 mSv/year, as well as by radioactive contamination from the accident. its emphasis that radiation exposures of up to Life has become difficult for the residents but, 20 mSv/year, and in some cases up to an accumu- despite this hardship, they do not receive much lative dose of 100 mSv, have little effect on health. financial compensation or assistance from the gov- This policy of reassurance, rather than precaution, ernment because the city has not been included has created an atmosphere where those who chal- in any evacuation zone since October 2011 and lenge the official notion of safety are viewed as they perceive this situation as unfair. On the other anti-establishment, disturbing the harmony of the hand, the evacuees from the evacuation zone who community, and egoistic, jeopardising the commu- took refuge in the city receive various types of nity’s joint effort to overcome hardship. compensation from the government. As an Iwaki The main divisive issue for the evacuees is that resident explains: of return. Those who openly express unwillingness These evacuees who receive a lot of money to return are often regarded as selfish and disloyal from the government act like the ‘new rich’ buy- to the community to which they belong. This has ing all the goods in a shop and always eating at thus become a taboo subject among the evacu- restaurants. They don’t work and spend all day ees, as revealing one’s preference implies that the in a gambling house wasting the compensation person concerned is likely to be pigeonholed into money. Plus, there are many car accidents in the one of two boxes: ‘willing to return’ (loyal) or ‘not city because they are villagers and do not know how to drive in a city.

92 The newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, ‘Ima demo hinan shitai, fukushima shimin no 34%: shi tyousa’ (Author’s transla- 93 Source: Iwaki City council. (http://www.city.iwaki. tion: 34% of residents in Fukushima City currently wish fukushima.jp/info/dbps_data/_material_/info/zhi- to evacuate, the City’s survey found), 17 September 2012. gai20120912.pdf)

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This situation is further isolating the evacuee 5. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS community from the host community and adding OF THE TSUNAMI EVACUATION more stress to their displacement. Furthermore, residents from the Naka-dori re- AND THE NUCLEAR EVACUATION gion in the Fukushima Prefecture are divided on From the field interviews, we found that the the issue of evacuation. The interviews with self- pattern and consequences of the two evacuations, evacuees and the Naka-dori residents found that one caused by the tsunami and the other by the those who self-evacuated are seen as ‘the privi- nuclear accident, were markedly different. In leged’ or ‘the escapees’ within the community particular, the evacuation process, the authori- and they thus often feel isolated and abandoned. ties’ disaster response, the prospect of return and On the contrary, those who stay, mostly for eco- the challenges facing the evacuees one year after nomic reasons,94 are frequently envious of those the disaster are significantly dissimilar, though who evacuate and often feel deprived and mar- both displacements were induced by the same ginalised. Moreover, this division or tension does combined disaster. This section attempts to iden- not stop at the community level: it also penetrates tify the specific features of the two evacuations family relationships. Differing perceptions of ra- through a comparative analysis. Table 5 illustrates diation risk are causing tensions within families the main elements of these differences. or couples both among self-evacuees and stayers. Firstly, as regards the reasons for evacuating, The recent survey conducted by the Fukushima evacuation from a natural disaster is ultimately City found that 62% of self-evacuees are living ‘voluntary’ while nuclear evacuation can be com- apart from other family members and 71% of them pulsory or ‘voluntary’ depending on one’s loca- answered that they had no prospect of going back tion – in other words, depending on whether an to live together.95 The field interviews also found individual evacuates from within or from outside that the majority of self-evacuees are mothers with the official evacuation zone. Certainly, evacu- children, whose husbands have stayed behind in ation from a tsunami is not strictly voluntary in- Fukushima. The main reason for this separation is sofar as a person flees because his or her life is at the husband’s employment. In order to meet the risk. By the same token, the self-evacuees from costs of voluntary evacuation, husbands often Fukushima decided to evacuate because they felt stay behind in Fukushima to continue working. their lives and those of their children were under A few self-evacuees also pointed to a difference threat. Nevertheless, the distinction between vol- of opinion between husband and wife as a reason untary and compulsory evacuation impacts the na- for separation. In their view, in the traditional ture of post-disaster financial assistance that the communities of Fukushima, the husband and his displaced receive from the state: financial aid on parents tend to give credence to the authorities’ compassionate grounds for the tsunami evacuees, reassurances on the radiation risk, whereas the financial compensation for the nuclear evacuees wife tends to worry about the radiation effect on from the evacuation zones and little assistance for their children. These wives are sometimes treat- the self-evacuees. ed as cowardly and naive by their husbands and One of the specific characteristics of the nuclear parents-in-law. Frustrated by their husbands’ in- evacuation is that the displaced have tended to action, some mothers decide to evacuate on their flee further and are now dispersed throughout the own, taking the children to their maternal grand- country, while tsunami evacuees are most often parents’ house if this is located outside Fukushima displaced within the town or the same prefecture. Prefecture. Equally, among the stayer families, the The main reason for this is that as nuclear evacu- wife becomes disillusioned with her husband due ation is induced by the risk of radiation, distance to different opinions on radiation risk and fissures is an important way for evacuees to protect them- appear in their relationship. Communities and selves and feel safe. For example, half of the inter- families in Fukushima are thus suffering from rifts viewed population of Futaba town is currently dis- and weakening community ties that will take long placed outside Fukushima Prefecture.96 Another time to heal. distinct characteristic of the nuclear evacuation is that evacuees were displaced many times com- pared to the tsunami evacuation. Our field inter- views show that nuclear evacuees changed their 94 The survey conducted among the self-evacuees and resi- place of refuge four or five times on average before dents in the Fukushima Prefecture by two NGOs, Friends of Earth Japan and Fukuro-no-kai, in September-Octo- settling into temporary shelters. In contrast, tsu- ber 2011 revealed that residents stayed in Fukushima mainly for economic or job-related reasons. 96 Source: Futaba town (http://www.town.futaba.fukush- 95 Asahi Shimbun, 17 September 2012, op.cit. ima.jp/hinan.html/). (in Japanese)

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Table 5. Comparative analysis of the two evacuations As for psychological stress, both categories Tsunami Nuclear Accident of evacuees are currently deeply anxious about (Natural Disaster) (Industrial/Man-Made their uncertain future, but the trauma of the nu- Disaster) clear evacuees appears to be persisting over the Nature of ‘Voluntary’ Imposed/’Voluntary’ longer term. The tsunami evacuees experienced Evacuation acute psychological stress immediately after the Place of Refuge Within the City or within Outside of the City and disaster, having suffered the sudden loss of fam- the Prefecture often the Prefecture, ily members, friends, and homes. However, the scattered all over Japan trauma caused by this loss could subside with Frequency of 2–3 times 4–5 times or more time. Nuclear evacuees, on the other hand, are Displacement suffering from a psychological stress that seems to Psychological Acute stress Stress of not knowing its Stress immediately after and own future lingers over be increasing with time. The authorities provide progressively less with a long term, increment them with scant information about their future time with time and whether they will eventually be able to return Main Target of Municipal government Central government, to their towns or homes, which means that they Complaints TEPCO are unable to take the next step in rebuilding their lives. They feel blocked in permanent uncertainty Challenges Resettlement of the Issue of return, and this psychological imprisonment is taking a population, population decontamination, loss, building back community survival, loss toll on their health and well-being over time. better of identity There is also a difference between the two evac- Reconstruction Concentrate on Not yet reached this uations with respect to the target of the evacu- infrastructure stage ees’ complaints. In the case of natural disasters, it is hard to lay the blame for psychological pain Resettlement/ Safety of the population Highly politicised, Return is main concern, collective choices on a specific party. To vent their frustration, the individual choices tsunami survivors thus tend to criticise their lo- cal municipal office for its shortcomings as it was Transparency of High Low the main actor in the disaster management. On Information the contrary, the Fukushima nuclear disaster was Decision-Making Democratic Top-Down caused by human error as well as by a natural dis- on Return aster and the nuclear victims have well-defined interlocutors for their complaints – TEPCO, the nami evacuees changed their place of refuge two operator of the nuclear power plant, and the gov- or three times on average. Many of the tsunami ernment. The handling of the Fukushima accident evacuees first evacuated to hilltops to avoid the by TEPCO and the authorities is severely criticised tsunami, then moved quickly to emergency evacu- not only by the evacuees but also by the public at ation centres such as schools and finally settled in large. In Imai’s survey (Imai, 2011a), 86% of the temporary shelters three to six months later. The evacuees said that they were not satisfied with the NAIIC report (NAIIC, 2012) also confirmed the re- government’s disaster response and 83% were dis- sult of our study and found that 70% of the nuclear satisfied with TEPCO. evacuees were displaced at least four times. One The current challenges facing evacuees are also of the main causes of this phenomenon is that the quite dissimilar. For the tsunami evacuees, the evacuation zone was expanded over time by the prime concerns are resettlement and the rebuild- authorities, thus obliging the already displaced ing of their houses and lives. Nuclear evacuees, population to flee further away each time. Over a however, are still a long way from the reconstruc- three-month period starting on 11 March 2011, the tion phase as they are not even sure where they authorities (Fukushima Prefecture and the gov- will live in the near future. Their concerns are fo- ernment) issued a total of eight evacuation orders cused on the issue of return, decontamination and and recommendations. Another reason for this compensation from the government. They are un- repeated displacement is that, at the time the nu- able to make plans for the future and suffer from clear evacuees fled, they were not informed of the the loss of their previous life and identity. severity of the accident or the radiation risk level. Finally, the issue of resettlement/return reveals As a result, they initially sheltered in locations another marked difference between the tsunami close to their hometown and later evacuated fur- evacuation and the nuclear evacuation. First of ther afield once they learnt more about the status all, the resettlement of the tsunami evacuees is or- of the accident and the radiation leak. This repeat- ganised on a purely voluntary basis and individual ed flight inflicted both psychological and physical choice is fully respected by both the authorities distress on the nuclear evacuees. and the community. Resettling in a safe place is

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the primary concern for the evacuees and the local as tsunami barriers constructed along the coast authority. Should they decide to settle elsewhere, indeed saved many lives. Yet, in some instances, this does not put their loyalty to the community these preparations in fact created an excessive de- or their courage in overcoming hardship into ques- gree of reassurance among the local population, tion. The only obstacles faced for the resettlement who came to believe that they were immune to of these evacuees are of a financial and adminis- the risk of tsunamis and thus underestimated the trative nature. For the nuclear evacuees, on the threat during the actual disaster. In other cases, other hand, the question of return involves com- previous tsunami experiences had instilled a fixed pletely different stakes. First, the issue is highly idea about tsunami risk in people’s minds, which politicised: the authorities including the govern- led them to misjudge both the need to evacuate ment, the prefectural government and several af- and the timing. In other words, the risk percep- fected municipalities have been encouraging these tion shaped by disaster preparations and previous evacuees to return. The municipalities, in par- experience did not always lessen the population’s ticular, have emphasised that the choice to return vulnerability in the wake of extreme disasters such must be made on a collective basis as the town’s as the 2011 Japanese tsunami. In addition, one of very existence is at stake. Priority is thus placed the most serious shortcomings revealed by the on the cohesiveness of the community rather than catastrophe was the lack of preparedness regard- on individual choices. One of government officials ing the evacuation of the elderly and persons with interviewed during our research repeated that ‘we reduced mobility. Given that Japan is facing the will not abandon Fukushima’. The authorities’ em- growing demographic challenge of an aging popu- phasis on the region’s recovery and their determi- lation, future disaster plans need to urgently ad- nation to ‘normalise’ the Fukushima disaster situ- dress this issue. ation have had many serious consequences for the The Fukushima nuclear accident, on the other residents and the evacuees. hand, has revealed the total unpreparedness of the This official stance on the question of return Japanese authorities and the local population. The has also impacted the transparency of the infor- evacuation of the population by the local authori- mation communicated on the level of radioactive ties amounted to chaotic improvisation and the contamination, the effect of radiation on human population was forced to evacuate with no infor- health and the effectiveness of decontamination mation as to the gravity of the situation or the risk operations, all of which are key issues condition- of radiation. Furthermore, the authorities did not ing the nuclear evacuees’ decision whether or not promptly or fully communicate information on ra- to return. While the majority of these evacuees dioactive contamination and health risks from ra- are hesitant about going back due to the lack of diation exposure to the concerned population. The information, the decision to return has often been choice of return tends to be a foregone conclusion made by the municipal offices without any thor- decided on more or less unilaterally by the author- ough discussion or consultation with the evacu- ities without much consultation with evacuees ees. Thus, when it comes to resettlement/return, and municipalities, and the collective choice for a democratic decision-making process is wanting return is encouraged at the expense of individual in the case of nuclear evacuees in a contrast to the choices and safety concerns. The displaced popu- case of the tsunami evacuees. lation thus remains at a loss with little prospect for the future. Moreover, the way in which the disas- ter has been handled by the authorities has creat- 6. CONCLUSIONS ed profound divisions and tensions in the affected communities. The nuclear disaster has triggered The triple disaster that hit Tohoku on 11 March a major social disaster in which communities re- 2011 is the most serious crisis that Japan has had to main divided regarding both the perceived radia- face since the end of the Second World War. Some tion risk and the issue of return. The population refer to the disaster as the second largest defeat has lost trust in public authorities as well as among that Japan has experienced after its 1945 defeat. In themselves, which is threatening the social cohe- many ways, the disaster has served as a revelation sion and the sense of solidarity that previously ex- as well as a reality check for the democratic, pros- isted within these communities. perous, safe society that the country has aspired to What we have also seen in the case of the nu- build over the last sixty-six years. clear accident, in contrast to the tsunami case, is Our field study confirmed the assumption that that the likelihood of an accident was purposely Japan had intensively prepared itself against understated by the government and the plant op- tsunami disasters. The disaster drills conducted erator, creating the myth that their nuclear power prior to the disaster and countermeasures such plants were almost failsafe. In the quasi absence

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of a realistic perception of risk, the municipalities accident. It suggests that no country is immune to and population in the vicinity of the nuclear power the risk of extreme disasters and that the basic as- plants were extremely vulnerable and insufficient- sumptions and disaster scenarios used to design ly prepared for a severe accident and evacuation. disaster prevention measures should be thoroughly The disaster demonstrated, especially concern- revisited, particularly in the current context of cli- ing the exploitation of SPEEDI data, that Japan’s mate change. Moreover, the post-disaster manage- advanced technology and financial capabilities ment of the Japanese authorities, particularly re- served little purpose when it came to improving garding the Fukushima nuclear accident, revealed disaster preparedness and response, as there was many shortcomings in terms of transparency of a lack of political will to use them effectively. information and democratic decision-makings vis- Japan is one of the world’s largest economies, à-vis the affected population. This confirms our hy- best known for its highly advanced technologies. pothesis that democracies do not always respond The experience of the 11 March triple disaster has better to disasters, especially a nuclear one. The shown that even a country with such economic and repercussions of the Japanese disaster thus go well technological resources could not fully mitigate beyond the national borders and other democra- the effects of the disaster or avoid a serious nuclear cies can learn many relevant lessons. ❚

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REFERENCES Asahi Shimbun Special Reporting Unit (2012), 2012, available in Japanese at: http://www5a.biglobe. Purometeusu no wana: akasarenakatta fukushima ne.jp/~tkonno/FK-News18-2.pdf genpatsu jiko no shinjitsu (author’s translation: The Trap Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima of Prometheus: The Truth about the Fukushima Disaster), Nuclear Accident (IIC) (2012), Research Investigation . Gakken, Tokyo Report, Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, Tokyo, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2012), Hisaisya- available in Japanese at: http://rebuildjpn.org/ shien ni kansuru kakusyu seido no gaiyou (higashi-nihon fukushima/report/ daishinsai hen) (author’s translation: Summary of Various International Commission for Radiologic Protection (ICRP) Assistance Schemes for the Affected Population from (2007), The 2007 Recommendations of the International the Great East Japan Disaster), 30 June 2012, available Commission on Radiological Protection, ICRP Publication in Japanese at: http://www.bousai.go.jp/fukkou/ 103, (French translation by the Institut de radioprotection kakusyuseido.pdf et de sûrté nucléaire (IRSN), Editions TEC&DOC, June Cabinet Secretariat (2012), Genshiryoku hisaisya-shien 2009). ni kansuru kakusyu seido no gaiyou (author’s translation: Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Summary of Various Assistance Schemes for the Affected Nuclear Power Stations of Tokyo Electric Power Company Population from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident), 26 (ICANPS) (2011), Interim Report, 26 December 2011, March 2012, available in Japanese at: http://www.meti. available at: http://icanps.go.jp/eng/interim-report.html go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/pdf/institution.pdf Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Fire and Disaster Mangement Agency, Ministry Nuclear Power Stations of Tokyo Electric Power Company of Internal Affairs and Communication (2011), (ICANPS) (2012), Final Report, 23 July 2012, available at: Higashinihondaishinsai ni okeru bousaigyoseimusentou http://icanps.go.jp/eng/final-report.html niyoru jouhoudentatsu nit suite (author’s translation: Transmission of disaster alerts via radios in the Great Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) (2011a), Tohoku East Japan earthquake and tsunami), 29 September chiho taiheiyouoki jishin ni taisuru tsunami keihou 2011, availabile in Japanese at: http://www.bousai. happyou keika to kadai (author’s translation: The process go.jp/3oukyutaisaku/higashinihon_kentoukai/4/ and challenges of issuing tsunami warnings for the syoubou1.pdf earthquake that hit the Tohoku region off the Pacific coast), 13 June 2011, available in Japanese at: http:// Funabashi, Y. and K. Kitazawa (2012), “Fukushima in www.bousai.go.jp/jishin/chubou/higashinihon/2/1.pdf review: A complex disaster, a disastrous response”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68(2): 9–21, 5 March 2012. Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) (2011b), Saigaiji jishin tsunami sokuhou (author’s translation: Report on the Holm, L.E. (2007), “ICRP’s 2007 Recommendations on earthquake and tsunami alert in disasters “2011 Tohoku off Radiological Protection”, a presentation given by the the Pacific Coast Earthquake), 17 August 2011, available in Chairman of ICRP, at the EU conference held in Berlin, Japanese at: http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/kishou/books/ Germany, on 19 June 2007, available at: http://www. saigaiji/saigaiji_201101/saigaiji_201101.pdf bmu.de/fileadmin/bmu-import/files/pdfs/allgemein/ application/pdf/icrp_konf2007_vortrag_holm.pdf Kainuma, H. (2011), “Fukushima” ron genshiryoku mura ha naze umaretanoka (author’s translation: The Theory Imai, A. (2011a), “Genpatsu saigai hinansya no jittai of Fukushima: How was the Nuclear Village formed?), chousa (ichi-ji)” (author’s translation: The First Survey of Seidosya, Tokyo. Nuclear Evacuees), The Japan Research Institute for Local Government Monthly, Vol. 393, July 2011. Kawata, T. (2011), “Dojou osen mondai to sono taiou” (author’s translation: The radioactive soil contamination Imai, A. (2011b), “Higashinihondaishinsai to and its management), a presentation given by a research

Jichitaiseisaku: Genpatsusaigai eno taio wo chushin ni” fellow of Nuclear Waste Management Organisation of (author’s translation: The Great East Japan Earthquake Japan (NUMO), at the 16th Atomic Energy Commission and Local Government Policy: Response to the Nuclear meeting held on 11 May 2011, available in Japanese at: Public Policy Studies Association Japan Disaster), , November http://www.aec.go.jp/jicst/NC/iinkai/teirei/siryo2011/ 2011. siryo16/siryo2.pdf Imai, A. (2011c), “Genpatsu saigai hinansya no jittai Koide, H. (2012), Genpatsu no uso (author’s translation: chousa (ni-ji)” (author’s translation: The Second Survey of The Lie of Nuclear Power), Fusosha, Tokyo. Nuclear Evacuees), The Japan Research Institute for Local Government Monthly, Vol. 398, December 2011. Magnan, A. (2010), “For a better understanding of adaptive capacity to climate change: a research framework”, Studies Imai, A. (2012a), “Genpatsu saigai hinansya no jittai No.02/10 May 2010, IDDRI-Sciences Po, Paris. chousa (san-ji)” (author’s translation: The Third Survey of Nuclear Evacuees), The Japan Research Institute for Local Matsuoka, S. (2012), “Fukushima Nuclear Accident and Government Monthly, Vol. 402, April 2012. Japan’s Nuclear Safety Regulation”, Asia Pacific Research, No.18, March 2012 (in Japanese) Imai, A. (2012b), “Shinsai-taiken kara kangaeru jichiseido no kadai: jichitaikan renkei kara karino machi made” Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science (author’s translation: Challenges to the local governance and Technology (MEXT) (2011a), Guide on system from the disaster experience), a presentation given Radiation for School Teachers, 24 June 2011, at the 16th Fukushima Reconstruction Forum on 25 July available in Japanese at: http://www.mext.go.jp/

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component/a_menu/other/detail/__icsFiles/ Tanba, F. (2011), Futaba 8-chouson saigai fukkou jittai afieldfile/2011/06/24/1305089_0624_1.pdf tyousa: kiso syukei houkokusyo (author’s translation: Survey on Disaster Reconstruction for the eight Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and municipalities of Futaba-gun), Fukushima Daigaku Technology (MEXT) (2011b), Guide on Radiation for High Saigaifukko Kenkyujo (author’s translation: Fukushima School Teachers, October 2011, available in Japanese at: University Disaster Reconstruction Institute). http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/ja/contents/1000/131/29 /111104koutougakkou_kyoushi_kaisetsu.pdf United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Japan – Earthquake & Mori, N, Takahashi T. and The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami, Situation Report No.11, OCHA, 22 March 2011, Tsunami Joint Survey Group (2012), “Nationwide Post available at: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/ Event Survey and Analysis of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake resources/D6CB9E6B403C3FB0C125785B00450E36- Tsunami”, Coastal Engineering Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1, Full_Report.pdf pp. 1250001-1–1250001-27, World Scientific Publishing Company and Japan Society of Civil Engineers, available Yamauchi, T. (2011), Housyanou osen reberu tyousa at: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/ kekka houkokusyo: watari-chiiki ni okeru josen no genkai S0578563412500015 (Author’s translation: Radioactive contamination survey report: the limit of decontamination results in Watari National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident district, Fukushima City), a survey commissioned by the Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC), The Friends of Earth Japan (NGO) and Fukurou no kai (NGO), Official Report of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident 20 September 2011 Independent Investigation Commission, NAIIC, July 2012, available at: http://warp.da.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/ Yeoh, G. (2012), Lessons Learned: The 2011 Disasters pid/3856371/naiic.go.jp/en/report/index.html In Tohoku, Japan, Give2Asia, March 2012, available at: http://give2asia.org/tohoku-lessonslearned Takaki, R. (2012), Shinsaigo ni okeru Naraha machi choumin no genzai no seikatsu to syourai ni kansuru ishiki tyousa (Author’s translation: Opinion Survey of Naraha Evacuees on Life and Future after the Disaster), a survey commissioned by the Naraha Town, Iwaki Meisei University, February 2012.

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APPENDICES 4. Prospect of Return and Current Challenges Appendix 1: Questionnaire for 4.1 How would you describe your current situation? evacuees (tsunami and nuclear) 4.2 Do you have family members who live apart following the disaster? QUESTIONNAIRE (Evacuee) 4.3 Do you wish to return to where you were living before? 1. Basic Information 4.4 What are the conditions for your return? Date & Time of the Interview: 4.5 Have you returned to your home even Gender & Age Group of the Interviewee: temporarily? Place of Interview: 4.6 What was your (family’s) occupation prior to Type of Shelter: the disaster? 1.1 Where were you living prior to the disaster? 4.7 Are you currently back at your previous job? 1.2 Was your house situated within a special zone, 4.8 If not, do you have any prospect of returning to such as the tsunami inundation zone? your previous job? 1.3 When did you start living in your current 4.9 If not, do you have any prospect of finding a shelter? new job? 4.10 What kind of assistance do you receive from 2. Evacuation Process your municipal government? 2.1 Where were you when the earthquake 4.11 What kind of assistance do you receive from occurred? the central government/TEPCO? 2.2 On the basis of what information, did you de- 4.12 Do you have opportunities to communicate cide to flee? with other evacuees from the same community or 2.3 When did you actually evacuate from your other communities? Is there any subject you tend home/office? to avoid when speaking with them? 2.4 Please tell us about your evacuation itinerary. 4.13 Do you have opportunities to communicate Where did you flee to first and how many times with inhabitants of the hosting community? Is did you change shelter? there any subject that you tend to avoid when you 2.5 Did you know about the evacuation order issued speak with them? by the central government/local government? 4.14 Have your children become used to the life 2.6 What was your first thought when you heard and the school in the place of your temporary the evacuation order? resettlement? 2.7 What do you think about the disaster response 4.15 What were the most difficult issues when you of the municipal government? decided to evacuate? 2.8 What do you think about the disaster response 4.16 What things have you appreciated most since of the central government? you evacuated? 2.9 What do you think about the evacuation order 4.17 What do you think about the volunteers and issued by the authorities? their activities? 4.18 What do you think about the media coverage 3. Perception of Risk of the disaster? 3.1 Prior to the disaster, what was your perception 4.19 What are the most pressing issues for you? of the risk of earthquake and tsunami? 4.20 What lessons have been learned from the 3.2 What about now (after the disaster)? disaster? 3.3 Were you aware of the tsunami risk after the earthquake hit? 3.4 Prior to the disaster, what was your perception of risk with respect to the nuclear power plant? 3.5 What about now? 3.6 What was the source of information on which you based your perception of risk prior to the disaster? 3.7 Were there any disaster drills organised prior to the disaster? By whom? Have you ever taken part in such drills?

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Appendix 2: Questionnaire for 4 Current Challenges and Impacts self-evacuees (only nuclear) 4.1 How would you describe your current situation? 4.2 Do you currently have a job? QUESTIONNAIRE (Self-Evacuee) 4.3 What was your (family’s) occupation prior to the disaster? 1 Basic Information 4.4 Do you have family members who live apart Date & Time of the Interview: following the disaster? Gender & Age Group of the Interviewee: 4.5 Do you wish to return where you were living Place of Refuge/Resettlement: before? Type of Shelter: 4.6 What are the conditions for your return? 1.1 Where were you living prior to the disaster? 4.7 Have you returned to your home even 1.2 When did you start living in your current temporarily? shelter? 4.8 What do you think about the disaster response taken by the municipality and the prefectural 2. Evacuation Process government? 2.1 Where were you when the earthquake 4.9 What do you think about the disaster response occurred? taken by the central government and TEPCO? 2.2 How did you decide to evacuate? Please tell me 4.10 Do you have opportunities to communicate about your decision-making process. with other self-evacuees or the evacuees from the 2.3 From the moment that you decided to evacu- evacuation zone? Is there any subject you tend to ate, how long did it take for you to actually do so? avoid when speaking with them? 2.4 How did you decide on the place of refuge/re- 4.11 Do you still have a contact with friends and settlement? What was the main reason? neighbours in your city/town? 2.5 Was the cost of evacuation financed by others? 4.12 Do you have opportunities to communicate Or paid for entirely by yourself? with the inhabitants of the hosting community? 2.6 What was the reaction of your relatives, Is there any subject that you tend to avoid in the friends and neighbours regarding your decision to conversation? evacuate? 4.13 Did you experience any culture shock in the 2.7 What was the reaction of your children? city of resettlement compared with your city/town 2.8 What were the most difficult issues when you of origin? decided to evacuate? 4.14 Have your children become used to the life 2.9 What were the things that helped you the most and the school in the place of your temporary with respect to the evacuation? resettlement? 2.10 What information would have been useful 4.15 What things have you appreciated most since when you had decided to evacuate? you evacuated? 2.11 Did you receive any assistance from the local 4.16 What were the most difficult moments since government of your town/city with respect to your you took refuge? evacuation? 4.17 Have any civil organisations/NGOs assisted 2.12 Did you receive any assistance from the host- you? ing local government of your resettlement/refuge? 4.18 What are the most pressing issues at the 2.13 What do you think about the evacuation zone moment? declared by the government? 4.19 What do you think about the media coverage of the disaster? 3 Perception of Risk 4.20 What lessons have been learned from the 3.1 Prior to the disaster, what was your perception disaster? of the risk of earthquake and tsunami? 3.2 What about now (after the disaster)? 3.3 Prior to the disaster, what was your perception of risk with respect to the nuclear power plant? 3.4 What about now? 3.5 What was the source of information on which you based your perception of risk prior to the disaster?

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Appendix 3: Questionnaire 3.13 Did you make any special arrangement for the for municipalities elderly at these centres? 3.14 How was the distribution of food and non- QUESTIONNAIRE (Municipality) food items and the hygiene/waste management 1. Basic Information organised? Name of City/Town: 3.15 How often was the monitoring/assessment of Date & Time of the Interview: the living conditions of centres carried out? Title of the Interviewee: 3.16 How often was the monitoring/assessment of Cause of Evacuation: physical and psychological health of the evacuees Population Before the Disaster carried out? Population After the Disaster 3.17 Are there any lessons learned from the man- Of which, number of evacuees inside agement of evacuation centres? the city Evacuation of Vulnerable Groups Of which, number of evacuees outside 3.18 How was the evacuation organised for the the city vulnerable groups such as the elderly and persons Total Number of Evacuees with disabilities? Number of Prefabricated Housing Units 3.19 Are there any lessons learned from the evacu- ation of vulnerable groups? 2. Disaster Prevention and Management Response to Offers of Assistance 2.1 Please tell us about the disaster preparation 3.20 How did your municipality respond to various and contingency planning established prior to the offers of assistance from all over Japan and disaster. abroad? Was there any coordination mechanism Earthquake established within the municipality? Tsunami 3.21 What was the most valuable assistance, in Nuclear Accident terms of materials and services, and what was the 2.2 How did (or did not) this preparation function most troublesome offer? during the actual disaster? Designation of Uninhabitable Zones (for tsunami- 2.3 What were the most important obstacles/caus- affected municipalities) es of the malfunctioning? 3.22 Were uninabitable zones designated after the disaster? 3. Evacuation Process 3.23 What is the compensation scheme for those Evacuation Order whose houses are included in the zone? 3.1 When and how was the evacuation order 3.24 Are there any other zones that prohibit house issued? construction? 3.2 How was it disseminated among the In General population? 3.25 What are the lessons learned regarding the 3.3 Are there any lessons learned regarding the evacuation from this disaster? evacuation order? 3.26 What are the most pressing issues regarding 3.4 Are there any lessons learned regarding the the evacuees at the moment? dissemination of evacuation orders? 3.5 As for the emergency evacuation points, how 4. Relationship with Central Government, Pre- were they designated prior to the disaster? fectural Government and TEPCO (if applicable) 3.6 Are there any lessons learned regarding the 4.1 As for the evacuation order, when and what emergency evacuation points? kind of information did you receive from Central Evacuation Route Government/Prefectural Government/TEPCO? 3.7 As for the evacuation route, how was it desig- 4.2 Amidst the confusion, were there any conflict- nated prior to the disaster? ing orders/information regarding the evacuation? 3.8 Are there any lessons learned regarding the 4.3 From this experience, what would you ask evacuation route? them to improve for the future disasters? Evacuation Centre 4.4 As for the designation of evacuation zones, 3.9 As for evacuation centres, were there any what would you ask them to improve? changes from the contingency plan? 4.5 What financial/personnel/material assistance 3.10 Please tell us about the development of evacu- is provided by Central Government/Prefectural ation centres (from schools to prefabs). Government/TEPCO? 3.11 Who managed the evacuation centres? 4.6 How is this assistance used for the municipality? 3.12 What was the most challenging task in manag- 4.7 Regarding assistance, what would you ask ing these centres? them to improve?

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4.8 Are there any lessons learned in dealing with 6.5 What do you think the conditions for these Central Government/Prefectural Government/ companies to restart their activity/business will TEPCO? be? 6.6 hat are the prospects for the return and re- 5. Perception of Risk starting of businesses? 5.1 Prior to the disaster, what was your perception 6.7 What kind of incentives/strategies do you of the risk of earthquake and tsunami? have to encourage them to return and resume 5.2 What about now? (after the disaster) their activities? 5.3 Were the previous tsunami experiences incor- 6.8 Concerning evacuation centres, it seems that porated in the disaster preparation and evacu- some functioned very well in terms of relations ation exercise? Were these experiences widely among the evacuees, and some did not. Did you shared among the population? observe the similar situation in your town? 5.4 Prior to the disaster, what was your percep- 6.9 What do you think was the cause/reason? tion of the risk with respect to the nuclear power 6.10 Were there any problems in disseminating in- plant? formation to the former communes that had pre- 5.5 What about now? (after the disaster) viously been incorporated into the City? 6.11 What do you think about the media coverage 6. Current Challenges and Impacts of the of the disaster? Disaster 6.12 How do you think the municipality responded 6.1 What are the prospects for the return of the to the offer of assistance (materials and services) evacuees/population? from all over Japan and abroad? 6.2 What do you think the conditions for the re- 6.13 What did you appreciate most in disaster turn of evacuees will be? response? 6.3 What kind of incentives/strategies do you 6.14 What was the most surprising thing that you have to encourage their return? encountered in the disaster response? 6.4 How many companies and shops have stopped 6.15 What are the lessons learned from this their activity/business after the disaster? disaster?

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Appendix 4: List of meetings and seminars attended during the field research Date Meeting Organiser (Place) Place Speaker Title/Organisation 27 May The 4th Talk- Talk Association for Tokyo Self-Evacuee from Ootama Evacuated to Kanagawa Fukushima Fukushima Evacuee village (Fukushima) Prefecture Mothers & Children in Member of Kaachan’s (NGO in Kanto City)

2 Jun Symposium ‘To protect Association to consider Tokyo Mr Nobuyuki ABE Member of CRMS/Fukushima children from radiation’ child rearing since 3.11 Kodomo (NGOs in Fukushima City) Self-Evacuee from Evacuated to City Koriyama City (Fukushima)

Mr Ryuhei KAWATA Member of the House of Councillors 6 Jun Closed consultation Hiroyuki Yoshino, Member Kyoto Evacuees from Residents of Yamashina meeting of Kodomo Fukushima Iwaki City (3) public-sector apartments (NGO in Fukushima City) Minamisoma City(2) (used by evacuees from Fukushima City (1) Fukushima) Naraha town (1)

Mr Shinichiro ISHIHARA Elected member of the Fukushima prefectural assembly from Koriyama City 7 Jun Closed consultation Hiroyuki Yoshino, Member Kyoto Evacuees from Fukushima Member of Fucco Salon meeting of Kodomo Fukushima City (5) Nagomi, created by NGO (NGO in Fukushima City) Koriyama City (2) Hibiscus Iwaki City (2) Namie town (1) Kawamata City (1) Minamisoma City (1), Unknown (1) Mr Shinichiro ISHIHARA Elected member of the Fukushima prefectural assembly from Koriyama City

52 STUDY 05/2013 IDDRI Disaster Evacuation from Japan’s 2011 Tsunami Disaster and the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

Appendix 5: Map of nuclear power plants in Japan

Source: Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre (http://www.cnic.jp/english/cnic/index.html).

IDDRI STUDY 05/2013 53 Disaster Evacuation from Japan’s 2011 Tsunami Disaster and the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Reiko Hasegawa (IDDRI)

m A. Rudinger, « L’impact de la décision m A. Magnan, “Two key concepts of post-Fukushima sur le tournant the society-climate change interface: énergétique allemand », IDDRI, vulnerability and adaptation”, Working Papers N°05/12. IDDRI, Policy Briefs N°02/10. m F. Gemenne, P. Brücker, D. Ionesco, m A. Magnan, “For a better “The State of Environmental understanding of adaptive capacity Migration 2011”, IDDRI-OIM, to climate change: a research Studies. framework”, IDDRI, Studies N°02/10. m F. Gemenne, P. Brücker, « Migrations

IDDRI’S PUBLICATIONS et déplacements de populations m A. Magnan, « La vulnérabilité dans un monde à +4°C - Scénarios des territoires littoraux au d’évolution et options politiques », changement climatique : mise IDDRI, Policy Briefs 04/12. au point conceptuelle et facteurs d’influence », IDDRI, Studies m F. Gemenne, “Migration, a possible N°01/09. adaptation strategy?”, IDDRI, Policy Briefs N°03/10.

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he Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) is a Paris based non-profit policy research institute. Its objective is to develop and share key knowledge and tools for analysing and shedding light on the strategic issues of sustainable development from a global perspective. TGiven the rising stakes of the issues posed by climate change and biodiversity loss, IDDRI provides stakeholders with input for their reflection on global governance, and also participates in work on reframing development pathways. A special effort has been made to develop a partnership network with emerging countries to better understand and share various perspectives on sustainable development issues and governance. For more effective action, IDDRI operates with a network of partners from the private sector, academia, civil society and the public sector, not only in France and Europe but also internationally. As an independent policy research institute, IDDRI mobilises resources and expertise to disseminate the most relevant scientific ideas and research ahead of negotiations and decision-making processes. It applies a crosscutting approach to its work, which focuses on five threads: global governance, climate change, biodiversity, urban fabric, and agriculture. IDDRI issues a range of own publications. With its Working Papers collection, it quickly circulates texts which are the responsibility of their authors; Policy Briefs summarize the ideas of scientific debates or issues under discussion in international forums and examine controversies; Studies go deeper into a specific topic. IDDRI also develops scientific and editorial partnerships: among others, A Planet for Life. Sustainable Development in Action is the result of collaboration with the French Development Agency (AFD) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), and editorial partnership with Armand Colin for its French edition, Regards sur la Terre.

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