Meltdown at Fukushima | Ghost Towns with NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf | 5

Against The Odds

Wondery

Cassie De Pecol, History, Society & Culture, Dolby, Mike Corey, Dolby Atmos, Atmos

4.7 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2022

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s been more than decade since the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. But the region is still grappling with the environmental, economic and emotional legacy of the disaster. Evacuations have lifted – but many people still haven’t returned. And what does it mean to reopen a nuclear ghost town? That’s what NPR reporter Kat Lonsdorf wanted to discover when she visited Fukushima in early 2020. Kat joins host Mike Corey to discuss how locals are rebuilding their communities and the future of nuclear power in Japan.

For more on the aftermath of the disaster, listen to Kat Lonsdorf’s NPR series, Recovering Fukushima.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey Prime members, you can listen to Against the Odds at Free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.
0:13.9	From Wondery, I'm Mike Corey, and this is Against the Odds.
0:18.7	It's been more than a decade since a 9.1 magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima region of Japan.
0:32.0	The resulting nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant blanketed the surrounding cities and towns with toxic radiation, forcing 160,000 people to flee from their homes.
0:44.9	The cleanup could cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take 40 years.
0:51.0	Since the evacuations, towns have reopened, but many residents haven't returned, and the region is still grappling with the environmental, economic and emotional legacy of the disaster.
1:03.3	Joining us today is NPR Reporter Kat Lonstorf.
1:08.5	For her radio series, recovering Fukushima, Kat spent six weeks in Fukushima, meeting locals and hearing their stories nearly a decade after the disaster.
1:19.5	Kat Lonstorf, welcome to Against the Odds.
1:23.1	Hey, thanks for having me.
1:24.7	So how did you first find yourself in Fukushima in 2020?
1:28.7	I had been kind of watching Fukushima for a while.
1:32.4	I love Japan. I grew up learning Japanese and being interested in Japan. And obviously when the tsunami and the big disaster happened in 2011, I paid a lot of attention to that.
1:43.9	I think a lot of the world paid a lot of attention to that.
1:46.3	But then, you know, I became a journalist. I joined NPR.
1:49.8	And I remember in 2019, I saw just an AP story on the reopening of one of the towns right next to the Fukushima nuclear power plant, this town called Okuma.
2:02.0	I think at that point it had been eight years after the disaster.
2:04.4	And I was like, what does that even mean?
2:06.3	Like, what does it mean to reopen a nuclear ghost town?
2:09.9	How does that work?
2:11.1	Did they just invite people back into their old homes and act like nothing happened?
2:16.2	I mean, I figured that wasn't the case.
	...

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