On March 11, 2012, the first anniversary of the Great Japan Earthquake, the Japanese government held a national memorial service at the Tokyo National Theater. More than 1,200 people, including Emperor Akihito and his prime minister, as well as other senior government officials and representatives of the disaster area, held condolences for the victims. (China News Network Data Chart)
According to the Chinese Herald, on March 11, 2021, the unprecedented complex disasters such as the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Power Plant Leaks celebrated their tenth anniversary. The Japanese government decided to hold a memorial service on the afternoon of the 11th. The Emperor and his wife attended, and the Emperor will deliver a speech, which is the first time that Emperor Naruhito has attended the memorial service. It is said that this may be the last memorial service hosted by the government.
Looking back on that tragic afternoon ten years ago, many shocking pictures and images are beyond imagination forever, and there are many more plots and stories that people can't bear to face, or have been drowned in the world and will never be revealed. For Japan, the 311 earthquake was not an event that could be ended, but a wound that would never heal with time. The 311 was the most devastating and devastating experience in Japan's disaster history, not only destroying farmland and facilities, taking away lives and homes, but also dealing a heavy blow to national fortunes and morale. The 311 earthquake was a watershed that allowed Japan to step directly from the "post-war period" into the "post-disaster period", everything was so sudden and so tragic, there was no warning, no transition, no refusal, only acceptance.
Ten years after the 311 earthquake, post-disaster reconstruction and regional rejuvenation have been exploring, and so far there have been few satisfactory and eye-catching results. Japan originally wanted to use the Tokyo Olympic Games to light the "fire of rejuvenation" for the disaster-stricken areas in Tohoku and show the results of post-disaster reconstruction, but the spread of the new crown epidemic around the world made the Tokyo Olympics a chicken rib - the Tokyo Olympic Games, facing a huge problem without precedent, may become another wound that Japan cannot heal.
Ten years is a long time process, but Japan has not yet clarified the issue of responsibility for the disaster, nor has it been able to effectively solve the major sequelae, especially the Fukushima nuclear power plant and nuclear pollution, which pose a threat at any time. The Japanese government set up the Reconstruction Hall on February 10, 2012, which was originally scheduled to expire in 10 years, but has been forced to extend until March 31, 2031. The Minister of Rehabilitation has been replaced one after another, giving the impression of a Government apparatus, and whether the role of the Office of Rehabilitation is that of decision-maker in the cause of rehabilitation, provider of reconstruction programmes, or coordinator of implementing departments, it is hitherto unknown and ineffective. On the tenth anniversary of the earthquake, the road to reconstruction is still long, and we will try to list them from the following aspects.
1. Statistics on the victims of the 311 earthquake have been in progress. According to the latest statistics of the National Police Agency, 15,899 people were confirmed to be dead, 2,525 people were missing, and 6,157 people were injured. Among them, Miyagi Prefecture has the largest number of deaths, with 9543 deaths, Iwate Prefecture 4675 deaths, Fukushima Prefecture 1614 deaths, other 9 prefectures dead 67 people, 90% of which died from the impact of the tsunami. A total of 404,893 buildings were destroyed or partially destroyed. The relevant casualty statistics did not stop, and new discoveries will be made ten years later.
2. The pollution area of the Fukushima nuclear power plant has become a no-man's land, which is difficult to recover. During the 311 earthquake and tsunami, three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melted down, developing into one of the world's worst nuclear accidents. At that time, the largest number of people evacuated was 470,000, and about 47,000 people are still evacuated, and about 3,000 people are living in temporary resettlement houses. Of the 47,700 residents who originally lived in Fukushima, only 23 percent returned to their hometowns, about 11,000. According to the NHK survey, nearly 65% of the victims felt the physical or psychological impact of the disaster, and many had less communication with the residents of the community. Nuclear spills and contamination have turned once bustling streets into no-man's land. In places like Namie-cho, Fukushima Prefecture, house ruins and abandoned shops can be seen everywhere, and the cross streets are empty.
3. Tokyo Electric Power will pay more than 10 trillion yen in compensation for the nuclear accident. Tokyo Electric Power Company, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, will pay more than 10 trillion yen in compensation in fiscal 2021. As of February 19, the cost of compensation for moral damages and business losses amounted to 9.7028 trillion yen. In addition to the 2.7 trillion yen in pollution costs, compensation for disaster victims, including corporations, is about 7 trillion yen, which will be increased in the future. TEPCO "insisted on compensation until the last person", saddled with a huge debt that was difficult for a company to pay off. For a long time to come, how to deal with the wastewater after nuclear sewage purification has become a huge issue.
4. The Fukushima nuclear accident caused the collapse of Japan's nuclear power industry. The Fukushima nuclear accident broke the myth of "nuclear power safety" and also exposed the characteristics of Japanese science and technology "strong application, weak foundation", "strong imitation ability, weak independent development". To this end, Japan's national energy strategy has shifted, Toshiba, the largest nuclear power company, has collapsed, and the export strategy of nuclear power plants such as Hitachi has been hit hard. After the earthquake, Japan shut down its nuclear power units at home. As of January 2020, 15 nuclear power units have completed their review, of which 9 are operational and the remaining 18 operational units are at various stages of the Nuclear Regulatory Authority(NRA) review process.
Japan set a basic energy plan target in 2018 to achieve 22-24% of energy from renewable sources, 20-22% from nuclear power and 56% from fossil fuels by 2030. In October 2020, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga pledged to increase the share of renewables to 50% by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. In his 2021 New Year's statement, Japan's International Atomic Energy Agency President Takashi Ioi said that in order for Japan to achieve its net-zero emissions target by 2050, the use of nuclear energy as a low-carbon energy source is essential: "In order to achieve carbon neutrality and improve energy self-sufficiency, Japan must restart nuclear power units that are still idle as soon as possible, and strive to replace old nuclear power plants and build more nuclear power plants." But the lingering shadow of the Fukushima nuclear leak has left Japan and the international community with lingering feelings. The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report on March 3 stating that "rebuilding trust in nuclear energy is a challenge" regarding the Fukushima nuclear accident.
5. Affected by the wind evaluation, the export of agricultural products from the disaster-stricken areas of Japan has been sluggish for ten years. After the earthquake, affected by the nuclear accident, 54 countries and regions around the world restricted the import of Japanese agricultural and aquatic products, and 20 countries and regions still maintain restrictions. Hong Kong, Japan's highest export of agricultural and aquatic products and food, still prohibits the import of vegetables, fruits, milk and dairy products from Fukushima. In April 2019, in response to South Korea's restrictions on Japanese aquatic products imports, Japan took the lawsuit to the WTO and finally lost the case. The Japanese government wants to significantly increase exports of agriculture, forestry, aquatic products and foodstuffs, but it can only continue to call on countries to lift import restrictions, and the road is still long.
6. Japan's slow post-disaster recovery has always been a topic of criticism by the people in the disaster areas. The reasons for this are that there is no land, no money, no manpower, strict supervision of the reconstruction budget, and the reconstruction of the disaster areas depends on the autonomous body, on the enterprise, on the individual, and so on. In November last year, the NHK Broadcasting Institute conducted a nationwide public opinion survey showing that nearly 30% of respondents believe that there has been no progress in the reconstruction and reconstruction of the tsunami-stricken areas, and many people still do not feel the results of the reconstruction in the past decade after the Great East Japan Earthquake. In addition, in response to the question of TEPCO's removal of nuclear pollution, 53% of respondents replied that "there is no progress", and 12% of the respondents said that "there is no progress".
7. Japan has frequent earthquakes, not only the northeast coast is a frequent area, but all of Japan is ready at any time. On the evening of February 13, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake occurred off the coast of Fukushima, which is defined as the aftershock of the 311 earthquake. This is the first earthquake since April 2011 that has reached a magnitude of more than 6 on the Pacific coast of Japan's Tohoku region, and it is said that such aftershocks may occur again in the next 10 years. In addition, the probability of a major earthquake in the South China Sea in Japan is predicted to be as high as 80% in the next 30 years, and various victims are presumed to be endless. This shows that the Japanese archipelago is in a state of unease, and people have to pray in addition to daily disaster prevention and preparedness.
8. Reconstruction and regeneration of disaster-stricken areas such as Fukushima, or transformation into new energy demonstration zones. On the 8th anniversary of the 311 earthquake, the Japanese government announced that 99% of the roads in the disaster area had been repaired, and 97% of railways and buses had resumed normal operation. Then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed: "Over the next three years, we will concentrate on continuing to strengthen hardware and software to make Japan a resilient country to deal with natural disasters." On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the earthquake, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga visited the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Base (Nanae-cho), the world's largest hydrogen-producing base, inspected the "Fukushima Robot Test Area" (Minami-Soma City), which promotes the development of robots and small drones, and visited the "Okawahara Area Reconstruction Base" in Ōumamachi, where large-scale commercial facilities opened this spring. Facts have shown that Fukushima and other places have achieved transformation in the process of post-disaster reconstruction, revealing the dawn of new energy demonstration areas. (Original title: The 10th Anniversary of the 311 Earthquake: A Wound That Will Never Heal)