October 21-22, 2023, Special seminar was held in Hamadori
On October 21 and 22, 2023, a special seminar titled “Environmental Radioactivity Seminar in Hamadori” was held in Futaba Town, Okuma Town, Tomioka Town, and Namie Town in Hamadori region of Fukushima Prefecture. This seminar was held in the framework of the “Projects for Human Resource Infrastructure Development utilizing ‘Fukkou-Chi / Intellectual Bases for 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”, of which Nagasaki University is the implementing body. The seminar was attended by 26 students from Fukushima University and the National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College.
The first day began with lectures at the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in Futaba Town (hereinafter “Denshokan”). Director Nanba gave an opening address and explained the purpose of this seminar. Then, four faculty members from IER delivered lectures on the environmental and ecological effects of radioactive materials released during the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident.
In the afternoon of the first day, we visited the TEPCO Decommissioning Archive Center (Tomioka Town) and Interim Storage Facility Information Center (Okuma Town).
On the second morning, after visiting Denshokan’s exhibition booth, we participated in the Denshokan fieldwork, taking a bus tour of the affected areas in Futaba Town and Namie Town and saw damages caused by the earthquake and the state of recovery. We also received a lecture by the museum’s storyteller. In the afternoon, research presentations were given by the graduate students of Fukushima University majoring in Environmental Radioactivity, followed by group discussions among students from different fields, including the graduate and undergraduate students of the Humanities and Social Sciences and Engineering of Fukushima University, and students of the National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College, where various opinions regarding the reconstruction and community development of disaster-affected areas were exchanged.
IER would like 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.