Three reactors went into meltdown after the 2011 Japanese tsunami in the worst accident since Chernobyl, leaving an apocalyptic vision of ghost towns and overgrown wildernesses and scared residents refuse to return

JAPAN is lying to the world about nuclear-ravaged Fukushima’s recovery while forcing terrified evacuees to return to their radioactive homes, it is claimed.

More than seven years after the nuclear catastrophe rocked the world, many of the 154,000 people who fled their homes have not returned and towns remain deserted.

Thousands of irradiated wild boars and monkeys roam around while poorly paid and protected decontamination workers scrub homes, schools and shops down ready for people to come home.

Chilling footage of taken inside the evacuated areas of Fukushima City and Köryama lay bare the disaster that unfolded after an earthquake, measuring 9.01 on the Moment Magnitude scale, struck off the coast of Japan on March 11, 2011.

This led to the evacuation of thousands of people from a 12-mile exclusion zone, with roads guarded by roadblocks and officials in protective gear.

Now there is a big campaign is under way to make people return but residents, campaigners and experts believe it not safe.

They accuse the Japanese authorities of wanting to allay public fears over the nuclear power by downplaying the dire consequences of the leak.

Propaganda videos showing the remarkable recovery of Fukushima have been spread by the government on its social media accounts.

“Since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, #Fukushima has been working towards a bright future.
Strict safety standards and monitoring means that #food from the prefecture is enjoyed all over #Japan.” See Fukushima’s amazing recover in this video:http://bit.ly/2CqP0HC

He said: “They are not telling the whole truth either to the 127 million people of Japan or to the rest of the world – about the radiation risks in the most contaminated areas of Fukushima.

“The nuclear crisis is not over – we are only in year seven of an accident that will continue to threaten public health, and the environment, for decades and well into the next century.

“Attempts by the government and the nuclear industry communicate that it is safe and it’s over are a deliberate deception.”

Most of Japan’s power plants shut in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

But in 2015 the Prime Minister announced plans to restart reactors because the economy needed cheap energy and using fossil fuels risked huge carbon emission fines.

Now five of them are back on – and it’s aimed to to have at least 12 in use by 2025.

The nuclear crisis is not over – we are only in year seven of an accident that will continue to threaten public health, and the environment, for decades and well into the next century(Senior nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie)

Mr Burnie said: “If they can create the illusion of the region that that has recovered from the nuclear accident they think it will reduce public opposition.”

But meanwhile the crisis continues at the Fukushima plant.

He said: “The massive Ice Wall built at the nuclear plant to stop contamination of groundwater is a symbol of this failure and deception – this is no Game of Thrones fantasy but the reality of a nuclear disaster that knows no end.”

Today he says “there were areas of Fukushima where radiation levels could give a person’s maximum annual recommended dose within a week.”

He said: “This is of particular concern with regards to poorly paid decontamination workers, thousands of whom have been involved in attempts to decontaminate radiation around people’s homes, along roads and in narrow strips of forest.”

Mr Burnie said the government claims decontamination has been completed in 100 percent of affected areas after a £8bn clean up operation.

But he added: “What they don’t explain is that 70-80 percent of areas such as Namie and Iitate – two of the most contaminated districts – are forested mountain which it is impossible to decontaminate.

“In areas opened in March 2017 for people to return – radiation levels will pose a risk until the middle of the century.

“These areas are still to high in radiation for people to return safely – and is one reason so few people are returning.”

Meanwhile heavy-handed tactics are being used with some fearful residents reporting that they have been warned they won’t receive lifeline compensation cash if they don’t comply.

Dr Keith Baverstock, a radiation health expert who was at the World Health Organization at the time disaster, told Sun Online: “For the past two years the Japanese government has encouraged the evacuees to return to their homes, but relatively few people have taken up this offer, even though there is a threat – it may even now be a fact – that their compensation will cease.”

1.This Month

The climate change threat to nuclear power

By Natalie Kopytko“…………The final problem is droughts, which climate models predict will become longer and larger. Legal battles have already been fought in the US over scarce water resources in regions with nuclear power plants, including the Catawba river basin in the Carolinas and the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint river basin in Georgia, Florida and Alabama. These battles show us that adapting our systems – including nuclear power – to a reduced supply of water will not be easy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency advises the nuclear industry to build power plants to last for 100 years. Given that climate models don’t agree on what to expect within this time period, it is not at all clear how this can be achieved.

New reactors could use dry or hybrid systems with lower water requirements, but the costs of running these systems are likely to be prohibitive. Considering nuclear power plants already have problems with construction cost overruns, any additional costs are likely to meet resistance.

What is to be done? Most forms of energy generation are vulnerable in some way to the effects of climate change, and the fact that nuclear power is among them is yet another argument against a wholesale shift towards this source of energy.