Fukushima, Japan (dpa) – Tens of thousands of residents left the Fukushima prefecture in the wake of the nuclear crisis as they feared the health effects of radiation, local officials said.
Most of them wanted to avoid their children being exposed to the dangers of radiation while more grave problems about the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station emerged.
The plant has leaked radioactive material since it was hit by the March 11 earthquake and resulting tsunami. The operator Tokyo Electric Power Co has been struggling to bring it under control.
As of August 11, at least 51,576 people had left Fukushima , whose population is about 2 million, prefectural officials said.
Citizens groups are concerned about some symptoms appearing more frequently in children.
“Some children got diarrhea or nosebleeds repeatedly and others developed a sore throat,” said Chieko Shiina, who works at the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation. “Some children also say they feel listless and tired.”
She feared more children would develop such symptoms in the coming months.
“A wise measure is to evacuate from Fukushima. If a child cannot leave, decontamination measures must be conducted,” Shiina said.
Yoshiaki Takahashi, a poultry farmer in Kawamata town about 45 kilometres from the plant, said his youngest son started to get nosebleeds once a month after the disaster.
Takahashi said town officials would first decontaminate schools and roads leading to schools, so he would do that for his own land himself.
Locals said there are many families who cannot leave Fukushima even though they want to. They said that is due to travelling and living costs, jobs, children’s ties with friends and school activities, ancestral land and elderly to take care of.
Seiichi Nakate, leader of the Fukushima Network for Saving Children from Radiation, said the government must evacuate all children from Fukushima immediately especially because the operator has not stabilized the damaged plant and sufficient decontamination has yet to be conducted.
But local public officials and assembly members are reluctant, he said.
“That is because they are worried about their own job after the relocation of children. Unfortunately, they are only thinking about what is right for their selfish interests,” he said.
Some people said the government wanted residents to stay in Fukushima because the place has become a testing ground of international experimentation on the long-term health effects of radiation.
Some experts argue there is little data available on the health effects of cumulative low dose of radiation.
However, MD Hisako Sakiyama, a former director at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences, told a session of the science and technology committee in the lower house of parliament in May, “It is an international consensus that there is no safe dose of radiation.”
Yuko, a mother in Fukushima, who declined to give her last name, said parents were stressed as they were constantly worried about the effects of radiation in addition to an economic slowdown in the aftermath of the disaster.
“Many children have been also stressed out as they cannot play outside freely,” she said.
Some parents were also frustrated the government later released information that showed the crisis was more serious.
It took nearly five months for the government to report the results of radiation checks on more than 1,000 children who then lived near the plant. The tests were conducted in late March.
The government said in mid-August that the results found 45 per cent of the 1,080 children aged 15 or younger had traces of radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands.
Government officials said that their levels did not pose a health risk. But parents were concerned because radioactive iodine in the thyroid glands of babies and children can increase the risk of cancer later in life.
“Nobody can be relieved to hear what the government said,” Nakate said. “Local residents no longer trust the government.”
Critics said the government and the media continued to downplay the risks of the nuclear crisis.
“I believe eventually the government will have to evacuate children,” Nakate said. “But it will be too late to do so if the government waits for children to start to collapse.”
Takehiko Kambayashi 