Soil samples from Fukushima, the prefecture where Japan’s Dai-Ichi Nuclear reactor exploded in 2011 sending plumes of radioactive material into the sky, will be transported to the garden of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to serve as flower beds. Far from horticultural, the real purpose is to reassure the Japanese people that Fukushima is now safe and to allow the government to get on with the colossal task of moving the mountains of top soil now stocked in the prefecture around Japan to be used for agriculture and as building materials.
The Fukushima nuclear ‘disaster’ would perhaps be better named the ‘almost disaster’
The government are resorting to this stunt – which reminded me of a long-ago incident when then agriculture minister John Selwyn Gummer tried to feed a hamburger to his daughter to prove British beef was safe – because a high level of scepticism remains about Fukushima. There are 14 million cubic metres of soil to shift and the government is obligated by law to disperse 75 per cent of it by 2045 so local trust and cooperation is essential.
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