In front of the local government of Iidate Village in Japan's Fukushima Prefecture stands a big radiation measuring device. On its spotless dashboard flashes a red number: 0.38 microsieverts/hour.
The spot is about 40 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the monstrous earthquake-triggered tsunami in March 2011.
Looking at the display, Yoichi Tao, a volunteer with a physics background, smiled in mockery. "The figure is too low," he said, pointing to a humble measuring device not far away. "This is a measuring equipment we set up ourselves," he said. "The figure of radiation is eight to 10 times of the official one."
Tao's feeling presents a stark contrast to the Japanese government's official statements, which claimed that the crisis was "totally under control" and that "any negative impact of radioactive water on the environment is completely blocked."
Tao was suspicious and angry, and the like-minded are many. Some of them suffer from radioactive-related diseases, and some are seeking help but having nobody to turn to.
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear accident, as well as the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On the latter, various investigations and commemorations have never ceased over the past three decades. Yet on the Fukushima nuclear disaster, probes have always been wrapped in an ominous cloak for the past five years.
How many years are needed to handle the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident? What are the exact ecological impacts on the environment? How much progress has been made in the decontamination process? How should the nuclear waste be disposed of?
As regards those questions, many experts around the world give a similar answer:" It's hard to tell, as we don't have enough information."
RADIATION EXPOSURE: HIGH
Why are the radiation measuring figures 10 times different? "This shining measuring device was set up by the government later than us," explained Tao. "It dispatched the military to wipe out the nearby nuclear radiation on the ground in advance, so the official figure looks very low. That's how the government did it."
However, concealing the truth will not lead people's memory to oblivion, but arouse anger.
A joint opinion poll conducted by The Asahi Shimbun, a national daily, and the Fukushima local press in 2015 showed that over 70 percent of the Fukushima residents were unsatisfied with the government's response. One focal point is the local children's poor health, especially thyroid cancer, possibly triggered by nuclear radiation.
Toshihide Tsuda, a professor of environmental epidemiology at Japan's Okayama University, found that the incidence of thyroid cancer among children in Fukushima Prefecture was 20 to 50 times higher than the national average as of 2014, three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
His finding, however, fell on deaf ears of the central and local authorities. The Fukushima prefectural government attributed the phenomenon to a surge of "over-diagnosis." The local government insisted that the cancer incidents and nuclear radiation were not related.
The International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, a global organization, sent a message to the Japanese government this January expressing worry over the high incidence of thyroid cancer among children in the Fukushima region and offering as a professional organization to support the investigation on this matter. However, its offer has been gracefully declined by the Japanese government.
At the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the parents of the children who were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in Fukushima formed a mutual help group to demand that the government provide convincing evidence that their children's sufferings were not related to the nuclear accident.
