Antinuclear

Mutō Ruiko interviewed by Katsuya Hirano

Translation by Ryoko Nishijima

Transcription by Akiko Anson

Mutō Ruiko is a long-time antinuclear activist based in Fukushima. She represents 1,324 Fukushima residents who filed a criminal complaint in June 2012 pressing charges against TEPCO executives and government officials. In July 2015, an inquest committee decided that three former executives of TEPCO merited indictment, clearing the way for a criminal trial. This marked an unprecedented development in the history of criminal justice in Japan since indictment against the nuclear industry had never been granted in the country. On August 26, 2015, I visited Mutō in Miharumachi, Fukushima to hear about her activism, understanding of the Fukushima situations, and view of ecological issues on a global scale. Norma Field, a close friend of Mutō and a scholar who has been working on Fukushima issues since 2011, contributes an accompanying essay that puts this interview into…

Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to send this survey robot into a reactor containment vessel at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

A robot will be sent into the No. 2 reactor containment vessel at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to locate the melted fuel inside and assess its spread ahead of future retrieval.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced on Aug. 25 that it would undertake the difficult operation early next year at the soonest.

Under consideration for the work is a scorpion-shaped robot developed by Toshiba Corp., whose slender body allows it to pass through narrow openings. It is designed to raise its rear camera toward the front to capture images when it has arrived at a planned survey location.

The robot will crawl through an entrance into the No. 2 reactor containment vessel and travel along a rail to go deeper into its…