Paper short abstract:

The Fukushima nuclear disaster drastically impacted the lives of people in Iitate village, forcing the evacuation of the entire population, but also bringing unexpectedly generous compensation payments that have made some of the villagers suddenly wealthy. How has the community responded?

Paper long abstract:

Though located directly in the path of the radioactive plume, the village of Iitate lay just outside the 30km evacuation zone, and so was not evacuated until some 80 days after the disaster, when the government reluctantly recognized that radiation levels there were higher than in many districts much closer to the stricken nuclear power plant. This has left lasting questions about the long-term health of the villagers.

Since 2012 the twenty hamlets that constitute Iitate have been divided into three zones - four northerly hamlets have been designated as low-level radiation areas (0-20 mSv/year), fifteen hamlets as mid-level radiation areas (20-50 mSv/year), and just one hamlet, the southernmost hamlet of Nagadoro, as a high-level radiation area (over 50 mSv/year). The whole village is likely to be declared open for repatriation in spring of next year, except for Nagadoro.

The people of Iitate were compulsorily evacuated and so have received substantial compensation from Tokyo Electric Power. Those in Nagadoro, in particular, have received roughly twice as much compensation as those elsewhere in Iitate, and some households have received total compensation in excess of 100 million yen, or $1 million.

Ironically, the large compensation payments have helped to seal the fate of Nagadoro. Most of the 73 households in the hamlet have purchased new houses within Fukushima prefecture - most of them, ironically, in parts of Fukushima from which other people discussed in this panel evacuated. They have started new lives and there is virtually no prospect of more than a handful ever returning to Nagadoro.

The people of Nagadoro still have to face up to the loss of their community and ancestral lands. Meanwhile, their status as well-compensated nuclear nouveaux riches provokes envy, and many Nagadoro people feel it necessary to conceal their background in the communities where they are now living. Discrimination based on fear that they may have been "infected" with radiation now seems a less powerful cause of discrimination than that based on resentment at high compensation payments.