Mako Oshidori in Düsseldorf "The Hidden Truth about Fukushima"

On March 8th, 2014, comedienne/journalist Mako Oshidori gave a lecture, "The Hidden Truth About Fukushima" in Düsseldorf, Germany, organized by a citizen's group, SAYONARA Genpatsu Düsseldorf. Translation of Mako Oshidori's March 6th, 2014 press conference at the German IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) Symposium in Frankfurt can be found here.

The lecture, given in Japanese with German interpretation, was transcribed and translated into English.

Moderator: Good evening everyone. My name is Mariko. Welcome to a lecture by Mako Oshidori. As we all know, the Japanese people experienced the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. A huge earthquake, followed by tsunami and the nuclear accident, has become an unprecedented disaster for the Japanese as well as the rest of the world. Moreover, this accident is not only out of control but continues to be in critical state.
As you may be aware, the issue of anti-nuclear power plant ranks third in the interest of Metropolitan Tokyo residents. This was revealed in the degree of interest survey of various public opinion polls during the recent Tokyo gubernatorial election. The number one issue was declining birthrate. It could be said that the interest in this type of issue is suppressed due to the media control. This is a situation where the voices from disaster-stricken Fukushima do not reach Tokyo residents.

However, today, we have invited Mako Oshidori to come and share with us her direct knowledge of what is happening in Fukushima. It is a rare opportunity that this type of information is directly disseminated in foreign countries, so this is going to be a valuable lecture. Mako Oshidori is a representative of Free Press Corporation in Japan. Is that right?

Mako: I am the director, not a representative.

This organization was originally created after the earthquake. The media is controlled as I just mentioned. This alliance was created for the purpose of conveying accurate, fresh information without media control.

Mako: Actually, it was created shortly before the earthquake. It was sort of coincidental.

Before the Fukushima accident, Mako Oshidori was performing Manzai, a two-person comedy act, as part of the pair, Oshidori Mako and Ken, for belonging to Yoshimoto Kogyo. However, after the nuclear accident, she began to voice her opinions about anti-nuclear power plant issues, which kept her from getting work. Instead, she became more known as a journalist, especially for her sharp questions which would drive TEPCO officials into a corner. Mako is of course a journalist, but she also visits Fukushima Prefecture to gather voices of local people and interview TEPCO workers to gather information. Now I will give the microphone to Mako Oshidori. I hope this evening will bring an informative and contemplative time together.

My name is Mako Oshidori.  I am sorry I speak in Japanese

I am very thankful I can meet you today and have an opportunity to talk here. I am glad to be here. I am very grateful to the Protestant church and the IPPNW or International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War for inviting me to Germany. I would like to make a minor correction in the introduction given a moment ago. I was invited to talk to you, but I am actually not active in the anti-nuclear power plant movement. What I do is conduct investigations. There are numerous issues in Japan that I investigate, from the nuclear accident to other medical issues such as Minamata disease and Asbestosis.

However, doctors and scientists attending the IPPNW conference, which ended yesterday, shared how they end up being labeled as anti-nuclear activists even though they don’t consider themselves to be as such, when they research and publicize facts inconvenient for promotion of nuclear power. There is a tremendous amount of pressure exerted when researching and writing up facts the nuclear lobby doesn’t like. If you continue without giving in, despite such pressure, people eventually think you are an anti-nuclear power plant activist. Of course, it is my belief that we don’t need nuclear power plants on Planet Earth.

There is one thing that really surprised me here in Europe. It’s the fact that people here think Japan is a very democratic and free country. I am actually a journalist with the highest attendance rate at the TEPCO press conference. It seems inconvenient to them when I write various facts in articles, and a variety of pressure has been placed on me. There was a magazine I used to contribute an article to. An electric power company group would pressure the editor to place three pro-nuclear articles each time one of my articles was posted. As a result, my article ended up not being posted in the magazine. Also, there was a television show being planned where I would talk about the TEPCO accident, but sponsors gave an instruction not to have me use any words such as nuclear power and nuclear power plants. I ended up not going on the show.

In 2011 and 2012, pressure was placed on me by TEPCO. However, in 2013 when the Japanese central government decided to begin to restart nuclear power plants, the government placed a watch on me. In July 2013, a new House of Councilors was elected and both Upper and Lower House ended up with the Liberal Democratic Party as the ruling party. This administration then held a secret meeting by secretly gathering specialists and researchers in the field of nuclear power. The meeting was convened in order to collect ideas about how to decommission Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and a piece of paper was distributed with a list of names. The current Japanese government told the researchers not to approach anybody on the list. The list included people with power in the opposition parties, such as the former prime minister Naoto Kan and the politician Ishiro Ozawa, and I was told that my name, Mako Oshidori, was listed alongside these names. A researcher who was given the list and told not to approach anybody on it was friendly with me and told me the list included my name.

Soon after that a mysterious man began to follow me. This man appeared to be a member of Public Security Intelligence Agency in the Cabinet Office, which investigates various things. One of my hobbies is taking a candid shot, and I will show you the successful candid shot of this man. 

Just as you see here, there was a time period when someone would always be near me, trying to eavesdrop on my conversation with people. As I am a professional entertainer, whoever I am talking to would ask me if the person was my manager. I would say that the person must be one of my groupies, as I have never met the person. Sometimes I would go to Fukushima Prefecture to interview different mothers. We would have meals together and talk somewhere, and when the mothers are leaving the premise to go home, an agent from the Public Security Intelligence Agency would take a photo of each mother and make a note of the license plate number of each car. Afraid of having their photos taken or the license plate numbers recorded, some Fukushima mothers would refused to be interviewed, or they would even refuse to have their stories published. An ex-agent who is knowledgeable about the work of the Public Security Intelligence Agency said that when you are visibly followed, that was meant to intimidate you. If there was one person visible, then there would be ten more. I think that is analogous to cockroaches. So, when you do a little serious investigation about the nuclear accident, you are under various pressure and it makes it more difficult to interview people. There are actually other journalists from major newspapers and television stations, other than me, who have done a lot of investigation about the nuclear accident, but the information doesn’t readily come out. That’s because the pressure is placed on them not to release the information. What I am going to tell you now might surprise you, but the Japanese people are just as surprised when I tell them the same information as it’s something they have never heard of, read in the newspaper, or seen on TV.

Next, I would like to talk about the nuclear power plant workers. This man used to work for TEPCO as a nurse at a medical clinic inside FDNPP. I interviewed him when he quit his job at TEPCO in 2013. 

When NPP workers die, the only deaths publicly announced by TEPCO are deaths that occurred while at work. For instance, if workers die during a weekend, in sleep, or during time off after 3 months of work, their deaths won’t be announced. Such deaths are reported to someone like him at the medical team at TEPCO, but they are merely attributed to chronic illnesses they must have had. There is no way to tell if the deaths were due to radiation exposure, but he said he was certain the workers were working under extremely severe conditions. I really wanted to write about his interview in various magazines, but unfortunately I can only write about this on the Internet which doesn’t have any sponsors.

There was an NPP worker who died in January 2012. I did a fairly thorough investigation after I was able to obtain police report on him. We got an address for the guarantor for the deceased worker, so we went to that address. There was an apartment building at this address without a unit numbered 204 which was supposed to be where the guarantor lived. In Japan, number four could mean bad luck (Note: In Japanese, number 4 phonetically sounds just likea Japanese word for “death”). After room 203, there was room 205, skipping room 204. I asked the other occupants of the apartment building, but there was no resident there by the name of this guarantor, so it didn’t seem like I wrote down the number wrong. Even though the building could be located on a map, you have to go there to verify the room is actually there. This might have been an guarantor with an imaginary address. This is the dark side of the construction and nuclear industries, not just post-nuclear accident, that those without families, especially elderlies, are given harsh work.

Workers who were exposed to 100 mSv in 2011 are entitled to annual cancer screening and thorough medical care. However, most workers get exposure doses below 100 mSv, such as 90, 95, or 83 mSv, and they don’t qualify for thorough medical care. Workers who had been working at NPP since before the accident know what could happen to them a after reaching a certain exposure dose in one year, or what it means to get exposed to 35 mSv in 2 hours during a particular work. They talk about how they probably won’t live too long. They are determined not to have any children, and they often talk about how uncertain they are about their lives in 5 years.

In current Japan, even children are not being protected, but there are some who are determined to protect children’t health. However, there is hardly any group or individuals advocating for protecting the workers in the most dangerous environment at FDNPS. I believe that is our responsibility. My article about the deceased worker from the January 2012 investigation was actually published in a weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun. However, a singer Ayumi Hamazaki suddenly got divorced right then, and I was asked to cut 75% of the article. I think a big reason why information such as this is not publicized is because readers are not craving for such information. We are in essence not fulfilling our duty to be informed.

Next, i would like to talk about mothers in Fukushima. These mothers (and fathers) live in Iwaki City, Fukushima. They are active on school lunch issues. Currently, Fukushima produce isn’t selling well due to suspected contamination. So the prefectural policy is to encourage the use of Fukushima produce in school lunches, in an attempt to appeal its safety. As a large municipality, Iwaki City had been purchasing produce from distant prefectures instead of Fukushima produce, but after the accident, the policy changed to use Fukushima produce in school lunches in order to appeal safety of Fukushima produce by showing it’s safe enough to give to children. They are collecting signatures for a petition to oppose the use of Fukushima produce in school lunches. Some say stricter radiation testing (in food used in school lunches) could help, but the mothers claim that currently in Japan only cesium is measured and they have no idea if there is any strontium. They oppose the use of Fukushima produce in school lunches for fear of finding out, ten-plus years down the road, that there was actually plutonium in the food that children ate. Their concern is not so much if it’s safe or not, but it should not be a scientific issue but an ethical issue to use children as a way of appealing for safety. However, currently, about 70% of the municipalities within Fukushima Prefecture use Fukushima produce to children in school lunches as a way of appealing for safety. These mothers constitute a minority group, and therefore, they are pressured and harassed. They are told to leave Fukushima if they are worried about the contamination. I investigated details of these harassments, but I have been asked not to write about it and disseminate it. It’s because they are afraid the harassment might worsen once it becomes clear which specific harassments bother them.

This is a photo from the October 2012 Fukushima visit with Mr. Nesterenko, the director of BELRAD Institute in Belarus. The most surprising moment for him came when he took measurements in this area of Oguni Elementary School. 

It says 27.6 μSv/h. He asked me then if all the students had evacuated. I said they were in class as we spoke. He said the radiation level qualified for immediate mandatory evacuation in Belarus. He told me that he thought Japan was a wealthy country but that he was apparently wrong. At the time, some Date City government workers happened to come by, so I told them there was a spot with a very high radiation level. They told me they already knew about it. This spot has really a very high radiation level, but the inside of the elementary school has been decontaminated and deemed safe. However, Mr. Nesterenko kept asking what it was that they meant by saying it was safe inside as there is no air filter for school buildings and air from the high radiation spot still flows inside. I was shown by the mothers the radiation level for the spot was 179 μSv/h in September 2012, which was a month before our visit. The principle of the school sent a letter to families stating everything was okay because the radiation level came down to 3.9 μSv/h after decontamination.  

The mother who showed me the letter said she wanted the children evacuated immediately with the radiation level of 179 μSv/h. However, the evacuation never happened and the school remained in normal operation, so her family evacuated voluntarily at their own expense. During my 2012 visit there, out of 200 families at this school, only 2 families were concerned about radiation exposure. Now those 2 families moved away. Even after the move, they are constantly talking about they don’t know if they are just crazy, worried about nothing, or if it’s actually dangerous. 

By the way, the current measure to deal with areas contaminated with a high level of radioactive material is to remove the soil, put it in bags, and place them in an empty lot. It’s not just Fukushima Prefecture. Neighboring prefectures in eastern Japan, such as Ibaraki Prefecture, Gunma Prefecture, Miyagi Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture also have a lot of areas with contamination where people live. They decontaminate, put the soil in bags, and stack them in an empty lot. By the way, these bags look small, but each bag actually weighs 1 ton. It’s rather large. 

This photo is from Ibaraki Prefecture. Quite ironically, there is a sign at one end of the photo that says to “take any garbage home.” Currently, there is no plan on how to dispose these bags of contaminated material.

One difference I noticed between Fukushima and Chernobyl accidents is that in Fukushima the Internet is quite developed. This is an open house of a project called Matsumoto Boarding School Project for the Children of Fukushima. In Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, the mayor started a project for Fukushima children to live in a dormitory and go to school. The first group will have 10 children. 

The mayor of Matsumoto City, Akira Sugenoya, is a physician who operated on thyroid glands of children in Belarus and Russia after the Chernobyl accident. Needless to say, he insisted on evacuating children immediately after the Fukushima accident. However, evacuation never happened. So he started this project with the Fukushima residents who evacuated to Matsumoto City.


In Fukushima, it has become a taboo to be afraid of contamination due to the nuclear accident or be concerned about radiation exposure. They are not supposed to be afraid as the country, the government and the researchers assure them it’s safe. Therefore, this project uses the word, boarding school, instead of evacuation, allowing for easier dissemination of information in Fukushima and less hesitant participation. 

As the new school year begins in April in Japan, Fukushima children will come to Nagano Prefecture to live beginning in April this year. This was a trial last December for the interested children and families. I had a chance to have private conversations with the children, who were interested in participating in this project, away from their parents. What they told me was quite shocking. Many of the children who are potential participants are junior high school can get on the Internet and collect information on their own. Even though teachers and fathers tell them that they are not affected by the nuclear accident, the Internet search says otherwise. Their health seems to be affected since the nuclear accident, and they seem to feel better if they go to uncontaminated areas for a visit. So, some children want to study in uncontaminated areas although their parents are against it. One junior high school girl said she would want to bear children when grown up, so she felt that she should leave Fukushima as soon as possible. One girl said she was going to leave Fukushima for high school or college, but she was interested in the project as she would be able to leave for junior high school. 

There are different opinions in regards to contamination, but children are actually gathering information on the Internet, thinking for themselves and being afraid. I was surprised at such a reality where children are unable to talk to parents or teachers about it despite their fear. There was one elementary school whose PTA discussed during a meeting that they should only rely on school information, as the Internet scares people. That scared some families enough that they actually decided to evacuate.

I was just told how much time I have left. I would like to talk about the current status of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

This is a chimney called a “stack” behind Units 1 and 2. There are various issues all over Fukushima Daiichi NPP, but this is one of the places that I consider the most dangerous. It is 120 m tall. In December 2013, it was discovered the highest radiation level, 25 Sv/h, at the bottom of the stack. It’s not micro- or milli-sievert, but it’s 25 Sievert. and humans cannot go near it. The problem gets worse. TEPCO discovered deformities on 4 sides at 60 of the 120 meter height. That is shown in this photo.  

Some are totally severed.

Ordinarily, this should be immediately repaired, but the bottom of the stack is 25 Sv/h, and there is one spot that is 15 Sv/h. So, they can’t do anything about it. What TEPCO is doing about this is they have appointed workers to constantly watch it. This is very close to Units 1 and 2. We still get occasional earthquakes in Fukushima and eastern Japan. Workers on site are very worried about whether it would fall onto the reactor buildings. If it ever fell on Unit 1 or 2, all the workers would have to evacuate. There is no guarantee they would have enough time to evacuate, and it could lead to a severe accident necessitating evacuation of nearby residents once again.

One of the things not well known is the fact that in reality radioactive materials continue to be released into air and groundwater from the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. This is a quick drawing I made of a pressure vessel and a containment vessel. 

Currently, it is thought that fuel rods have melted, falling to and accumulating in the bottom of the pressure vessel. 

It is being cooled with water, but then a lot of hydrogen gas is being produced as part of the reaction between water and radioactive material.

This means there is a danger of another hydrogen explosion, so they inject nitrogen gas there, remove as much radioactive material as possible, and release the gas into outside air. Now we get to the real issue here: this is for Unit 1, but they inject 10 ton of nitrogen gas at 35 m3/h and release 21 m3/h after putting it through a filter. This means there is a leak continuing somewhere at 14 m3/h. The situation is the same for Units 1, 2 and 3, and a large amount of radioactive material continues to be released into the air. The total supposedly approaches 10,000,000 Bq/h.

Now we get to the real issue here: this is for Unit 1, but they inject 10 ton of nitrogen gas at 35 m3/h and release 21 m3/h after putting it through a filter. 

This means there is a leak continuing somewhere at 14 m3/h. 

The situation is the same for Units 1, 2 and 3, and a large amount of radioactive material continues to be released into the air. The total supposedly approaches 10,000,000 Bq/h.

Groundwater is of course contaminated. This is the area where PM Abe declared the contaminated water being completely blocked when trying to bring the Olympics to Tokyo. 

Groundwater is found to be highly contaminated in the area circled in red, and there is a large amount of contaminated water leak in this part, which has been acknowledged by TEPCO. Prime Minister Abe said contaminated water was totally blocked at the harbor, but journalists who attend the TEPCO press conference of course know that was not true. 

So, after the statement by PM Abe, one question after another came from many journalists at the press conference if the contaminated water was actually blocked by the harbor. Also, TEPCO said they asked the government of its intention after hearing PM Abe’s statement. In other words, TEPCO was quite surprised. TEPCO did not dare say it wasn’t blocked, but they always answer that they think the effect will be minimal.

In regards to this area with very highly contaminated groundwater, as described earlier, an announcement was made on February 6, 2014, that one of the wells had 5,000,000 Bq/L strontium detected. But it was actually last July when the well was dug and the groundwater sample was taken and measured. Why the measurement result wasn’t released until now?　Measurement data for cesium and other radioactive material was released then, but not strontium 90. Why did they not announce the high strontium level back then? TEPCO explained that the level was so high that they were investigating to make sure there were no errors in the analytical method. This was the first measurement after the observation well for the groundwater was dug, so there is no way to know, at this point, how long and how much the groundwater had been contaminated. Currently, many wells are being dug to take measurements of the groundwater for assessment of contamination, but we are not sure what is leaking from where. All we know is that various things are leaking from many places, not just this one well. We don’t know how long and how much the groundwater has been contaminated. Also, there was an announcement in February that they had underestimated the measurements up to that point.

As described so far, radioactive materials continues to leak into air and water, and there are several places which need immediate attention even though they are not approachable by humans. However, very few Japanese people know about this type of information, as it’s not publicized on TV or in newspaper widely available. Also, the plan is underway to return evacuees to contaminated areas as the government and researchers say it’s safe. This is the reality of a “wealthy” country, Japan, which is considered a free, democratic and wonderful country. But it’s really our own responsibilities that we are in this situation. I am always thinking about how things can be changed. In Japan, many think they are participating in politics only by casting a vote at elections. That’s probably what I thought in the past. But then I realized we are constantly casting a vote when we decide what to buy, what to spend out time on, and where to go. So, I really appreciate you all decided to spend your time to come all the way here. Despite the current situation in Japan, I think things can change if we change our way of life by being mindful about what to buy and how to spend our time, while wanting to know, wishing the media to change, and wishing the politics to change.

I am often told, sometimes scolded, by my entertainer master, perhaps called maestro in German, that “It is no good kicking against the bricks.” On the other hand, another master who experienced WWII tells me not to talk for the country but talk for the happiness of the audience in front of me. Yet another master told me it would take 100 years for the world to change no matter how hard I tried by myself. I told this master, “Then, if there are 100 others like me, it would only take one year.” I think there are over 100 of you here today, so things will change in one more year. I think there are various issues in the world, other than the nuclear accident, but I would like to really think about how to spend my life and keep on living thoughtfully. Thank you so much for your attention.

Transcription by Takashi Mizuno
Translation by @YuriHiranuma