Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20140117

S to an abandoned school near tokyo, where they lived in cramped, shared common areas, many families to a room, and are provided with three boxed lunches per day. The refugees were given permits to return home to collect personal items, but only for two hours. Just before this broadcast, democracy now producer mike burke spoke with an evacuee from futaba. She was one of hundreds of anti nuclear protesters who were outside the official residence of the japanese Prime Minister demonstrating. I am from futaba. Right now we have evacuated and we are living in temperate housing in tokyo, in a space provided by the government. I am coming here every friday to demonstrate. Against the Nuclear Power facilities. Fled futaba, we have nothing. We lost everything. We couldnt bring anything from our house. We did not have a toothbrush. We did not have a blanket. We did not have towels. We had nothing. It was truly hell. And we thought it would be much better to die. But now we are here. We want to fight. When i fled from to po futaba, i could not talk. I people encouraged me to be standing here right now. Without peoples help, i could not be here. That is why i appreciate them and i want to join them in their call. What is your message to the japanese government and the world about Nuclear Power . I dont want anyone in the world to experience what we have experienced. We have houses in futaba, but theres nothing there. Everything is [indiscernible] all the furniture was broken. I cant really go back there. We know it. We dont want anyone in the world to be in the situation we are in. There are 59 children with [indiscernible] there are hundreds more on the way. Is the students cannot go out and play. They have to stay inside. This is not the way children should grow up. I dont want anyone in the world or japan to experience this type of situation for children, so i want to stop Nuclear Facilities now and i dont want them to be continued. Do you think youll ever be able to return to your home . Where i lived in futaba it is not livable, and the government says so. I know were never going back in my entire life. It is still not say. The radiation level is still high. I dont think it is safe. I dont think we will go back there. What is your assessment of how the government has handled the crisis . . We expected our government to do a better job when this accident happened, but they dont really do what you want. They know the problems we are having. There are many young people between 15 and 19 in fukushima who are in high school who have died suddenly. For example, this morning, i saw online a story that a 17year old died from leukemia. In the morning and his mother came to wake him up, he was found dead in bed. Everyone says this was caused by the radiation level from the nuclear accident, but our government never recognized it. There are many children, 59 children, with thyroid cancer. They will never recognize it as being caused by the radiation. Were standing right now outside the Prime Ministers official residency. What is your message to the Prime Minister . We told the Prime Minister many times, every week here, that we are against the reopening of the Nuclear Facilities, but it doesnt seem that he gets it. He just does whatever he wants to do anyway. In futaba, when we had a meeting with tapco, we were told facilities were very safe. Now we know it is not safe at all. And were been telling the Prime Minister it is not safe to miss a do not restart, but it doesnt seem like it is getting through to him. By real feeling is i want to go back to futaba, but i know we cant go back. I dream of it every day. I know we cannot go back, so i dont want anyone in the world to feel this way. We want to stop it now. Those are the words of a woman who is a former resident of futaba, which is a town where part of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant is located. She fled her home after the Nuclear Meltdown and will likely never be able to return home. When we come back from the break, we will be joined by the former mayor of futaba. Stay with us. [music break] nuclearfrom the film nation, the fukushima refugee story. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. This is the third day of our broadcast from tokyo, japan, in the final days. Were talking about moving in on the third anniversary of the fukushima disaster. 19,000 people died or went missing on that day march 11, 2011, and the days afterwards when the earthquake triggered a tsunami and three of the reactors at the fukushima Nuclear Power plant melted down. Were joined right now by futabas former mayor, katsutaka idogawa. It clear he embraced power. Now he has become a vocal critic. He is featured in the film Nuclear Nation. We welcome you to democracy now and thank you for traveling two hours to join us here at the studios of Nhk International for this conversation. Mayor, explain what happened on that day. A special thanks to mary joyce who is translating for you today. A march 11, 2011, in the days afterwards, when you decided it was time for the thousands of people who lived in your town, futaba, to leave. On that day there was an earthquake on the scale we have never experienced before. It was a huge surprise. At the time i was hoping nothing that happened to the Nuclear Power plant. However, unfortunately, there was an accident there. And then i worked with the many and thinking about how i could fully evacuate them from the radiation. You made a decision to evacuate your town before the japanese government told the people in the area to do this. But not before the u. S. Government told americans to leave the area and other governments said the same. Yes, the japanese government informed to evacuate, and my mistake was waiting to hear that. If i had made the decision three hours earlier, i could have prevented some of the people from being heavily exposed to radiation. However, as a result of that, unfortunately, several hundreds of people were erected the directly affected by the radiation. Where did you decide to move the whole town . I was originally thinking about this at the time of the first. Ake a march 11, however, at first i was waiting to rely on the government information to decide the timing for this. Town too you moved the a school in the outskirts of tokyo, is that right . The entire town to an abandoned school . Explain how you set up your government, your whole community , in this one building. We were not able to evacuate all of the residence and some actually did remain within parts of the fukushima sector. As a result of this, there was a gap created between those who were still remaining within the greater fukushima area and those who evacuated outside of tokyo. And the reason for this is we had no access to communication information from mobile phones. And so how long do people stay . How many people were in this school . And what role did the government play . How has the government helped the refugees . We were able to evacuate outside of residents tokyo. So they were saved from the initial first explosion exposure. But many of them unable to do with the situation, gradually started to return to different parts of fukushima. You have not returned back to your town . Yes, im still living in evacuation away from the heavily radioactive areas. Can you talk about the meetings you have had with the government . You have had a remarkable association of Nuclear Mayors in japan, the mayors who live who preside over towns that have Nuclear Power plant in them. Before the accident, we had always been strong down the government and tepco to make sure no accident happened. And they were always telling us, dont worry, mayor, no accident can ever happen. However, because this promise was betrayed, this is why i became antinuclear. Fromwant to go to a clip atsushi funahashis new documentary film about the former residence of futaba, where the fukushima day to Nuclear Power plant is poorly located. The film is called Nuclear Nation. We are going to go to a part of the film that shows a part of this remarkable meeting of government officials with the atomic mayors, the Nuclear Mayors of japan. The minister leaves his seat in the first five minutes. The Nuclear Crisis mr. Follows suit, does crisis minister, follows suit. That last voice was the mayor at the time of futaba, katsutaka idogawa, who is with us today in our tokyo studio. The java is where part of the fukushima d day to Nuclear Plant was located. He was addressing this meeting of government officials and Nuclear Mayors from around japan in august 2011. You just heard the voices of goshi hosono, Nuclear Crisis minister of japan, and the minister of the economy trade and industry. After each of them spoke, they politely took their leave of the room before the mayors could address them, so they did not hear the futaba mayors statement about the lies from the government. Talk about that particular meeting. At the time we were calling for strong response and attention from the government about the disaster. However, they did not even try to listen to what we were calling for. And they continued to not even try to make efforts to fulfill the responsibilities or promise to us. And so they continued to appear before us for the suffering directory from the disaster, but instead of listening to something that may be difficult to hear, they would just leave the room and not listen to us at all. And within those who are left in the room or some government officials, including some who were directly the one to tell me that no accident would ever happen. However, no matter what i would try to appeal and say to them, it would not have any effect, so instead i turned around and spoke to my colleagues, my fellow residents. Tell them what was really happening, the situation. Former mayor katsutaka were a fierce proponent of Nuclear Power. You are pushing for two more reactors to be built even closer to futaba than the others. You are proud of getting tens of millions of dollars for your town for hosting these reactors. How did you make your transition to being one of the most vocal government officials against all Nuclear Power . I had been supporting the Nuclear Power plants in our town on the condition and then disaster would be allowed to occur. And no disaster would be allowed to occur. It was not necessarily i was actually totally in favor of the , however,wer plant the situation and plays without the power plants there, our city would be losing financial benefits and be unable to go forward economically. The city was on the brink of bankruptcy beforehand. And so in order to try to prevent the city from going into this kind of economic breakdown, i saw the link the new reactors for perhaps the only way. I want to go to another clip of Nuclear Nation that gives us a little background on the town of futaba. Futabas farming history goes back over 1000 years. In winter months, people had to leave town for work in the city. Reactors 5 and 6 came online in 1978 and 1979. Many flowed in from the government and the townspeople found themselves with lots of extra cash. They built roads, a library, a sprawling sportscenter, and made major upgrades to the infrastructure. Nuclear nation talking about nuclear refugees, the nuclear refugees of futaba. We are joined by the former mayor who made a decision on his own right after the earthquake to move his entire town to evacuated, to tokyo. Think deeply concerned about the levels of radiation and feeling the government was lying to them about the dangers in the area. This was the mayor, katsutaka idogawa, who was fiercely for Nuclear Power, was proud to be ine to get two more reactors his town, to build the economy, to get tens of billions of dollars and then turned around after the meltdown after the earthquake, tsunami, and the ultimate meltdown of three of the six existing reactors. Mayor, right now you are not the only one who turned around in office. Khan, the Prime Minister, is now also speaking out all over the world against Nuclear Power. But just this week as we flew into japan, the government appear minister abe, the most conservative government since world war ii, announced it wants to build more reactors in japan. How are you organizing . What are you doing now. Without being able to deal with the consequences of the , thehima Nuclear Disaster position to promote Nuclear Power is still something which is unthinkable to me. And i believe it is really important the Prime Minister to look at what hes been responsible for and have regret and deal with what they have done before they can actually go forward and do anything. In the disaster now is bigger than anything we can cope with. Disaster on an International Level and serious consequences, so he really needs to recognize this. Who was driving the push for more Nuclear Power . The countrys already 30 dependent on Nuclear Power. Had plans to make it more than 50 by 2030. But after this catastrophe, who is pushing for these Nuclear Power plants . The Nuclear Power system is constructed use huge amounts of , in this is very they, shall we say, for large corporations since there really behind this push. However, much public taxpayers money is being used behind this. And i believe it is so important to prevent our taxes for being used for any of this kind. What has happened to the fukushima refugees today . There are so many people who want to evacuate, but dont have the means to be able to actually do that and are still living in the situation, who want to do something but have no support. And another huge issue as those who are still forced to be living in the fukushima area did not have access to full Health Treatments and the kind of support they need, and are so told any disease or sickness they have is not caused radiation. You are traveling the world. Can you tell us the countries you have been to and why youre speaking their . Im working with people all around the world, speaking with people working against Nuclear Power in their own areas. You went to finland . Yes. Why . I went to finland to speak with people who are working against the construction of Nuclear Power plants in their areas because they knew our situation and were trying to Work Together to prevent this from ever happening to them. In the u. S. , Nuclear Power plant has not been built in close to 40 years. Very much because of the Anti Nuclear Movement and the cost of what it means to build a Nuclear Power plant and what to do with the waste. The president obama has talked about a nuclear resident renaissance and is pushing for the building of several new plants for the first time in decades. What message would you share with him . A Nuclear Power disaster is not just fukushima. Because a disaster of all. Umanity, as the entire world , ine is a japanese saying its meaning is that well, any kind of disaster is three times the limit three times is the limit. Have had the three large disasters, one in the united states, chernobyl, and a fukushima. The earth will not be able to cope with any further Nuclear Disaster. For the children of the future, the future generations, i hope we can stop this now. What is the alternative . Well, ive heard in u. S. There is shale gas, for example. But as well as other forms of energy, i think it is important to look at how we can have lifestyles that rely less on energy, that use energy more efficient in our homes and offices will stop the Prime Minister is also suggesting this. Very significant that a conservative former Prime Minister also came out against Nuclear Power. If you look at the actual , and i believe the Prime Minister visited places affected by Nuclear Power to see what is happening and he is speaking sincerely now. I want to thank you very much for joining us on democracy now , katsutaka idogawa, former mayor of futaba. The entire town was rendered uninhabitable by the Nuclear Meltdown. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Stay with us. After the break, crowd sourcing radiation monitoring. We will look at how a group called safecast has helped japanese civilians during the smartphones into Geiger Counters. Stay with us. [music break] play for japan. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Broadcasting for the last of three days from tokyo, japan. We turn right now to what took toce just before we made it the studio. Hundreds of people gathered outside the official residence of the japanese Prime Minister to voice their concern about Nuclear Power. I belong to an organization organized demonstration. We have been here for two years to demonstrate against the Nuclear Power facilities. I think this is a problem of the world, not just for japan. They need to abolish the Nuclear Facility to save the world from Nuclear Powers. The people have been [indiscernible] from last week, more people are coming to the demonstrations just because there is some movement in the government to restart some of the new clear facilities, the people are very afraid. That is why more people are coming out now in this weather. It will be a Government Election next month. One of the issues were is for or against the other power plants. That will be a very serious issue that has to be discussed. And we want to send a message from tokyo to the japanese government for nuclear policy. We are trying very hard to stop this movement. We want to bring our message to the world to stop Nuclear Power plants. That was one of hundreds of people protesting at the power outside the official residence of the japanese Prime Minister. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Were joined right now by one of the founders of the network of volunteers who came together to map radiation levels throughout japan after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in 2011. They soon realized radiation readings varied widely, with some areas close to the disaster facing light contamination, depending on wind and geography, while others much further away showed higher ratings. Safecast volunteers use Geiger Counters and open sauce open Source Software to measure the radiation and then posted it online for anyone to access. Their effort comes as japan recently passed a new secrecy bill. For more were joined by pieter franken, cofounder ofs. Welcome. You are turning smartphones into Geiger Counters . Not really that simple. What happened after the disaster, we were all looking for information and could not find any. We tried to create a website where we could collect data and share with people so everyone could know what is happening. Very quickly we found out there was a most no data. We were basically in the dark. After we did that, we said we were not going to give up. We were going to purchase lots of Geiger Counters, give them to people and use crowd sourcing to get the data and then share it. Unfortunately, in the first 24 hours after the disaster, almost every Geiger Counter on the plant was sold out. We could not get the equipment. So then we sat down to solve the problem. How do we get the data out . Then we decided to put a Geiger Counter on a car connected to a gps and computer and start driving around and very much how google maps streets. That is how we started. Take it from there. The first trip we made into fukushima it was an eyeopener. The radiation levels we encountered were way higher than what weve seen on television. On top of that, we noticed the radiation is not very predictable. It is not the distance to daiichi that tells you how much radiation. Nearby we measured high and low. And lowaway, still high levels. As we were talking to people, people started to say, we want to have data about where we are living. The japanese government was basically pushing averages for cities. People are not an average. People are living in the streets, not the city. Measure every single street for our goal. In the last three years we have been doing that. This month were passing the 15 millionth location. Basically every street in japan has been at least measured once, if not many, many more times. What is the gadget you have brought here . Let me show you. This is the system we are currently using. We have a few hundred of these in use by our volunteers. It is basically a Geiger Counter that is in a waterproof and shock proof case. What happens is, the sensor is on the other side. It is about the size of a little transistor radio. Yes. Five inches by three inches. Somewhere around that, yes. As you close the car window, the thing its outside the car. Basically, you just switch it on and off and it starts recording the level as youre driving around. We designed this with lots of volunteers over the last three years and it made all sorts of alterations. We are able to give these two volunteers to lower cost. Or in fort lee, it is very easy to use. You do not have to be a scientist to collect this data. How does the data go from the box to your company safecast . Are not af all, we company, we are a volunteer organization. But this is like a camera. It has an sd card. You take it out, go to our website, upload the file and you can see a map of the radiation you have measured. We match that with our database an then people can use application, for example, on the smart phone. Access just a moment. They can go to an application on an iphone or ipad i will try to zoom in to where we are right now in tokyo. You are making me very nervous. You can see every single street and see the measurements. And what are they . Tokyo is how many miles away from fukushima . We are about 200 kilometers from daiichi. As you can see on the map, here we are and here is where fukushima is. It is around 150 miles up the coast. Yes. How toxic or radioactive is it here . Compared to the rest of japan, tokyo got a certain amount of fallout. Relatively speaking, i think the levels, what they are today are maybe 50 higher than what they were before the disaster. Compared to locations in fukushima, it is relatively low, in terms of exposure to radioactivity. This is nothing compared to what is happening in fukushima and the areas around their. You are taking us beyond the borders of japan. Yes. A globalstarted as organization. We got lots of help from outside japan. We would not be able to do it without all the volunteers. We got lots of people outside japan who had the same worry. Theyre using the same equipment now to measure their own environments. We have people measuring in the u. S. , in europe, volunteers in africa now. We have just covered all the seven continents in terms of the first measurements. It is spreading quickly. How has the map in japan changed . We are almost at the third anniversary of fukushima. At radiation levels, specifically the fukushima area, we see the radiation levels have dropped by about 40 to 50 depending on how and where you measure. That is largely congenital desk contributing to the environment and the materials that have changed slowly over time. You are also measuring air quality. But yes. We got lots of interest in radiation. People came to us and said, please, can you do something about air quality . Too busy we were solving the problem of measuring radiation on a large scale. What we have started a project. On the state secret law, how does it affect you . We are actually collecting data about the environment, at least, we feel that data should be public and open accessible. And youre saying you believe it should . Yes. Are you concerned it will . Im not personally concerned because i believe that should not be an issue. However that will be reacted upon is something we will have to see. Shouldnt the government be collecting this data and sharing it with the citizens of the country . Absolutely. The dataginning, provided by the government was honest nothing. For organizations like safecast, there has been pressure to do more. There has been external pressure. However, some of the Data Collection is very selective. The other problem is, lots of the data is available, but it is not open. It is copyright protected. You cant download it and do something with that. The japanese government says dont trust the information you have that it is very important to rely only on government readings. We strongly believe in order to have credibility, you need to check your data. We at safecast are using independently [indiscernible] and in response to tepco that owns the Nuclear Power plants to what youre doing . We have never been contacted by tepco, so i cant give an answer to that question. Thank you for being with us. If people want to find out more information about this safecast Geiger Counter we have a website safecast. Org. You can find out more information about what were doing and how you can build this device were self and participate in the safecast project. And the Global Mapping of radiation. Anywhere can participate. It is really easy. Pieter franken, thank you for being with us, cofounder of safecast. That does it for our broadcast from japan. It will be speaking saturday at Sophia University in japan. Sunday, jennifer 19, i will center. Ing in kyoto on monday we will be back in tokyo, january 20. I will be speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of japan for a noon talk. You can check our website democracynow. Org for all the details of these three days of talks. Then we will be headed to the Sundance Film Festival in park city, utah where we will be broadcasting after the Martin Luther king holiday tuesday to friday. Many thanks to the talented staff here. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ]