On Aug. 21, the Reconstruction Agency in charge of reconstructing areas hit by the 3/11 disasters released a report on deaths that occurred during or after evacuation from the disasters, including the nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. It does not touch on deaths directly caused by the quake and subsequent tsunami, such as those of people killed by falling debris, by being trapped in fallen structures, or by being swept away by the tsunami.

The report is especially revealing about deaths in Fukushima Prefecture. The findings of the report should be thrust at officials of Tepco and the trade and industry ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and other members of the nuclear establishment, who may feel a false sense of complacency about the Fukushima nuclear crisis just because no local residents died from exposure to radioactive substances from Fukushima No. 1.

The report says that 433 deaths in the prefecture were attributable to physical and psychological fatigue suffered at temporary evacuation centers and 380 deaths to such fatigue during movement to such facilities. The death tallies overlap partly because the agency chose possible multiple causes of the deaths by studying data provided by the municipalities concerned.