The people of Fukushima Prefecture are still suffering under the burden of a myriad of ongoing environmental, social and economic problems despite almost half a decade passing since an earthquake- triggered tsunami knocked out the key cooling functions at the Daiichi nuclear power complex, causing multiple meltdowns in its reactors and leading to the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
According to the latest media polls, the majority of local government officials still have reservations about the use of nuclear power, as the nation will somberly honor the lives lost during the triple disasters at ceremonies up and down the country on March 11.
In a survey released by the Kyodo News Agency on Monday about municipal leaders' views on the nation's future energy policy, 44.6 percent of those polled said they wanted to see a reduction in the country's reliance on nuclear power, with more than 20 percent saying they wanted to see the use of nuclear energy phased out entirely in the future.
Of those surveyed, concerns were voiced about ongoing safety woes about the use of nuclear power, as the majority of Japan's aged reactors still remain offline for ongoing safety inspections and in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.
The central government, under the stewardship of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, however, is sticking to its policy of restarting the idled reactors and is eyeing nuclear power to account for at least 20 percent of the nation's entire power generation by 2030, despite opposition to the move at local levels.
While some of those surveyed said that nuclear power was the only feasible means of economically achieving Japan's plans to cut carbon emissions with a reduction of plants currently used to burn fossil fuels to produce power, in lieu of nuclear power plants supplying the nation's grids, 13 prefectural governors whose locales host nuclear power plants said they hoped nuclear power reliance would be reduced.
Hirohiko Izumida, the governor of Niigata Prefecture, on the northwestern Honshu island, facing the Sea of Japan, for example, said that investigations into the Fukushima disaster should go deeper and were "indispensable" to the future of policy decisions here, whereas the governor of Saga Prefecture, northwest Kyushu, the south-westernmost of Japan's main islands, said that he hoped Japan would reduce its reliance on atomic energy in "the medium to long term."
Nerves remained tetchy among local leaders and authorities, the survey showed, with 46.6 percent of them saying that they have been updating their disaster preparedness response plans, with a potential nuclear accident in mind.
