[Excerpt translation from Japanese to English provided by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.]

 “Visit to Futaba-chou before ‘Recovery Olympics’, tobacco field converted into space for storing contaminated waste”, 13 Feb 2020

Recording the highest level of radiation, a town near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant will soon be lifting its evacuation order against all odds. On March 4, an evacuation order will be removed on the area around Futaba Station, allowing the Olympic torch to pass through the town. However, none of the residents of Futaba-cho whom I spoke to voiced joy about the event...

Evacuation orders still apply to 96% of Futaba-chou, and people cannot enter these areas without prior approval. On February 8, I accompanied Mr. Shinichi Tanaka on his visit back to his hometown. However, Mr. Tanaka actually does not have a home to return to because he sold his house, property, and farm to the Japanese government...

...As we arrive in the town of Okuma after leaving Tamura city, the radiation level increases from 0.05 micro Sv/h to 1.45 micro Sv/h. The average radiation level to which a person should be exposed in one year is 1 mil SV/h, or 0.114 micro Sv/h over a one-hour period...

When we finally enter Futaba-chou, we see an enormous white building...[A] closer look reveals that it is a temporary storage facility holding the contaminated water produced by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The warehouse stores 1,000 tanks with contaminated water...

...Immediately after he [Mr. Tanaka] sold his tobacco farm, the government began to place containers with the contaminated waste on his property...He peered at massive steel frames, which had been erected where his home once stood. He had been told that they were part of a building to store the ashes from burned-up waste containers...

...We find a large pool of concrete that stores clean dirt that has been separated out from the contaminated waste in the storage containers. Mr. Tanaka says, “This dirt is only clean in that they’ve removed trees and roots. It’s still contaminated. No one will know unless you say that it’s been exposed to radiation.” This dirt will be used for public construction projects all over Japan.

...[W]e notice horizontal banners that say, “Restore beautiful Fukushima.” Mr. Tanaka remarks, “They’re not bringing it back. They’re destroying it.” However, he corrects himself, saying “By sacrificing our town, we can restore Fukushima. Someone has to make a sacrifice. That’s what I think the banner means.”

...When I ask Mr. Tanaka whether this event would mark a happy occasion for the Futaba residents, he replied, “I knew from the start that these changes would happen. After all, the Tokyo Olympics are meant to revitalize the areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami. We can’t exclude only Futaba from the Olympic events"...