全国の水道の放射能濃度

"I'd like to tackle the rehabilitation [of disaster areas] based not on the idea of recreating Tohoku as it was before, but of creating a much better Tohoku and Japan," Prime Minister Naoto Kan

According to government sources, Prime Minister Naoto Kan also has decided to appoint the governors of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures--the three most severely damaged by the disaster--to ensure voices from the private sector and disaster areas are heard.

Kan is personally selecting members of the recovery initiative commission, which is to be launched Monday, one month after the disaster.

National Defense Academy President Makoto Iokibe has been informally appointed panel chairman. Members also likely will include Keio University President Atsushi Seike and Takashi Mikuriya, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo.

"I'd like to tackle the rehabilitation [of disaster areas] based not on the idea of recreating Tohoku as it was before, but of creating a much better Tohoku and Japan," Kan told Miyagi Gov. Yoshihiro Murai, who visited the Prime Minister's Office on Friday.

Architect Tadao Ando and scriptwriter Makiko Uchidate will be among the members of a government panel that will draft recovery programs for areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, it has been learned.

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has spurred the government to restrict rice planting in soil with more than 5,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, the first time maximum radiation levels have been set for soil.

Radioactive cesium levels exceeding 5,000 becquerels per kilogram have been detected in farmland close to the nuclear plant and farmers in these areas will likely be barred from growing rice this season, government sources said.

The Fukushima prefectural government announced Wednesday that rice paddies in Iitatemura have shown as much as 15,031 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium. Part of Iitatemura is within 20 kilometers to 30 kilometers of the plant, where residents have been instructed to stay indoors.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said it plans to decide on the rice planting restrictions after conducting soil inspections and consulting with the prefecture. According to the ministry, rice production in Fukushima is fourth in the nation at about 450,000 tons.

In the battle to contain radiation spewing from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station, Japanese authorities have deployed helicopters, riot-police water cannon and a 58-metre steel hose-arm normally used to spray concrete into high-rise construction sites.

Jakarta Post | Sunday 04/10/2011

ASEAN has offered Japan assistance in strategic policies to help the country recover from an earthquake and tsunami in March that killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands.

“We meet today [Saturday] to enhance cooperation and respond quickly at a time when one of us faces a grave disaster,” Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the Indonesia-initiated ASEAN-Japan meeting at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on Saturday.

“Indonesia believes that a nation such as Japan, which has a strong work ethic, advanced science and technology and a good system in mitigating disasters, will be able to recover and rehabilitate itself quickly.”

He said Southeast Asia and Japan, which were prone to natural disasters, needed to cooperate with and strengthen solidarity with each other.

After the two-hour meeting, Indonesian foreign minister and current chair of ASEAN, Marty Natalegawa, said ASEAN foreign ministers and their representatives expressed their sympathy, solidarity and support to the government and people of Japan in their recovery and reconstruction efforts.

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
"There is a dire need for a real time radiation monitoring network to be set up in areas affected by the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant," Atsuto Suzuki, head of the high-energy accelerator research organisation at Tsukuba University, explained. "This is where our expertise can begin to play a role."

FUKUSHIMA, Japan, Apr 7, 2011 (IPS) - My decision to visit Fukushima - the area worst hit by the massive quake, tsunami and nuclear power accident on Mar. 11 - was taken one afternoon last week after a long meeting with scientists.
The invitation to accompany the scientists on a private fact-finding mission to Fukushima was irresistible. The scientists and engineers who gathered that day, had, for decades, harboured misgivings over reactor safety design and policies and were active in the ongoing debate over the future of nuclear energy in Japan.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 5, 2011) — The huge tsunami triggered by the 9.0 Tohoku Earthquake destroyed coastal towns near Sendai in Japan, washing such things as houses and cars into the ocean. Projections of where this debris might head have been made by Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Maximenko has developed a model based on the behavior of drifting buoys deployed over years in the ocean for scientific purposes.

The debris first spreads out eastward from the Japan Coast in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. In a year, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument will see pieces washing up on its shores; in two years, the remaining Hawaiian islands will see some effects; in three years, the plume will reach the US West Coast, dumping debris on Californian beaches and the beaches of British Columbia, Alaska, and Baja California. The debris will then drift into the famous North Pacific Garbage Patch, where it will wander around and break into smaller and smaller pieces. In five years, Hawaii shores can expect to see another barrage of debris that is stronger and longer-lasting than the first one. Much of the debris leaving the North Pacific Garbage Patch ends up on Hawaii's reefs and beaches.