Fukushima Residents File Lawsuits Against Japan's Government

Last week, it was reported in the Japan Times that Tohoku residents made homeless by the nuclear meltdown of 3/11/2011 are filing group damages suits against TEPCO and the Japanese government.

The group will consist of families living in  Fukushima, Miyagi, Yamagata, Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures, and the suits will be filed through with the Fukushima District Court. Masatada Akimoto, representative of the group of attorneys, said the residents will seek ¥50,000 for each plaintiff for every month they have been displaced, and will also  demand that radiation levels in their hometowns be reduced to their precrisis levels. The number of plaintiffs is expected to be around 350 at the moment, but that number will rise. 

“The government promoted nuclear power plants prioritizing the economy over safety. . . . We believe it is time to demand that Tepco and the government take responsibility (for the nuclear disaster),” Akimoto told The Japan Times.

“People who evacuated from Fukushima still have no idea about their future. Their frustration has surpassed the breaking point,” he said.

According to Akimoto, Tepco has yet to reach damages settlements with many people who fled from areas of Fukushima that were not designated for evacuation.

“As people begin to realize that Tepco is not willing to do anything (for them), some people have started to think that they need to stand up and do something about it rather than just wait,” Akimoto said.

This reflects the growing movement for the Tohoku region to turn away from the central Tokyo administration, and towards  self-responsibilty, self-government, and devolution. It's also part of a general, worldwide movement, with areas such as Venice, Catalonia, Texas, and Scotland calling for independence, realizing that so-called globalization has turned out to be a fraud. At the same time, the prospect of the United Kingdom leaving the EU seems to be more than a fantasy. 

In "3/11:The Fallout", Patrick Fox attempts to explain why this is happening now, and what are the global implications of the 3/11/2011 event. We have just seen, over the last couple of days, people injured and gas supplies cut off because of the meteor strike in central Russia. "Black Swan Events" such as these (incidents that cannot be reasonably predicted) have the power to bring any major city to a sudden and unexpected halt.  

In addition, we live in an age where disruptions caused by freak weather conditions are occurring more and more often. Tokyo was paralyzed in mid-January by an extremely heavy snowfall, and fairly soon it will be hurricane and typhoon season. 

Finally, there is Peak Oil to consider. The accelerating depletion of fossil fuel reserves means that blackouts and brownouts will increase - I quote here from a press release given out by Marcus Tremain, financial consultant ...

The first thing we should be seeing is an increasing trend of blackouts and power shortages. While in India rolling blackouts & load shedding are already a constant feature, it is interesting to note that at the end of July 2012 700 million in India were without power for two days, as the electric grid of more than a dozen states suffered an epic collapse. Also whilst it is fairly well known that China has had to endure power shortages every summer for the past decade, it’s when we focus on the world’s largest and most developed economy over the same decade that things start to get interesting ... the US grid appears to be becoming more and more vulnerable as time goes on. For example on the 13th March 2012 (pictured above) a large part of central Boston went dark because of a transformer explosion. The response was to roll in diesel generators to provide emergency power. 

What does the world look like without electricity? For more questions and possible answers, "3/11: The Fallout" can be found here.