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Friday, May 6th, 2011

Japan’s Nuclear Ghost Towns

Author:     WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN
Source:     The Daily Beast
Publication Date:     6-May-11
 Link: Japan’s Nuclear Ghost Towns
Stephan:   This is what a nuclear accident produces. Read this in the context of what you have read about Chernobyl in SR. People who tell you that we are prepared for a nuclear accident in the U.S. are lying to you. William T. Vollmann is the author of nine novels, including Europe Central, winner of the National Book Award. He has also written three collections of stories, a memoir, and five works of nonfiction, most recently Into the Forbidden Zone: A Trip Through Hell and High Water in Post-Earthquake Japan from which this was adapted. He is the recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN Center USA West Award, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In an exclusive excerpt from Into The Forbidden Zone, acclaimed novelist William T. Vollmann returns to northern Japan a month after the earthquake crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to survey the radiation levels and talk to survivors.

As we twisted up through the yellow-green hills toward Ono, the bamboos shining in the sun, a man working the soil; that wasn’t yet prohibited here, as it already was in Iitate Village, which lay 40 kilometers to the northwest of the plant and hence outside both evacuation zones; it was said that the inhabitants of Iitate would soon have to evacuate.

I found myself checking the dosimeter for radiation levels more often than usual. (In general, 0.05 millirems or less per hour falls within the bounds of normal background exposure, while even 0.1 millirem can be considered unexceptional.) The driver was silent. My upper lip sweated within the mask. Coming down into Ono we saw some broken stone along the road-edge which might have had nothing to do with the earthquake, and a few specks of snow on the mountainside. It seemed like such a beautiful place to go hill-wandering. The driver pointed out some nara trees (good for growing mushrooms, he said; […]

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