Asia Bizz: After the massive earthquake in Japan last year, giant piles of debris have accumulated at the northeast coast of the Asian country. Now that the cleanup process is underway, it is feared that the rubbish may be contaminated by radiation.
After the earthquake, followed by a deadly tsunami in the month of March last year, decades worth of waste was left behind. The quake-tsunami claimed more than 19,000 lives. Now survivors are desperate to re-build and are left with no other option but to dispose off 22 million tons of rubbish which is too much for the region to deal alone.
Several appeals have been made to the national solidarity and worries over the nuclear contamination from the Fukushima power plant, but no one elsewhere in Japan wants the debris to be processed near them.
One of the survivors from the devastated town of Onagawa said that they hope that everything will be quickly taken away as soon as possible so that they can go back to normal life. Environment Minister Goshi Hosono said that facilities across the entire country have to be brought together to deal with the 16 million tons of debris from the Miyago Prefecture. Hosono added that 2.28 million tons of debris has to be treated on site as radioactive elements have been released in the environment in the prefecture.
