Image Source: Kna Blog.
It has been nearly three years since the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster. Some 19,000 people died due to the earthquake and tsunami; short- and long-term casualties from the nuclear fallout are unknown. Those most exposed, of course, are the workers at the site. In November 2013, nuclear critics claimed that several clean-up workers have died but their deaths are not reported, or are not counted if they die while they are away from the plant. Even the famous first responders - the Fukushima 50 - remain unknown and unheralded. In 2013, the BBC spent weeks tracking down one of the first responders, who spoke about that first response team on condition of anonymity:
"The person who sent us back didn't give us any explanation," he says. "It felt like we were being sent on a death mission."
I put it to him that what he and his colleagues did was heroic, that they should feel proud. He shakes his head, a slightly anguished look on his face.
"Ever since the disaster, I haven't had a day when I felt good about myself," he says.
"Even when I'm out with friends, it's impossible to feel happy. When people talk about Fukushima, I feel that I am responsible."
For an outsider, such a reaction is quite hard to fathom. For help, I turn to psychiatrist Dr Jun Shigemura at Japan's national defense university. He is one of two doctors who have studied the Fukushima workers.
His research suggests that half of those who fought the reactor meltdowns are suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms.
"The workers have been through multiple stresses," Dr Shigemura says.
"They experienced the plant explosions, the tsunami and perhaps radiation exposure. They are also victims of the disaster because they live in the area and have lost homes and family members. And the last thing is the discrimination."
Yes, discrimination. Not only are the workers not being celebrated, they are facing active hostility from some members of the public.
"The workers have tried to rent apartments," says Dr Shigemura. "But landlords turn them down, some have had plastic bottles thrown at them, some have had papers pinned on their apartment door saying 'Get out Tepco'."
Image Source: Kna Blog.
Beneath contaminated cherry trees (April 2011). Image Source: Telegraph.
Nearly half of Fukushima's plant workers live at a converted soccer complex called J-Village, located near Naraha, Fukushima, Japan. In 2011, there was some media interest in J-Village and several outlets, including Reuters, Der Spiegel and the Wall Street Journal, reported on conditions there. From the WSJ (11 November 2011):
J-Village has 12 soccer fields, which are now used as helipads, storage for heavy equipment, parking lots, a place to decontaminate cars, and another to decontaminate helicopters. There are 400 staff, including a doctor and two nurses. The medical center used to be the sports medical center of the Japan Football Association. Every day, up to 3,300 workers pass through J-Village to go to the stricken complex.
One soccer stadium has been converted into dorms for employees of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator, known as Tepco. There are 1,000 rooms in prefabricated, two-story buildings built on the field, surrounded by rows of empty blue bleachers. In nearby prefabricated buildings, there’s a cafeteria and a laundry for workers.
In a white tent, workers change into protective hazmat suits before going to the plant. Workers line up cafeteria style to take gloves, booties, suits, and surgical masks. Another room is full of boxes of gas mask-style face masks. Workers are also given personal radiation measuring devices, which are checked at the end of the shift for total radiation exposure.
In another room, covered in pink plastic sheets, returning workers take off their protective clothing. Workers are scanned for radiation by a machine called a “gate monitor,” which is similar to the new body-imaging devices used in airport security. Discarded protective clothing is treated as radioactive waste, and stored at a covered soccer practice field. ...
TEPCO's gallery of photos relating to J-Village is here. The workers, according to HuffPo, include local farmers whose land is no longer arable due to the disaster.A roofed astroturf soccer practice field has been converted for use as a WBC, or “whole body counter,” a facility for monitoring internal radiation exposure for workers. On the field are two large, white tents. Inside one is a row of cubicle-like white machines with seats. A guide from Tepco demonstrated how to sit in the seat, press a green button, and wait as an LCD screen shows a 60-second countdown, while the machine scans for gamma rays. At the end, it gives the result.
"A man ... is checked for radiation after
arriving at a vehicle decontamination centre at J-Village, a soccer
training complex now serving as an operation base for those battling
Japan's nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s
tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima
prefecture, November 11, 2011, eight months after the disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
"Workers in protective clothing and masks enter a
radiation screening post after arriving at J-Village, a soccer training
complex now serving as an operation base for those battling Japan's
nuclear disaster, near TEPCO's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima prefecture, November 11, 2011, eight
months after the disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
"Workers remove their protective clothing at a
radiation screening post after arriving at J-Village, a soccer training
complex now serving as an operation base for those battling Japan's
nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s
tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima
prefecture November 11, 2011, eight months after the disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
"A worker (L) steps from a radiation screening
machine after removing and discarding his protective suit as he arrives
at J-Village, a soccer training complex now serving as an operation base
for those battling Japan's nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power
Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in
Fukushima prefecture, November 11, 2011, eight months after the
disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
"A worker steps out from a radiation screening
machine after removing and discarding his protective suit as he arrives
at J-Village, a soccer training complex now serving as an operation base
for those battling Japan's nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power
Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in
Fukushima prefecture November 11, 2011, eight months after the disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
"Two workers are directed through a radiation
screening centre inside a gymnasium after returning to J-Village, a
soccer training complex now serving as an operation base for those
battling Japan's nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power Co.
(TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in
Fukushima prefecture, November 11, 2011, eight months after the
disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
"Workers walk by after receiving radiation
screening as they return to J-Village, a soccer training complex now
serving as an operation base for those battling Japan's nuclear
disaster, near TEPCO's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power
Plant in Fukushima prefecture, November 11, 2011, eight months after the
disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
"Workers eat soup at the end of their workday
after returning to J-Village, a soccer training complex now serving as
an operation base for those battling Japan's nuclear disaster, near
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima prefecture, November 11, 2011, eight
months after the disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
"A worker carries his belongings as he walks
among the temporary housing structures erected for workers at J-Village,
a soccer training complex now serving as an operation base for those
battling Japan's nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power Co.
(TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in
Fukushima prefecture November 11, 2011, eight months after the disaster." Image Source: Reuters.
Image Source: Kna Blog.
Fukushima workers with dog (2011). Image Source: FukuLeaks.
More recently, this fairly businesslike picture has given way to reports of organized crime drafting unemployed, indebted and homeless people into the Fukushima clean-up workforce. The homeless have been rounded up off the streets, especially from the Sanya neighborhood of Tokyo, as well as subway platforms; they were also collected from Kamagasaki in Osaka and bussed to the nuclear plant site. The workers come from all over Japan, even as far as Okinawa, which is 2,000 kilometres away.
Tomohiko Suzuki, an investigative journalist, worked undercover at Fukushima in 2011 and published a book on the experience: The Yakuza and the Nuclear Industry. This book reached the attention of the outside press in 2012. The blog Japan Safety quoted RT on the matter:
There is talk of poor working conditions for unskilled, poorly paid workers, who are initially offered a lot of money but then receive much less. They also lack proper health insurance. The Telegraph reported in February 2012:Homeless men employed cleaning up the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, including those brought in by Japan’s yakuza gangsters, were not aware of the health risks they were taking and say their bosses treated them like "disposable people." ... “They were given very general information about radiation and most were not even given radiation meters,” Tomohiko Suzuki told RT. “They could have exposed themselves to large doses without even knowing it. Even the so-called Fukushima 50 – the first group of workers sent there immediately after the disaster – at least three of them were recruited by the yakuza.”
When Suzuki was working in the plant in August, he had to wear a full-body radiation protective suit and a gas mask that covered his entire face. The hot summer temperatures and the lack of breathability in the suits ensured that almost every day a worker would keel over with heat exhaustion and be carried out ... . Going to the bathroom was virtually impossible, so workers were simply told to “hold it”. According to Suzuki, the temperature monitors in the plant weren’t even working, and were ignored. Removing the mask during work was against the rules; no matter how thirsty workers became, they could not drink water. After an hour fixing pipes and doing other work, Suzuki says his body felt like it was enveloped in flames ... anyone complaining of the working conditions or fatigue would be fired. Few took their allotted rest breaks.
Those who reported feeling unwell were treated by Tepco doctors, nearly always with what Suzuki says was essentially cold medicine. The risk of radiation exposure was 100 per cent. The masks, if their filters were cleaned regularly, which they were not, could only remove 60 per cent of the radioactive particles in the air. Anonymous workers claimed that the filters themselves were ill-fitting; if they accidentally bumped their masks, radiation could easily get in. The workers’ dosimeter badges, meanwhile, used to measure an individual’s exposure to radiation, could be easily manipulated to give false readings. According to Suzuki, tricks like pinning a badge on backwards, or putting it in your sock, were commonplace. Regular workers were given dosimeters which would sound an alarm when radiation exceeded safe levels, but it made such a racket that, says Suzuki, “people just turned them off or over and kept working.”
RT November 2013 report. Video Source: Youtube.
"A man walks among temporary housing structures erected for workers at
J-Village, a football training complex now serving as an operation base
for those battling Japan's nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power
Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in
Fukushima prefecture in this September 21, 2013 file photograph." Image Source: Reuters via The Berhad Star.
Despite the occasional slap on the wrist, a 25 October 2013 special report from Malaysia's The Star Online confirmed that the trend continued with even deeper worker distress:
Tetsuya Hayashi went to Fukushima to take a job at ground zero of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. He lasted less than two weeks.
Hayashi, 41, says he was recruited for a job monitoring the radiation exposure of workers leaving the plant in the summer of 2012. Instead, when he turned up for work, he was handed off through a web of contractors and assigned, to his surprise, to one of Fukushima's hottest radiation zones.
He was told he would have to wear an oxygen tank and a double-layer protective suit. Even then, his handlers told him, the radiation would be so high it could burn through his annual exposure limit in just under an hour.
"I felt cheated and entrapped," Hayashi said. "I had not agreed to any of this."
When Hayashi took his grievances to a firm on the next rung up the ladder of Fukushima contractors, he says he was fired. He filed a complaint but has not received any response from labour regulators for more than a year. All the eight companies involved, including embattled plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co, declined to comment or could not be reached for comment on his case.
Out of work, Hayashi found a second job at Fukushima, this time building a concrete base for tanks to hold spent fuel rods. His new employer skimmed almost a third of his wages - about $1,500 (£925) a month - and paid him the rest in cash in brown paper envelopes, he says. Reuters reviewed documents related to Hayashi's complaint, including pay envelopes and bank statements.
Hayashi's hard times are not unusual in the estimated $150-billion effort to dismantle the Fukushima reactors and clean up the neighbouring areas, a Reuters examination found.
[T]here’s plenty of money to be made in the estimated $150-billion cleanup effort. As [journalist David] McNeill put it: “There’s an enormous amount of money being scattered around.” The resulting network of contractors and subcontractors is labyrinthine, making it almost impossible to track the taxpayer dollars siphoned into the cleanup. Reuters counted 733 companies performing work for the Ministry of Environment in the 10 most contaminated towns and nearby highway.
But it appears that very little of that money ends up in the hands of the people on the ground. Hiroyuku Watanabe, a councilman in Iwaki, a city near Fukushima where many laborers find lodgings, said some earn as little as $60 a day. ...
“The training didn’t teach us the dangers of handling radiation, so there were some people who worked with their bare hands,” he said. “They would contaminate not only themselves, but would spread particles to others.”
Subcontracted workers endured worse conditions than those directly hired by TEPCO, Tanaka said. For example, TEPCO employees received charcoal filters, while workers at his subcontracting company only got dust filters, like those you’d buy at a convenience store.
“TEPCO is God,” Tanaka said. “The main contractors are kings, and we are slaves.” ...
“The government says it will pay $100 a day, but I initially got $20,” said Sato, a worker who was lured to Fukushima by the government’s promise of extra cash. “The contractors and subcontractors took the remaining $80.” ...
When Sato complained, he was told his contract had changed, and that he now owed money for food and lodging. He later found out that the president of his contracting company was a former leader of the Fukushima branch of a right-wing group.
Because the sub-contractors skim workers' wages, the workers find ways to hide their radiation exposure so they can keep working. Many barely understand the dangers they face. TEPCO has also refused help from nuclear specialists who are retired and are willing to come back to work to assist. HuffPo:Sato was lucky. Others who complain and quit like him have faced violent retribution.
“I’ve had workers tell me that they’ve been beat up and been told, ‘I’ll kill you,’” said Katsura. “Threatened with, ‘You know what will happen to you.’”
Our meeting with one of the “liquidators” of Fukushima’s power plant takes place in a discreet location, out of sight. Talking to journalists is risky, and the man's nervous employers could use it as a pretext to fire him.
“It’s the same thing for workplace accidents — there’s a collective solidarity,” he says. “If it isn’t too serious, we hide them to avoid problems with the social insurance.” ...
“The quality of work is mediocre because the management asks us to work fast, but the guys aren’t experienced enough,” explains the supervisor of a radioactivity inspection company, in charge of about 50 workers. “Sometimes they don’t even know the names of the tools. The teams often change. There’s a mandatory rotation because workers who have received the maximum radiation exposure must leave the zone. But others leave prematurely because they think they're not paid enough. If we don’t manage to form a qualified and trustworthy team quickly, we won’t be able to work fast and efficiently. We even lack qualified team supervisors.” ...
The least qualified workers do not benefit from sufficient protection, and their wages are “drained” by the intermediaries through which they are recruited. In the end, they only earn 6,000 yens (45 euros) per day. “Discussions with the workers reveal the discontentment and the latent anxiety of those who are the most exposed,” Watanabe explains. “Some try to cheat with the cumulative radiation exposure limit in order to be able to work as long as possible.” They hide the device used to measure their contamination in a less-contaminated place to decrease the level of radiation accumulated during the day.
Some companies would like to reduce the exposure limits, “but the workers refuse because they want to be able to work. At the same time, they are bitter because they’re being ignored by the rest of the country. Tokyo is indifferent to their fate,” [Hiroyuki Watanabe, a communist Iwaki city counselor explains] ... . In J-Village, words of encouragement sent by high school students the country over are displayed on walls. ...
Some of the liquidators live in houses rented out by owners who no longer want to live there. They can only be seen at dusk and dawn when they get on and off the [J-Village] minibuses. The dismantling of the nuclear plant will probably take 40 years and will require many thousands such “drudges,” invisible and vulnerable.According to reports, the workers face a higher risk of thyroid cancer. The UN has determined that TEPCO has underestimated the degree of worker exposure, particularly from 2011. Morale has plummeted as workers have started to show health problems; recently, six men were doused with contaminated water:
Commenting on the leak, the head of Japan’s nuclear regulator, Shunichi Tanaka, told reporters: “Mistakes are often linked to morale. People usually don’t make silly, careless mistakes when they’re motivated and working in a positive environment. The lack of it, I think, may be related to the recent problems.”
A 42-year-old contract worker, who asked not be named, confirmed that alcohol abuse had become a problem among workers. “Lots of men I know drink heavily in the evening and come to work with the shakes the next day. I know of several who worked with hangovers during the summer and collapsed with heatstroke.”
“Tepco workers worry about their health, but also about whether Tepco will take care of them if they fall ill in the future. They put their lives and their health on the line, but in the years to come, they wonder if they will just be discarded.”
"Inside the Fukushima Daiichi plant, a makeshift sleeping area for onsite workers." Image Source: Global Research.
The workers' struggle doesn't have to be a thankless task; we owe them a lot. For the third anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, a campaign has circulated across several blogs which encourages people to write to the Fukushima plant workers. The initiative began on a French blog, Kna Blog, where you can find a full letter text addressed to the workers in many languages, including Japanese. Relevant links are here, here and here. I have abridged the Kna Blog text in English and Japanese with Google Translate. It might be very clumsy Japanese, but it makes a simple point. I have double-checked the address at Tepco's website, here and here. You can also cut and paste the message into J-Village's online contact form, here.
Address:
〒979-0513福島県双葉郡楢葉町大字山田岡字美シ森8番Jヴィレッジ内
福島復興公社
福島第一原発の作業員の皆様へ
To: Fukushima Revitalization Headquarters at J-Village
8, Utsukushi-mori, Yamada-oka aza
Naraha-machi oaza, Futaba-gun
979-0513, Fukushima
Japan
Message abridged from the Kna Blog post:
福島原発で働く皆さんへ
原発が最も悲惨な状況に陥った時に対応した皆さん。
ますます悪化する状況に日々立ち向かい続けている方々。
今後長い年月、前任者に代わって働くことになる方々。
そして、皆さんの愛する人や、家族へ。
感謝と友情のメッセージです。
日々福島第一原発の放射能危機を制御するために多大な任務をこなされているすべての無名
の作業員の皆様、ありがとうございます。
To everyone working in the Fukushima nuclear power plant,
The first to intervene at the most terrible moments of the nuclear disaster
Those who day after day are up against an ever worsening situation.
Those who will have to replace them for many years to come.
To their families and loved ones,
This is a message of gratitude and sympathy.
Thank you to all these people whose name will never get mentioned but who contribute each day to the colossal task of keeping the radioactive peril at the Fukushima plant in check.
See all my posts on Nuclear topics.
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