Lawsuit filed on Japan tsunami anniversary
Source: Agencies |
March 12, 2013, Tuesday
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JAPAN marked the second anniversary of a devastating earthquake and tsunami yesterday that left nearly 19,000 people dead or missing and more than 300,000 people still displaced.
At memorial observances in Tokyo and in barren towns along the northeastern coast, those gathered bowed their heads in a moment of silence marking the moment, at 2:46pm on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake - the strongest recorded in Japan's history - struck off the coast.
"I pray that the peaceful lives of those affected can resume as soon as possible," Emperor Akihito said at a somber service at Tokyo's National Theater.
Japan has struggled to clean up radiation from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, whose reactors melted down after its cooling systems were disabled by the tsunami, and rebuild lost communities along the coast. About half of those displaced are evacuees from areas near the nuclear plant. Hundreds of them filed a lawsuit yesterday demanding compensation for their suffering and losses.
Throughout the disaster zone, the tens of thousands of survivors living in temporary housing are impatient to get resettled, a process that could take up to a decade, officials say.
In Fukushima prefecture, some 160,000 evacuees are uncertain if they will ever be able to return to their abandoned homes around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
The lawsuit was filed by a group of 800 people in Fukushima against the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co, the utility that operates the now-closed Fukushima plant. It demands an apology payment of 50,000 yen (US$625) a month for each victim until all radiation from the accident is wiped out, a process that could take decades.
Evacuees are anxious to return home but worried about the potential, still uncertain risks from exposure to the radiation from the disaster, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.
While there have been no clear cases of cancer linked to radiation from the plant, the upheaval in people's lives, uncertainty about the future and long-term health concerns, especially for children, have taken an immense psychological toll on thousands of residents.
In Kawauchi, one of many towns with varying degrees of access restrictions due to radiation, village chief Yuko Endo is pinning his hopes on the success of a long decontamination process that may or may not enable hundreds of residents to return home.
Much of the area is off-limits, though some restrictions gradually are being lifted as workers remove debris and wipe down roofs by hand.
Many residents might give up on returning if they are kept waiting too long, he said. "If I were told to wait for two more years, I might explode," said Endo, who is determined to revive his town of empty houses and overgrown fields. "After spending a huge amount of money, with the vegetable patches all cleaned up and ready for farming, we may end up with nobody willing to return."
A change of government late last year has raised hopes that authorities might move more quickly with the cleanup and reconstruction.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to raise the long-term reconstruction budget to 25 trillion yen (US$262 billion) from 19 trillion yen.
At memorial observances in Tokyo and in barren towns along the northeastern coast, those gathered bowed their heads in a moment of silence marking the moment, at 2:46pm on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake - the strongest recorded in Japan's history - struck off the coast.
"I pray that the peaceful lives of those affected can resume as soon as possible," Emperor Akihito said at a somber service at Tokyo's National Theater.
Japan has struggled to clean up radiation from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, whose reactors melted down after its cooling systems were disabled by the tsunami, and rebuild lost communities along the coast. About half of those displaced are evacuees from areas near the nuclear plant. Hundreds of them filed a lawsuit yesterday demanding compensation for their suffering and losses.
Throughout the disaster zone, the tens of thousands of survivors living in temporary housing are impatient to get resettled, a process that could take up to a decade, officials say.
In Fukushima prefecture, some 160,000 evacuees are uncertain if they will ever be able to return to their abandoned homes around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
The lawsuit was filed by a group of 800 people in Fukushima against the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co, the utility that operates the now-closed Fukushima plant. It demands an apology payment of 50,000 yen (US$625) a month for each victim until all radiation from the accident is wiped out, a process that could take decades.
Evacuees are anxious to return home but worried about the potential, still uncertain risks from exposure to the radiation from the disaster, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.
While there have been no clear cases of cancer linked to radiation from the plant, the upheaval in people's lives, uncertainty about the future and long-term health concerns, especially for children, have taken an immense psychological toll on thousands of residents.
In Kawauchi, one of many towns with varying degrees of access restrictions due to radiation, village chief Yuko Endo is pinning his hopes on the success of a long decontamination process that may or may not enable hundreds of residents to return home.
Much of the area is off-limits, though some restrictions gradually are being lifted as workers remove debris and wipe down roofs by hand.
Many residents might give up on returning if they are kept waiting too long, he said. "If I were told to wait for two more years, I might explode," said Endo, who is determined to revive his town of empty houses and overgrown fields. "After spending a huge amount of money, with the vegetable patches all cleaned up and ready for farming, we may end up with nobody willing to return."
A change of government late last year has raised hopes that authorities might move more quickly with the cleanup and reconstruction.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to raise the long-term reconstruction budget to 25 trillion yen (US$262 billion) from 19 trillion yen.
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