Japan Innkeeper Monitors Radiation 15 Years After Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

A Japanese innkeeper conducts her own radiation testing to help rebuild her hometown devastated by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Only one-third of residents have returned to the once-thriving community of 13,000 people.

ODAKA, Japan — Color-coded radiation charts line the walls of a family-owned inn where Tomoko Kobayashi works to restore life to her nearly empty hometown, fifteen years following the catastrophic nuclear accident at Fukushima.

Before reopening her establishment, Futabaya Ryokan, in 2016, Kobayashi performed her own radiation testing. Today, she collaborates with fellow monitors to collect and distribute radiation information as part of ongoing efforts to restore this formerly thriving textile community.

“These empty lots used to be filled with shops,” Kobayashi explains while walking toward a radiation testing facility, passing by the kindergarten she once attended as a youngster. The building now serves as a museum due to the shortage of children following the nuclear emergency.

“There used to be businesses, community activity and children playing,” she says. “We used to live our ordinary daily lives here, and I hope to see that again.”

Approximately one-third of Odaka’s original 13,000 residents have come back during the last ten years.

“The town was destroyed, and we need to rebuild it. It’s a time-consuming process that cannot be accomplished in just a couple of decades,” she said. “But I hope to see the progress, with new people and new development added to what this town used to be.”

On March 11, 2011, when a massive 9.0 earthquake hit Japan’s northeastern coastline at 2:46 p.m., Kobayashi was inside the Futabaya inn. While the structure withstood the intense trembling without collapse, approximately one hour afterward, tsunami waters flooded the kitchen “like a river,” she recalled.

An even larger wave struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, destroying critical cooling infrastructure and triggering meltdowns in three reactors.

The first reactor structure suffered damage from a hydrogen blast on March 12. Two days following, the Unit 3 reactor exploded, then the No. 4 reactor building, releasing radioactive materials that contaminated surrounding areas and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate. Certain regions remain uninhabitable today.

Kobayashi’s family initially went to a gymnasium in nearby Haramachi town, but found it at capacity. They ultimately reached Nagoya, where she and her spouse remained for one year.

In 2012, the pair returned to Fukushima to begin radiation monitoring while residing in temporary accommodations near Odaka, which remained restricted.

The community has shown some recovery since that time. Her visitors include students and others seeking to learn about Fukushima, plus individuals interested in establishing new enterprises.

“I had to understand what the nuclear accident was about. I thought someone had to go back and keep an eye out,” she said. Through continued monitoring, she began recognizing what had previously been invisible and comprehending radiation. “Now it has become my lifetime mission.”

Kobayashi and her colleagues meet twice annually, dedicating two weeks each session to measuring air quality at hundreds of sites to create their color-coded charts. They have also established a laboratory for testing local food to identify safe consumption options.

“We are not professional scientists, but we can measure and show the data. What’s important is to keep measuring, because the government maintains that it’s safe, as if radiation no longer exists,” she says. “But we know for a fact that it’s still there.”

Their laboratory sits adjacent to a free folklore museum featuring paintings, sculptures, photographs and other artwork inspired by the Fukushima catastrophe.

Fifteen years ago, the facility resembled a bombed industrial site due to hydrogen explosions at reactor buildings where employees risked their lives managing the crisis. Radiation measurements have dropped considerably, and the plant has constructed improved seawalls designed to resist another major tsunami. For the first time since the disaster, all reactor buildings now have enclosed rooftops.

“Our decommissioning work at the plant is about how to reduce risks of radiation,” says Akira Ono, head of decommissioning at the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Holdings Company. Remote-controlled robotics, careful planning, and practice are essential for worker safety, he explained.

At Unit 1, beneath its new roof, top floor decontamination will commence before the scheduled removal of spent fuel from the cooling pool.

The three reactors hold at least 880 tons of melted fuel debris with radiation levels remaining dangerously elevated and details largely unknown.

TEPCO successfully extracted small melted fuel samples last year from the Unit 2 reactor. To examine melted fuel within the Unit 3 reactor, workers recently deployed micro-drones, technology unavailable 15 years ago, Ono noted.

TEPCO plans remote-controlled internal investigations to analyze melted fuel and develop robots for additional fuel debris removal that experts predict could require decades more.

Fukushima prefecture examines thousands of pre-distribution samples annually and reports all farm, fisheries and dairy products in stores are safe.

Sales of certain fruits, mushrooms, river fish and various other harvests from former restricted zones remain prohibited.

“Radiation levels have come down significantly over the past 15 years, but I wouldn’t use the word ‘safe,’ just yet,” says Yukio Shirahige, a former decontamination and radiation survey worker at Fukushima Daiichi who now assists Kobayashi’s monitoring project.

When he recently tested wild boar meat, he discovered it exceeded safety limits by more than 100 times and was unsuitable for consumption.

In a significant policy shift after a decade of working to eliminate nuclear technology, Japan in 2022 announced plans to accelerate reactor restarts and strengthen nuclear power as a reliable energy source.

Shirahige was at Fukushima Daiichi when the earthquake and tsunami occurred in 2011. After evacuating his family, he returned in late March to assist the emergency cleanup at the plant for six months.

Shirahige has received support and equipment from university researchers and oversees testing locally produced food and other samples.

Shirahige, now 76, says measuring radioactive material and sharing that data is his life’s work.

As the government promotes Fukushima’s safety and recovery, Shirahige says, “we are under growing pressure to be silent.”