Fukushima Dreams

In 2011 a devastating tsunami hit the North-eastern coast of Japan causing a major meltdown at Fukushima - the worst nuclear disaster in the world to date. 16,000 people died that day, and tens of thousands more were displaced - their homes destroyed, their villages contaminated.Fukushima Dreams is set against the backdrop of this event. Sachiko lives with her husband and infant son Tashi in a small coastal village. They are both struggling to adapt to life with their new son. When Sachiko’s village is hit, she awakes to find her family are missing. After a fruitless search she, like many others, is forced to leave the area due to radiation fallout. She moves to Tokyo, and a different life.Harry had already planned to leave. He uses the disaster as cover, and flees to a mountain refuge. He lives there, hovering on the border of sanity and haunted by the spirit of their son. Winter sets in. Eventually he is forced to return. They must both confront the ghosts of the past.

Fukushima Dreams goes to the heart of the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan and expresses people's bewilderment, loss, and sorrow. By sharing their feelings, however, people rediscover faith, joy, and the power of the imagination.

Prior to World War II, State Shinto, which was centered on the worship of the emperor and Yasukuni Shrine's cult of war dead, was established in support of the government and militarism. Since the end of the Occupation, Japanese conservatives have sought to restore State Shinto's institutions even as expanded military budgets have placed Japan among the top five countries in defense spending. This timely book focuses on the struggles against government attempts to revive "the emperor system" and Japan's prewar military presence. Organized around case studies and based on extensive interviews, To Dream treats the operations of the Japanese court system thoroughly and uncovers important cases regarding religious liberty that remain little known even among specialists on modern Japanese history and society. It shows that litigation has been brought by pacifists, liberals, and others fiercely opposed to renewed militarism and to governmental support for the symbolism and institutions of State Shinto. Throughout, the author offers important information on the composition of courts involved and the attitudes of specific judges and provides translated texts of significant judicial decisions, in the process dispelling the stereotype of the Japanese as "reluctant litigants."

“A gripping, suspenseful page-turner” (Kirkus Reviews) with a “fast-paced, detailed narrative that moves like a thriller” (International Business Times), Fukushima teams two leading experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists, David Lochbaum and Edwin Lyman, with award-winning journalist Susan Q. Stranahan to give us the first definitive account of the 2011 disaster that led to the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl. Four years have passed since the day the world watched in horror as an earthquake large enough to shift the Earth's axis by several inches sent a massive tsunami toward the Japanese coast and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing the reactors' safety systems to fail and explosions to reduce concrete and steel buildings to rubble. Even as the consequences of the 2011 disaster continue to exact their terrible price on the people of Japan and on the world, Fukushima addresses the grim questions at the heart of the nuclear debate: could a similar catastrophe happen again, and—most important of all—how can such a crisis be averted?

It was an unlikely convergence of events. A 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the largest in Japanese memory and the fourth largest recorded in world history; a tsunami that peaked at forty meters, devastating the seaboard of northeastern Japan; three reactors in meltdown at the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima; experts in disarray and suffering victims young and old. It was, as well, an unlikely convergence of legacies. Submerged traumas resurfaced and communities long accustomed to living quietly with hazards suddenly were heard. New legacies of disaster were handed down, unfolding slowly for generations to come. The defining disaster of contemporary Japanese history still goes by many different names: The Great East Japan Earthquake; the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami; the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster; the 3.11 Triple Disaster. Each name represents a struggle to place the disaster on a map and fix a date to a timeline. But within each of these names hides a combination of disasters and legacies that converged on March 11, 2011, before veering away in all directions: to the past, to the future, across a nation, and around the world. Which pathways from the past will continue, which pathways ended with 3.11, and how are these legacies entangled? Legacies of Fukushima places these questions front and center. The authors collected here contextualize 3.11 as a disaster with a long period of premonition and an uncertain future. The volume employs a critical disaster studies approach, and the authors are drawn from the realms of journalism and academia, science policy and citizen science, activism and governance—and they come from East Asia, America, and Europe. 3.11 is a Japanese legacy with global impact, and the authors and their methods reflect this diversity of experience. Contributors: Sean Bonner, Azby Brown, Kyle Cleveland, Martin Fackler, Robert Jacobs, Paul Jobin, Kohta Juraku, Tatsuhiro Kamisato, Jeff Kingston, William J. Kinsella, Scott Gabriel Knowles, Robert Jay Lifton, Luis Felipe R. Murillo, Başak Saraç-Lesavre, Sonja D. Schmid, Ryuma Shineha, James Simms, Tatsujiro Suzuki, Ekou Yagi.

"Naoto Kan, who was prime minister of Japan when the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster began, has become a ubiquitous and compelling voice for the global antinuclear movement. Kan compared the potential worst-case devastation that could be caused by a nuclear power plant meltdown as tantamount only to 'a great world war. Nothing else has the same impact.' Japan escaped such a dire fate during the Fukushima disaster, said Kan, only ‘due to luck.’ Even so, Kan had to make some steely-nerved decisions that necessitated putting all emotion aside. In a now famous phone call from Tepco, when the company asked to pull all their personnel from the out-of-control Fukushima site for their own safety, Kan told them no. The workforce must stay. The few would need to make the sacrifice to save the many. Kan knew that abandoning the Fukushima Daiichi site would cause radiation levels in the surrounding environment to soar. His insistence that the Tepco workforce remain at Fukushima was perhaps one of the most unsung moments of heroism in the whole sorry saga."—The Ecologist On March 11, 2011, a massive undersea earthquake off Japan’s coast triggered devastating tsunami waves that in turn caused meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Ranked with Chernobyl as the worst nuclear disaster in history, Fukushima will have lasting consequences for generations. Until 3.11, Japan’s Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, had supported the use of nuclear power. His position would undergo a radical change, however, as Kan watched the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 Power Plant unfold and came to understand the potential for the physical, economic, and political destruction of Japan.In My Nuclear Nightmare, Kan offers a fascinating day-by-day account of his actions in the harrowing week after the earthquake struck. He records the anguished decisions he had to make as the scale of destruction became clear and the threat of nuclear catastrophe loomed ever larger—decisions made on the basis of information that was often unreliable. For example, frustrated by the lack of clarity from the executives at Tepco, the company that owned the power plant, Kan decided to visit Fukushima himself, despite the risks, so he could talk to the plant’s manager and find out what was really happening on the ground. As he details, a combination of extremely good fortune and hard work just barely prevented a total meltdown of all of Fukushima’s reactor units, which would have necessitated the evacuation of the thirty million residents of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area.In the book, first published in Japan in 2012, Kan also explains his opposition to nuclear power: "I came to understand that a nuclear accident carried with it a risk so large that it could lead to the collapse of a country." When Kan was pressured by the opposition to step down as prime minister in August 2011, he agreed to do so only after legislation had been passed to encourage investments in alternative energy. As both a document of crisis management during an almost unimaginable disaster and a cogent argument about the dangers of nuclear power, My Nuclear Nightmare is essential reading.

I had been feeling, "I am kept alive, given the power to live", and in gratitude, always strongly urged myself not to be discouraged by my age, illness. But while receiving a nursing care, I encountered the unprecedented great earthquake disaster once in 1,000 years. My house was completely destroyed, and I experienced the living in a shelter and also in a frame house of a volunteer group, where I was deeply impressed by the volunteer organization, which I hope to take root in Japan, the each member's spirit, unselfishness, passion, and acts. I was naturally absorbed in volunteer's world. Five hundred thousand volunteers are said to have rushed to the tragic scene of the Great East Japan Earthquake. How greatly they encouraged and cheered up the victims who were lost in their grief. Now I tell the story of the reconstruction, I can't do without telling their humanity and sense of mission. I drove a pen recalling the fabric of human relationships, including my experiences.

The human drama, and long-term lessons, of the Fukushima nuclear disaster The Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 presented an enormous challenge even to Japan, one of the world's most advanced and organized countries. Failures at all levels—of both the government and the private sector—worsened the human and economic impact of the disaster and ensured that the consequences would continue for many years to come. Based on interviews with more than 300 government officials, power plant operators, and military personnel during the years since the disaster, Meltdown is a meticulous recounting and analysis of the human stories behind the response to the Fukushima disaster. While the people battling to deal with the crisis at the site of the power plant were risking their lives, the government at the highest levels in Tokyo was in disarray and the utility company that operated the plants seemed focused more on power struggles with the government than on dealing with the crisis. The author, one of Japan's most eminent journalists, provides an unrivaled chronological account of the immediate two weeks of human struggle to contain man-made technology that was overwhelmed by nature. Yoichi Funabashi gives insights into why Japan's decisionmaking process failed almost as dramatically as had the Fukushima nuclear reactors, which went into meltdown following a major tsunami. Funabashi uses the Fukushima experience to draw lessons on leadership, governance, disaster resilience, and crisis management—lessons that have universal application and pertinence for an increasingly technology-driven and interconnected global society.