Fukushima ‘lags in tsunami recovery’

AFP/Tokyo

Recovery in nuclear disaster-hit Fukushima is lagging behind other parts of Japan that suffered during the tsunami, an official said yesterday, adding mental health provision there was insufficient.

“What I’m concerned about most is that there is a disparity in the pace of reconstruction and in support” among disaster-hit areas, Hiroshi Suzuki, head of the reconstruction advisory panel for Fukushima prefecture, told reporters. “During the first year-and-a-half since the disaster, many experts came to the disaster-hit areas, but most of them passed by Fukushima to visit either Miyagi or Iwate,” said Suzuki, professor emeritus of engineering at Fukushima University.

Three prefectures in northern Japan—Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi—were the worst hit by the tsunami in March 2011 that killed thousands of people and triggered nuclear meltdowns in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant.