There are few events in world history that make us ask ourselves: Where was I when that happened?
I
still remember when the news broke about a plane crashing into the
World Trade Centre in 2001 and the visuals of the giant waves hitting
Indonesia and Thailand’s coast in 2004. Another shocking tragedy that
affected so many of us was the tsunami hitting the nuclear power station
on Fukushima’s coast. The images from these events are forever seared
into memory.
It’s been a decade since the disaster took place. However, the trauma
is still fresh, especially for the survivors who physically experienced
the catastrophe. We had seen Chernobyl exactly 25 years before this,
and with Fukushima, we once again all witnessed the horror of another
nuclear accident. Like Chernobyl, hundreds and thousands of families
had to be evacuated overnight as their homes were no longer safe.
Nuclear radiation was spreading every minute, contaminating everything
on its way.
Ten years is a long journey. Looking at the Greenpeace archives,
beginning with the first team documentation from 2011 up until 2019, it
reminds us that while a decade may seem like a long time, it is not
enough to wash away the pains caused by the accident.
Here we present the visual documentations Greenpeace has done in
Japan over the years, as we try to show the extent of radiation in
various prefectures. This is Greenpeace bearing witness, so we may
never forget Fukushima’s horrors and for us to continue campaigning for a
truly nuclear-free world.
Radiation
levels found by the Greenpeace monitoring team are far above
internationally recommended limits. People living here would receive the
yearly maximum dose of radioactivity within a few days.
A
Greenpeace team member holds a Geiger counter displaying radiation
levels of 5.78 micro Sievert per hour outside Fukushima city with a
population of nearly 400.000.
As
autumn approaches, leaves turn gold in a forest near Tsushima Village,
in the district of Namie. Nestled in between mountains in a beautiful
green valley, Tsushima lies close to the 20 km exclusion zone
surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Despite being
outside the zone it is heavily contaminated, as winds blew radioactive
fallout from the triple meltdown in its direction for three days.
Citizens were exposed to high levels of radiation. Although the
authorities had information showing this would happen, no one was
warned. Thousands of the village's inhabitants have now been evacuated
and are living in temporary homes in Nihonmatsu. Whether they will be
able to return to their villages remains an open question.
Using
long exposure photography and a custom made, Geiger counter-enabled LED
light painting tool, this project makes the invisible visible,
measuring and displaying radiation levels in real-time, in the
environments it exists. Inspired by the Immaterial wifi light painting
project, we have sought to make environmental contamination clear and
understandable using a white/orange/red lighting scale. White represents
levels under 0.23uSv per hour (1mSv per year) - the Japanese
government’s guideline for decontamination after Fukushima. Orange shows
contamination levels elevated above this, up to 1.0uSv per hour
(roughly 5mSv per year) - a range where protective measures to minimize
radiation exposure (such as resettlement, decontamination, special
health services, food controls, etc) should be considered. Red shows
radioactivity is greater than 1.0uSv per year (upwards of 5mSv per year)
– a level where protective measures to minimize radiation exposure are
necessary.
Radiation
levels between 0.97uSv/h and 1.4uSv/h, with yellow showing spots
elevated above the government decontamination target of 0.23 uSv/h, and
red showing above 1uSv/h.
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