October 29-30, 2022 Special seminar was held in Hamadori

A special seminar titled “Environmental Radioactivity Seminar in Hamadori” was held in Futaba Town, Okuma Town, and Tomioka Town in Hmadori region of Fukushima Prefecture, on October 29 and 30, 2022. This seminar was held in the framework of the “Projects for Human Resource Infrastructure Development utilizing ’Fukkou-Chi / Intellectual Bases for Reconstruction’ of universities”, which is carried out by the Fukushima Innovation Coast Promotion Organization. IER is participating as a co-applicant in one of the projects “Establishment Intellectual Exchange Bases through the Capacity Building in the Field of Disaster and Radiation Medicine Sciences”, whose main implementing body is Nagasaki University. Twenty-four students from Fukushima University and Fukushima College of Technology participated in the seminar.

The first day began in a lecture room at the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Museum in Futaba Town, where four IER professors gave lectures on the environmental impact of the nuclear accident, and a storyteller from the museum gave a talk.

In the afternoon, after visiting the exhibit of the museum, the students toured the area around the Futaba Station and the Interim Storage Construction Information Center. Students asked many questions about the efforts in Futaba Town, where residents have just begun to return home after the accident, and about the disposal of soil removed by decontamination activities.

In the morning of the second day, students visited TEPCO Decommissioning Archive Center and Historical Archive Museum of Tomioka. In the afternoon, graduate students in the sciences gave research presentations and students from both the humanities and science had group discussions. The participants commented that they were able to learn about various view points and different perceptions of radioactivity through the discussions.

IER hopes to continue to provide students with opportunities to see and hear firsthand the current situation in the areas affected by the nuclear accident, and to be involved in the development of human resources who can contribute to the reconstruction of the Hamadori region.