Japanese Parents Throw Dirt

The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant effected not only the surrounding area but the whole of Fukushima Prefecture. One of the unexpected consequences of the accident was how it would come to impact the lives of school children. Because nuclear fallout can infect any substance school aged children in the prefecture once schools reopened weren't allowed to play on the school ground out fear they could be exposed to higher than normal levels of radiation. That was until the government here changed its mind.

Furious parents in Fukushima have delivered a bag of radioactive playground earth to education officials in protest at moves to weaken nuclear safety standards in schools.

Children can now be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible. The new regulations have prompted outcry. A senior adviser resigned and the prime minister, Naoto Kan, was criticised by politicians from his own party.

Ministers have defended the increase in the acceptable safety level from 1 to 20 millisieverts per year as a necessary measure to guarantee the education of hundreds of thousands of children in Fukushima prefecture, location of the nuclear plant that suffered a partial meltdown and several explosions after the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March.