Japan - Living with radioactivity. In Fukushima, a lot of courage but not much illusions. Japanese forests, radioactive tanks. Which resilience after the disaster?

A first article reports a visit of the Fukushima site, evokes the works performed there to cool the degraded cores, the associated risks, and the different and long dismantling operations. It also evokes the problems of water contamination, continuous leakages, and the still high level of radioactivity on the station site. The author comments the situation around the site, the extent and status of evacuated areas, the issues of radioactive soils, and economic problems and conditions faced by the local population. A second article addresses the contamination of the Japanese conifer forests which captured 95 per cent of radioactive fallouts after the accident, and would still contain 30 per cent of the initial fallouts. In this respect, it has been noticed that forests and soils in Japan react much differently than those in Chernobyl. This radioactivity is then transferred to forest soils in which it keeps on increasing, notably as far as caesium is concerned. A third article comments a book (an extract is also provided) in which the authors highlight how a natural disaster has consequences which evolve with respect to societal factors such as the country's development level, its urbanization, its technological culture. In other words, contemporary societies are producing more risks than in the past. The authors state that technological progress is not, as usually thought, a factor for a better risk management, but a weakening factor