Three years and nine months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor explosions, finally our house, about 65 km away from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma-machi, was decontaminated. It took a whole week to clean our piece of land and house.
First of all, the workers put up scaffolding and washed the walls of the house and the roof gutters. Next, they dug out garden soil to lower the sievert number [units of ionizing radiation] to Fukushima City's requirements. Soil was dug about 30 cm deep. And they cleaned the whole garden like gardeners, and changed the pebbles around our gate.
They worked hard in the cold weather and seemed well trained. They watched their language, and their attitude was very good! We don't know how to say thank you.
The problem I think of is how much money was used for decontamination. Our community has at least 120 houses. Tokyo Electric Power Co. should have been more careful about the accident. We can now hear water flowing into the drain sink.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.