FUKUSHIMA -- The children of Fukushima Prefecture started their second terms at elementary and junior high schools amid a number of reminders that the situation has yet to return to normal.
FUKUSHIMA -- The children of Fukushima Prefecture started their second terms at elementary and junior high schools amid a number of reminders that the situation has yet to return to normal.
Friends were absent. The appearances of the school buildings and yards had changed. But perhaps the starkest reminders that all was not right were the dosimeters encased in plastic sleeves that were dangling from their necks.
Students call the tool "glass badges."
"During the summer vacation, I took part in a summer camp in Nagano Prefecture for five days," said Ryusei Tashiro, an 11-year-old sixth-grader at Date Elementary School in northern Fukushima Prefecture. "In those days, I did not carry the 'badge.' But from today, I have to hang it from my neck. It is a bit bothersome to do so when I am walking."
Most of the elementary and junior high schools in Fukushima Prefecture, site of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, started their second terms on Aug. 25.
According to Fukushima prefectural board of education, 7,672 children, or 4 percent of all elementary and junior high school students in the prefecture, transferred to schools outside the prefecture between March 11, when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, and July 15. In addition, 1,081 students expressed hopes that they could move out of Fukushima Prefecture and away from the radiation during the summer vacation.
While most of these students now attend classes outside Fukushima Prefecture, some have returned, as decontamination efforts have made progress at their schools.
At Date Elementary School, for example, decontamination work has lowered the radiation at ground level from 1.00 microsieverts per hour to 0.12 microsieverts per hour.
Opening ceremonies for the second term were held at 27 municipal elementary and junior high schools in Date on Aug. 25. During the summer vacation, 24 of the schools removed the top layer of soil, and many scrubbed and washed the outer walls of the buildings as well as the trenches.
The Fukushima prefectural board of education said 39 of the 59 municipalities in the prefecture applied for subsidies to buy high-pressure washing equipment and other decontamination tools.
The Iwaki city education board in southeastern Fukushima Prefecture said the number of students with home addresses outside the city but who attend schools in Iwaki has increased by 208 compared with the end of the first term.
Many of those students had lived in municipalities near the Fukushima plant but fled to other prefectures immediately after the accident. They later moved to Iwaki, which is relatively close to their hometowns.
A similar trend has also been seen in Koriyama city, according to officials.
In Date city, dosimeters were distributed to all elementary and junior high school students on Aug. 1, a month earlier than in other municipalities in the prefecture.
The dosimeters will be distributed to students in most schools by October after the children are asked if they want the devices.
Koriyama city in central Fukushima Prefecture instructed all elementary and junior high schools in the city to take radiation measurements along the school-commuting roads and create "radiation-level maps" by Sept. 5. The maps will be used to review commuting routes as well as for decontamination efforts.
The government of Fukushima city, where second-term opening ceremonies will be held on Sept. 1, has required schools to change commuting routes if high levels of radiation are detected.