Fukushima2020? Disaster-stricken area hopes to host Tokyo Olympic events
Published: December 21
Fukushima hopes to host some of the events for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo to
show the world that the worst days of the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster are behind
it.
"We need to set a goal so that we can show how much Fukushima has recovered," Masao
Uchibori, who was elected the new governor of Fukushima Prefecture in October, said
Tuesday.
"The Olympics is meant to show to the world the Tohoku region's reconstruction. We
want to cooperate as much as possible," he said, as cited by Reuters.
Uchibori made no mention of which events Fukushima Prefecture would aim to host,
but football is the likely choice, on account of the schedule and large number of stadia
needed for the Olympic tournament.
In September 2013, Tokyo successfully won the bid to host the 125th International
Olympic Committee (IOC) session, beating out Madrid and Istanbul. Japan last hosted
the Summer Olympics in 1964 – the first Olympics ever held in Asia. Tokyo was actually
supposed to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, although Japan’s invasion of China saw
the games moved to Helsinki before ultimately being canceled because of World War II.
Tokyo said the event would help the country recover from the 2011 tsunami and
earthquake which sparked the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
“Japan needs hope and dreams,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after the
IOC announcement.
Just days before Tokyo won the bid, Abe told the IOC that ongoing leaks of radioactive
water at Fukushima would have no impact on the country’s ability to host the 2020
Olympics.
“There have been some expressions of concern over the leak of polluted water at
Fukushima, but the government will take a lead in achieving a complete resolution of
this problem,” Abe told reporters at the time. “I will explain carefully that we are doing
our utmost with a firm resolve and that in 2020, seven years from now, there will be
absolutely no problem.”
The president of the Japanese Olympic Committee further attempted to assuage fears
by saying the radiation level in Tokyo was “the same” as in other major global capitals
such as London, New York and Paris.
But Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, said it was
“immoral” to invite people to the Olympic Games in Japan, saying “the health
environment cannot be secured,” the UK Independent cited him as saying at the time.
He called for the bid to be rescinded.
Men wearing protective suits and masks work in front of welding storage tanks for
radioactive water, under construction in the J1 area at the Tokyo Electric Power Co's
(TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma in
Fukushima prefecture (AFP Photo / Toru Hanai / Pool)
Men wearing protective suits and masks work in front of welding storage tanks for
radioactive water, under construction in the J1 area at the Tokyo Electric Power Co's
(TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma in
Fukushima prefecture (AFP Photo / Toru Hanai / Pool)
Later that month, Abe ordered that two Fukushima reactors which survived the 2011
disaster be permanently decommissioned.
The president of Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operated the disabled
Fukushima plant, promised Abe it would finish treating contaminated water at
Fukushima by March 2015.
Earlier this month, Japan’s nuclear watchdog said the radioactive water that has
accumulated at the plant must be decontaminated and dumped into the ocean.
Some 400 tons of untainted groundwater are believed to be seeping into the buildings of
the Fukushima plant on a daily basis. It is then mixing with the toxic water generated
in the process of cooling the crippled reactors. TEPCO collects the radioactive
groundwater and stores it at the site of the plant. However, storing the groundwater
becomes more difficult each day, as the water quantity continues to increase.
The March 11, 2011, incident at Fukushima was the world’s worst nuclear disaster
since Chernobyl in 1986. Despite TEPCO’s intensive cleanup operation at the site, it
will likely take four decades to completely decommission the plant’s four damaged
reactors.
http://rt.com/news/214983-fukushima-host-olympic-radioactive/