Japan’s Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster Unleash $ 300 Billion Rebate

The country has four times expanded its reconstruction budget in ten years, setting aside $ 2,400 for each person in Japan to revive Tohoku, the northeastern tsunami-hit region, and mitigate radiation at the nuclear facility. Even as seawalls rise and houses are rebuilt, many people have not returned.

Most of the money was spent on rebuilding houses, adding seawalls and repairing other damaged infrastructure with the aim of bringing people back and reviving key industries such as fishing, agriculture and tourism.

The Tohoku region, where about 7% of the Japanese population lives, has been experiencing a decline in population for more than a generation as young people move to larger cities. Half of the tsunami victims were 65 or older.

In the three prefectures most affected by the tsunami, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, the collective population has fallen 6% since the disaster.

Hundreds of miles of seawall, some up to 50 feet high, went up the coast and cost about $ 13 billion. About 80% of the planned 268 kilometers of seawalls have been completed.

In Ishinomaki, waves up to 33 feet traveled more than 3 kilometers inland, killing more than 3,000 people – including 74 of the 78 children who visited Okawa Primary School that day. The city is now protected by seawalls up to 32 feet long.

The tsunami crashed into more than 1,000 kilometers of coastline and flooded some communities up to 6 kilometers inland. Some cities have destroyed widespread homes, such as Rikuzentakata in Iwate, where 99.5% of the homes were damaged. In Ishinomaki, 4,000 people died or still are, and 76.6% of all homes in the city were at least partially destroyed.

When the earthquake occurred, the Fukushima Daiichi reactors automatically shut down. Backup generators operated the cooling pumps until two tsunami waves flooded the plant and knocked out the generators. In the ensuing days, the build-up of hydrogen caused explosions in reactors 1, 2, and 3; a fire broke out in 4. Radiation levels rose to as high as 400 millisieverts per hour (people are normally exposed to 2.4 millisieverts per year). The government has declared an evacuation zone with a radius of 20 km.

Now a forest of steel tanks containing more than a million tons of water with radioactive elements is growing outside the plant. Water flows through the plant every second and keeps the reactors cool, which causes the problem. The Japanese Government and Tokyo Electric Power Co.

, plant owner, is studying the release of water with radioactive tritium in the Pacific Ocean. They say it is safe and other countries are doing the same at their nuclear power plants, but people in the fishing industry are worried.

Officials estimate another 30 years of work before Fukushima Daiichi is completely demolished. The biggest task, which has yet to begin, is to remove molten fuel from reactors 1, 2 and 3.. decreased.

Remembering what is sometimes called the ‘triple disaster’ – earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear eruptions – is an annual event in Japan. On March 11 this year, the government will hold a ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of the disaster at the National Theater in Tokyo, with a minute of silent prayer at 2.46pm, the time of the earthquake. Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako will attend.

—Alex Newman contributed to this article.