Returning to Fukushima after the disaster (2016) | Foreign Correspondent

[Music] it's a stunning landscape of verdant forests sheer mountains and the enduring streams [Music] aside to Fukushima few Outsiders get to experience and after the nuclear fallout drifted and settled here few would now want to [Music] today I have come back to check whether the much-publicized decontamination of this poisoned landscape has reached into Fukushima's remote mountains well we've a few kilometers into the no-go zone here near the village of Amir and the higher you climb up into the mountains the higher the reading on the Geiger counter so it would suggest that a lot of radiation is still in the mountains in areas that are very very difficult to clean up nestled in the valleys or hidden away in the mountains are hundreds of Hamlet's like this irradiated abandoned and now overgrown it's doubtful anyone will return because there's been no attempted decontamination here it's like a science fiction movie in which everyone has simply vanished but the man I am on my way to visit doesn't fear the fallout having refused to leave his Fukushima farm just a few kilometers from the melted reactors natto Metamora is often described as the most contaminated person in Japan - whenever this happens you got to go do you know another day helping not Oh Matt Sameera combat the loneliness is his collection of stray animals today like every day he's back inside the nuclear no-go zone in the village of Tomioka to feed some abandoned cattle that can never be sold all leave the zone well most of all gung-ho don't know they don't know about me but I thought gee me no more Lucio we didn't hear that there are Tomioka is where natto Metamora was born the empty streets the abandoned shops the train station to nowhere none of it bothers him neither does the fact that nature is slowly reclaiming what people have left behind [Music] it's spring semester Mura takes me to a nearby village once renowned for its natural beauty [Music] this is the village of Jana Mori inside the nuclear no-go zone and this is its famous Sakura Dori cherry blossom Street these blooms have come out five times since the Fukushima nuclear disaster and it's been five years since anyone sat here to eat drink celebrate the annual cherry blossoms while we marvel at the blossoms the loudspeakers in this empty village crackle into life with a daily announcement from the safety affairs office in 30 minutes the no-go zone will close please leave the area immediately it says but not even these abundant beautiful blooms can distract from the truth of this contaminated landscape all over the polluted zone thousands of workers are busy scraping up the topsoil into large black bags and only from the air can you appreciate the sheer scale of this operation so far more than ten million of these bags have been filled they're then stacked at thousands of separate locations across the contamination zone despite the efforts so far more than 1100 square kilometers of Fukushima's forests mountains and villages remain and inhabitable dozens of communities still haven't been touched more than a hundred and sixty thousand people were forced to evacuate during and after the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns now five is on a hundred thousand still have not returned some remain trapped in tiny temporary apartments while others say they'll never return to these contaminated communities most of those forced to flee the radiation will forever remain nuclear refugees according to the man who was prime minister during the disaster not oh can hire Joe Sena's some demo hey honey something chichi man you gotta believe our horses and you attack I know they carried out night - you were so famous but a few have come back well I got them that I get the moon without the shadow today never had told me only don't talk about this a sizeable teach them in the decor Adriana name so your cottage authoritative knocking idea Co personal day it was nearly five years before azuma and Yumiko Hashimoto were allowed to return to their decontaminated home in Nara ha town mrs. Hashimoto's family has lived in this house for eight generations but that looks like weather line will end because her daughter is refusing to return with her one-year-old son in fact Nara ha is now a village without children because no one with a family wants to come back Yamanashi conet - no sabe see that's it oh you know god she's a medic right sir so the cut out who who started that there's news so good Z's and there were hood only high today okay banana leaf cut up soon it tells me the silence is particularly haunting for azuma Hashimoto because for years he was in charge of disaster prevention that both of fukushima's nuclear plants I think I caught you riding in there is the one I got a chorale humanity me to talk your hurry Kenshiro confidential next a matching a guru telling wrote that catagen and again emos I should take in the wrong name it's about 32 theory there are you messing up but this is mr. I might not the weekend a surname of that foreign correspondent has been invited by the plant operator TEPCO to spend a day touring the sprawling facility and to meet the man in charge of decontaminating and decommissioning the Fukushima plant now a hero Masada has anything like this ever been attempted before Mitsu pronto Zico question a new battle against the former Prime Minister now a fierce opponent of nuclear power disagrees what are some more Tomatis for second a Jew rock star on a journey discuss women I know what you are a young unit you know the canteen army Tata Motors for the initial part of our tour of the nuclear plant we are kitted out in light protection gear and our first stop is a reminder of the colossal task facing tip comb so here we've got over a thousand tanks on this side tip codes are moving about 62 the only one they can't remove is tritium but so far they're taking at least two elements out tritium goes directly into the soft tissues and organs of the human body potentially increasing the risk of cancer the site has nearly reached its capacity with more than half a million tons of contaminated water much of it pumped in to keep the melted reactor fuel from heating up again today's this but on top of that every day 150 tons of ground water flows into the plant and some believe this poses the biggest threat of all what concerns me is the volume of water that exists at the site this water contamination problem is not under control and it's not really controllable there really isn't any way to stop it particle physicist Gregory yachts Co was the chairman of the United States Atomic watchdog when Fukushima melted down he was getting real-time information as the disaster unfolded he warns that the task of keeping three melted reactors stable and then cleaning them up will take decades it's a very very difficult situation there is no simple solution there is no silver bullet that is going to put a stop to everything and make this just go away overnight but there is one problem TEPCO can make go away and that's getting rid of the millions of disposable protection suits and hazard masks used by the workers on-site and to do that the company has built an incinerator several storeys high to begin burning the backlog enough to fill 28 Olympic swimming pools okay well hehe is really intense as you'd imagine because this is the incinerator the furnace where they're burning all this Arabia and a protective gear now every day six and a half thousand workers are on this site and sometimes they have multiple changes of clothing so there's a lot of gear to burn because a lot of it is unsafe it's a radio [Music] those six and a half thousand workers have come from all over Japan the radiation exposure is closely monitored but last year the allowable level was more than doubled the country's nuclear watchdog says the step had to be taken to allow workers to stay on site longer in a bid to keep the crisis at Fukushima containable we've spent several hours around the plant already but we're going closer to the reactor buildings now which means we've got to put on more heavy-duty protective gear what else it the guys for this part of our tour we are accompanied by five minders because we are heading to the buildings housing the melted reactors there are restrictions TEPCO is worried about possible nuclear terrorism and won't allow us to film certain security sites reactor 1 reactor 2 reactor 3 with all the rubble over there the radiation spikes the closer we go to the reactors we're deep inside lies the melted nuclear fuel and TEPCO's greatest challenge according to the man with possibly the toughest job in Japan decommissioning chief now a Haram acid ammonia Hazuki theorist got all this crap so you know he Baku you can't even say it so no naka de cebú tokenism atiba Coolio warrants Otonashi whatever he's your new kina oh no challenge each one music ah she wanted evidence I'm just made it away from the main reactor buildings here at the Fukushima nuclear plant behind me reactor 3 now we saw what happened there there was a hydrogen explosion right after the nuclear fuel melted next to it reactor 2 it's still a problem today there was no hydrogen explosion but what happened inside there no one really knows because the radiation is so high no one to this day has been able to get inside and there is reactor 1 and it could present particular problems for TEPCO because that is where probably the worst meltdown occurred they don't know where the nuclear fuel is and it could take TEPCO several years to even work that out or just saying it nobody they know what the warning togu still got mad I meet up with our team I said no they're not about Kohaku yeah I mean it too you know adage that the witness for the first time foreign correspondent can reveal just how vast the amount of melted nuclear fuel is the three molten blobs that lie somewhere deep within each of these buildings they're still open today they act on grass it's not our tourism that overhung rhino so no Tokyo study in your torso no concrete suppose we get the building the reactor building we can't stay here and the most daunting task one the nuclear industry has never faced is getting the melted fuel out TIBCO admits the technology it needs hasn't been invented yet it sent in some robots all the robots have been disabled because of the high radiation fields it may be possible that we were never able to remove the fuel you may just wind up having to leave it there and somehow entombed it as it is I mean that's certainly a possibility there's no playbook they're making this up as they go along and that's in a lot of ways the best they can do back on the bus we head closer to the base of the reactor buildings we hop off at reactor 4 and start to move down the line immediately the radiation level begins to rise okay so we're just between reactor 4 and reactor 3 but the radiation level has gone up to Ana to a point where our typical guides are not comfortable going any further so we'll head back after a day inside the nuclear plant it is time to strip off our gear and submit to routine testing it's a process the workers here go through every day and it's a reminder of the decades-long task ahead of TEPCO what is the Tokyo and Osaka Kyoto mati masane Karima sunseekers you know ex parte no cottony yo Nico Rita Martin elevado st monetary nice unico under military steamers she attended tsuruga i know tony yeah Bacall she had a stroke on a group to endless joshi productive ma totally ma same topology change on for others the cost of the disasters can never be measured in dollar terms we've just crossed into the no go zone just a couple of kilometres north of the nuclear plant we're heading Tenorio cameras house or what remains of it this is one of the more tragic stories to come out of the tsunami not only did he lose his father and his wife but he also lost his little daughter Yoona and every now and then he comes back to Fukushima and he still searches for her remains because she's the only person still listed as missing from Okuma town just north of the plan [Music] I first met nori Okamura several years ago today he's again out searching for any trace of little Yuna he and his volunteers are only allowed into the no-go zone for five hours at a time soon Kimura is approached by some police who asked us not to film em or what they have found after a few minutes he returns with a bag it contains some family photos the police are found in the piles of debris and for camera something else far more precious [Music] before how do you feel when you see lyrica do an Aikido cannibal cannot open in Turkish democracy you are [Music] we take the photos in Yuna's top to a nearby temple where nori Okumura keeps everything he has found belonging to his dead family his father's body was found inland not long after the tsunami his wife's remains were found floating off the Fukushima Coast weeks later [Music] at this shrine he adds the latest finds including Yoona's kindergarten top deep down he knows his youngest daughter will never be found do you agree sir cannot agree to musicals equal to that you know why captain is kadoya buddy yummy to tell us Monday mother no zooming on i-29 day it each day [Music] norio cameras community inside the fallout zone will never be rebuilt in fact it's destined to be the site of a dump for contaminated waste and soil but further north outside the zone there's hope I've returned to Ricky's enter cutter which was wiped out by a 13 meter high tsunami I arrived here in 2011 right after the waves be greeted by scenes of devastation and death no survivors are being pulled out of here just hundreds and hundreds of bodies five years on I'm back in this exact same spot and in the end one in every 10 of Ricker's in target as residents would die in the tsunami the debris is all gone now replaced by five million cubic tons of earth scraped off a nearby mountain and put in the city center that's in the hope that this community can be raised by up to 13 metres to protect itself from future tsunamis [Music] Rick isn't Arcada is a fishing town and Yoshi Haru Yoshida is one of a true ders Sea Dogs and when the Earth's shattered five years ago the fisherman was one of those who jumped on their boats and headed straight out into the Pacific riding over the tsunami as it rolled towards the coast still won't finish there y'all sound kinda cannot pick it up or high-pitched on this kid oh whoa Carnegie the rocky they're not gonna eat kak Winston's door won't open without anybody hiding up there yeah that's not the only poor people they will go there as well as the earth works to raise the town authorities are building towering sea walls some more than five stories high [Music] they're part of a 400 kilometer chain of gigantic tsunami defenses being built along the coast of North East Japan but fishermen Yoshihara Yoshida scoffs at the idea that concrete walls can repel the raw power of a tsunami say Nathan are you know Telemundo - Casey - Andy there's not much understood or cable uh no exterior the minuto Nandi Connecticut hawk I know it's connect alumni notoriety any minute then I eat the hunting Voyager Cathy totally my dick you mistake [Music] while some communities outside the zone rebuild others in the contaminated areas continue to crumble and wither few spots symbolized both the natural and nuclear disasters of 2011 better than the UK doe primary school here the tsunami smashed through the bottom floor while the top floor remained untouched except by the radioactive fallout from the nuclear plant just a few kilometers away the 80 children of this school survived the waves but they've never been back [Music] some former supporters of atomic energy now believe the risks are just too great including those who had to deal directly with the fallout at the time Connie Jackie Dawa Madame bonsoir Tana veneering infirmity Kenzi attacker Somali Judah WA Rhonda Castagna tossed a kangaroo Becky G kono toki no hero toka Arriva Asano Sherman endo or tamari Akaka he gives to Nasser in Ohio toka so Amano Coast on account o g9 colonial day yes yes you did on the scale you were the Prime Minister of Japan at the time how close did this country come to all-out disaster Jani scale of it's my style career on November 7th ago militant neo cheetah you are my new home no ham bone bullet our new homes embrace name can be sort of so you can i mr. Olivier unagi Det no sato Yama de agua mother do cool stuff you have to now accept that at all nuclear power plants and wherever they are in the world but there's a chance you can have this kind of a very catastrophic accident and you can release a significant amount of radiation and have a you know a decade of long cleanup effort on your hands and and that's the reality of nuclear power [Music] my journey ends on a beach I first visited after the disasters then I went in with police in radiation protection gear to search this area for bodies left behind by the tsunami the beach is empty now silent except for the waves but just down the shore hidden behind this outcrop is the Fukushima nuclear plant it's Stax visible in the distance the waves that crashed over this coast five years ago caused the costliest natural disaster in human history but the nuclear drama continues to play out inside this secluded facility and will do for decades to come [Music] [Music]

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 160,375

Keywords: abc news australia, fukushima radiation, fukushima daiichi, fukushima explained, chernobyl fukushima, fukushima documentary, inside fukushima, chernobyl japan nuclear disaster, japanese nuclear plant explosion, nuclear power documentary, fukushima today, fukushima tour, fukushima tourism, japan fukushima, nuclear fallout, chernobyl documentary, tepco, fukushima nuclear, nuclear accidents, fukushima, returning to fukushima, foreign correspondent japan

Id: 3lPDAUE9DFg

Length: 27min 43sec (1663 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 05 2019