Although I was only five years old at the time, to this day, I vividly remember how the news about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant put the Japanese community on edge. My mother, in particular, was deeply concerned for our family’s safety when grocery shopping. Our Japanese-styled diet made it inevitable to intake food imported from Japan, but she took many precautions to ensure our safety. First of all, she carefully checked the production area of all food products, avoiding those made in Fukushima for a while. She even contacted various food industries to inquire about the gap between production and expiration dates to stock up on items produced before the disaster. Additionally, since some Japanese products sold in the U.S. used encrypted expiration dates, she reached out to companies to decode these symbols. Although the level of concern varied by family, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant incident caused immense anxiety in Japanese communities worldwide.
Although the tragedy caused immense harm to the environment and human health, I was still surprised that the very first thing we saw on the tour at the TEPCO Decommissioning Archive Center was a video of a sincere apology for the accident. The incident occurred more than a decade ago when most of us were children unaware of what was happening around us. We lived on the other side of the globe. The company made many efforts to minimize the damage, and most workers that were there on the day of the tour may or may not have been responsible for the accident. Even so, they explicitly acknowledged their former “overconfidence” regarding safety and deeply apologized for their oversight. Seeing the powerful Tokyo Electric Power Company offer such a thorough apology struck a chord with me. It conveyed, almost painfully, their continuous and tremendous effort to learn from their errors.
The tour was highly educational, providing a wealth of scientific explanations about the causes of the damage, supplemented by visual displays of the decommissioning efforts. Before entering the Daiichi nuclear power plant site, each individual was given a protective vest and a radiation monitoring device that displayed the total amount of radioactive exposure accumulated during the visit. This exposure was extremely low, around 0.2 microsieverts, equivalent to only 1-2 dental X-rays, ensuring our safety. Additionally, they showed us detailed measurements of the chemical compounds in the ALPS-treated and diluted water they began releasing into the sea last year. The numerical levels of the elements clearly indicated that the cesium and strontium levels were significantly reduced to safe levels. Furthermore, the willingness to be honest about the underlying roots of the accident and their responsibilities were admirable. They were clear about the significant population loss of the nearby towns like Okuma from 11,000 to 700 people as well as the possible solutions they could have taken to prevent the accident. The amount of effort TEPCO puts into proving its commitment to building a brighter future in harmony with the community and the environment is absolutely impressive.
