World News for Students of English

15-03-2021 15:00

It’s been 10 years since Japan’s Fukushima earthquake and tsunami; however, radiation fears have lingered in the area.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant was destroyed by the 2011 earthquake and it contaminated the area. In Iwaki city, a lab monitors the area, and it measures radiation for free. Having no background in science, Ai Kimura, the lab manager and technician, carries out complicated tests every day. Kimura’s a part of a donations-based organization that was set up by mothers who live about an hour’s drive away from the Fukushima plant. After the nuclear accident, they worried about what to feed their children and about the safety of tap water.

The lab employs 14 full-time staff. People send in samples of food, soil from kindergartens, and dust from vacuum cleaners. While radiation levels have improved since 2011, and they have gone down in some foods, other foods like bamboo or wild mountain vegetables are still at the same level after all the years.

Difficult words: linger (to remain in a place although gradually disappearing), donations-based (raising money for a good cause by asking people), full-time (working all the hours that people usually do).

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