On eve of 12th anniversary of Fukushima, Japanese and UK/Ireland local authority representatives sign international partnership to oppose civil nuclear power
Posted: 12th March 2023
Mayors for a Nuclear Power Free Japan and UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities
Joint media release, 10 March 2023, For immediate use
On eve of 12th anniversary of Fukushima, Japanese and UK/Ireland local authority representatives sign international partnership to oppose civil nuclear power
The anti-nuclear campaign groups Mayors for a Nuclear Power Free Japan and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities network have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to work in partnership to oppose civil nuclear power projects in their respective countries.
The UK/Ireland NFLA Steering Committee met today (10 March) and NFLA Steering Committee Chair Councillor Lawrence O’Neill signed the agreement on their behalf. Joining them live on a virtual link was Mayors for a Nuclear Power Free Japan representative Councillor Katsunobu Sakurai, who signed for that organisation. Councillor Sakurai is currently a local councillor in Minamisoma City, Fukushima Prefecture, but he was the Mayor of the city at the time of the disaster, receiving significant international attention.
The date of the signing ceremony is poignant because on the 11 March the global anti-nuclear community marks the 12th anniversary of the disaster that befell the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in North-Eastern Japan. This power plant was on 11 March 2011 hit by an earthquake and a tsunami, leading to a complete loss of electric power to support cooling at the plant. The resulting accident comprised three nuclear meltdowns, three hydrogen explosions and a release of radiation from reactors 1, 2, and 3.
The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident represent a tragic chain of events which led to death, injury and chronic long-term illness amongst the human population, the wholesale abandonment and migration of a community, the collapse of the local economy, and an environmental catastrophe. Atmospheric radiation forced government authorities to evacuate 154,000 people from the surrounding area over a 20-mile radius; the accident was classed as a Level 7 incident on the International Nuclear Event Scale for its overall impact on neighbouring communities – the same designation given to the disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.
Now twelve years on, both the Japanese and British Governments remain wedded to nuclear power as part of their energy mix, and Ministers in both nations have made recent announcements favouring the development of new plants, operating life extensions of old plants, and dumping nuclear waste. In Japan, this includes the horrifying prospect that over one million tonnes of radioactive water, used over the years to cool the destroyed Fukushima plant, will soon be dumped in the Pacific Ocean.
In signing the Memorandum of Understanding the partners have agreed to:
- Work to prevent new nuclear power plants from being built
- Seek the closure of existing aging plants
- Oppose the reprocessing and dumping of nuclear waste
- Promote renewable energy
- Support their respective national efforts to seek justice for the victims of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster and the military veterans and civilians who were victims of British nuclear testing in the Pacific and Australia
- Exchange and share information
- Demonstrate international solidarity on other nuclear-related issues
A series of regular online meetings will now be arranged to take forward joint action, interspersed with frequent email exchanges, but the NFLA also resolved to immediately write to Japanese Government ministers condemning their decision to support the dumping of the Fukushima radioactive water out at sea and to call upon them to think again. They also sent solidarity messages to anti-nuclear activists across the UK holding protest events on the 12th anniversary of Fukushima tomorrow.
Speaking of today’s event, Mayors for a Nuclear Power Free Japan Co-representative, Councillor Katsunobu Sakurai commented:
“The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident on March 11, 2011, forced more than 60,000 people in Minamisoma City to evacuate. Even today more than 3,500 people are unable to return home. In order to prevent the same nuclear disaster from happening, we will cooperate in international efforts to create a world without nuclear power, with people in the UK.”
Whilst the Chair of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities, Councillor Lawrence O’Neill added:
“The NFLA has an international outlook wishing to speak with one collective voice with other organisations that share our vision of a future based not on civil nuclear power, but upon renewables.
“It is only fitting that we sign this partnership with Mayors for a Nuclear Power Free Japan on the eve of the Fukushima accident. When disaster struck on 11 March 2011, we saw how devastating the forces of nature can be to a human community and to a coastal nuclear power plant. The people of Fukushima are still suffering twelve years on.
“The NFLA shall be proud to work as partners to the Mayors for a Nuclear Power Free Japan to seek justice for the victims of nuclear accidents and nuclear testing and to achieve a nuclear free and renewable future for our planet”.