Noritoshi Hirakawa

A school field trip to the hamaoka nuclear plant, 2011

about the japanese nuclear crisis

photo by NORITOSHI HIRAKAWA

 

The day after giving a lecture at Nagoya University of the Arts, on May 31, 2011, I took a bullet train from Nagoya station to Kakegawa station, where a fisherman named Mr. Shimizu was waiting to pick me up and to drive me to Omaezaki and the Hamaoka Nuclear Plant. Located in a city of 35,000 inhabitants, the nuclear power station was built on the sands above the most active seismic fault in the country, and 25% of the earthquakes in the world occur in Japan. The Hamaoka Nuclear Plant was known as the most dangerous one in the world.

At the request of Prime Minister Kan, and by order of the US Government, all reactors at the Hamaoka Nuclear Plant were shut down on…