SENDAI – The revival of Minamisanriku Sansan Shotengai is a rare example of shops hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami being able to shift from provisional to permanent locations in the Tohoku region.

The shopping arcade in the Pacific coastal town of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, one of the three hardest-hit prefectures, made a fresh start with newly completed buildings last week, moving from makeshift facilities.

Elsewhere, however, owners of many disaster-hit shops currently operating at temporary facilities are struggling to find ways to continue, facing difficulty in achieving full-fledged reconstruction.

“I want to rebuild my shop and am considering whether I’ll be able to do it while working a part-time job,” said Tsukiko Otomo, the 64-year-old owner of a ramen shop in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture.

In Miyagi, some 540 shops reopened at temporarily facilities prepared in the year or so after the disaster. Many of the facilities have been leased for free.

But almost six years later, the lease periods are nearing expiration for many shopkeepers.

According to a prefectural government survey, 238 of the shops had left the makeshift facilities as of last October, but 73 were not confirmed to be operating elsewhere.

The inability to reopen is believed to reflect difficulties in finding permanent shop locations due to delays in reconstruction, as well as dismal business prospects amid a population decline.

Still, nearly 90 percent of the 302 shops remaining in temporarily locations hope to rebuild, although about 40 percent are still not on the road to recovery.

In Kesennuma, two temporary shopping malls are set to close this spring due to a rezoning project, meaning 55 shops will have to move. But only 18 of them had somewhere to go as of January, according to a city government survey.

“I’ve been looking for a location for over a year, but I haven’t found one that meets my needs,” said Kunio Iwatsuki, 74, who has run a yakitori restaurant that has been in business for more than 80 years.

Deadlines for the use of the temporary facilities are ultimately determined by local governments, but state subsidies for their removal run until the end of March 2019.

The radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor 2 at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant has reached a maximum of 530 sieverts per hour, the highest since the triple core meltdown in March 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. said.

Tepco said on Thursday that the blazing radiation reading was taken near the entrance to the space just below the pressure vessel, which contains the reactor core.

The high figure indicates that some of the melted fuel that escaped the pressure vessel is nearby.

At 530 sieverts, a person could die from even brief exposure, highlighting the difficulties ahead as the government and Tepco grope their way toward dismantling all three reactors crippled by the March 2011 disaster.

Tepco also announced that, based on its analysis of images taken by a remote-controlled camera, that there is a 2-meter hole in the metal grating under the pressure vessel in the reactor’s primary containment vessel. It also thinks part of the grating is warped.

The hole could have been caused when the fuel escaped the pressure vessel after the mega-quake and massive tsunami triggered a station blackout that crippled the plant’s ability to cool the reactors.

The searing radiation level, described by some experts as “unimaginable,” far exceeds the previous high of 73 sieverts per hour at the reactor.

Tepco said it calculated the figure by analyzing the electronic noise in the camera images caused by the radiation. This estimation method has a margin of error of plus or minus 30 percent, it said.

An official of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences said medical professionals have never considered dealing with this level of radiation in their work.

According to the institute, 4 sieverts of radiation exposure would kill 1 in 2 people.

Experts say 1,000 millisieverts, or 1 sievert, could lead to infertility, loss of hair and cataracts, while exposure to doses above that increases the risk of cancer.

According to Tepco, readings of surface radiation on parts used inside a normally operating pressure vessel can reach several thousands sieverts per hour.

The discovery spells difficulty of removing the fuel debris to decommission at the plant. The government and Tepco hope to locate the fuel and start removing it in 2021.

In the coming weeks, the utility plans to deploy a remote-controlled robot to check conditions inside the containment vessel, but the utility is likely to have to change its plan.

For one thing, it will have to reconsider the route the robot takes into the interior because of the hole in the grating.

Also, given the extraordinary level of radiation, the robot would only be able to operate for less than two hours before it is destroyed.

That is because it is designed to withstand exposure of up to 1,000 sieverts. Based on the calculation of 73 sieverts per hour, the robot could run for more than 10 hours, but 530 sieverts per hour means it would be rendered inoperable in less than two hours.

Tepco has been probing reactor 2’s containment vessel since last week.

On Monday, it found a black mass deposited on the grating directly under the pressure vessel. The images, captured using a camera attached to a telescopic arm the same day, showed part of the grating was missing. Further analysis found the 2-meter hole in an area beyond the missing section on the structure.

If the deposits are confirmed to be melted fuel, it would be the first time the utility has found any of it at the three reactors that suffered core meltdowns.

The world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 triggered core meltdowns in reactors 1 through 3. Portions of the core in each reactor are believed to have melted through their pressure vessels and pooled at the bottom of their containment vessels.

The actual condition of the melted fuel remains unknown because the radiation is too high to check it.

Meanwhile, a nuclear research organization unveiled on Friday a robot that will be tasked with surveying reactor 1 at the complex.

Tepco plans to send the robot into reactor 1 in March, while its survey plan for reactor 2 remains unclear because of the high radiation levels.

The stick-like robot is 70 cm long and equipped with a camera, according to the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning.

During a robotic survey in April 2015, the operator found no major obstacles in the path planned in reactor 1 but found water accumulating in the basement.

In the upcoming survey, it hopes to examine the water by deploying a camera and a radiation sensor.

“Confirming the conditions inside the reactor is a first step toward decommissioning,” Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko said in a news conference Friday.

“While difficult tasks and unexpected matters may arise, we will mobilize all of Japan’s technological capabilities to steadily implement decommissioning work and rebuild Fukushima,” he added.

Along the beaches of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, which used to boast popular resorts, a colossal seawall is nearing completion, measuring 14.7 meters high, 9 meters thick at the base and 5 km long. This is but one of many wasteful construction projects being carried out under the pretext of rebuilding the areas in northern Japan devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Almost five years after the disasters, there are many projects under way that waste huge sums of taxpayer money and benefit only a handful of construction firms and individuals who have sold their land to make way for such ventures. As if by coincidence, law enforcement authorities have taken action over bid rigging among paving companies involved in expressway construction.

Why is such a huge seawall being built in an area of Kesennuma that is mostly rice paddies? A local source confides it is because municipal assembly members, local powerful figures and those close to them sold the land to the central government at a high price. An estimated ¥2.5 billion is said to have been paid by the government to the property owners for the otherwise worthless land on which the seawall is being built.

The total cost for building the 5-km seawall was initially set at ¥23 billion but has now ballooned to ¥36 billion. This is but a small portion of an overall coastal seawall construction project stretching over 400 km in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, the total cost of which is budgeted at ¥1 trillion.

As of last fall, only 17 percent of the project had been completed. Even though more than 80 percent of it can still be canceled, neither the central government nor the prefectural and municipal governments have any intention of suspending the project.

Another wasteful reconstruction scheme relates to relocating tsunami victims to higher ground. One such project being pushed by the city of Higashi-Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, envisages developing a hillside area to accommodate 450 houses. But the cost for the land redevelopment alone is ¥40 billion, or some ¥100 million per house — a figure that befits only the most luxurious residential area.

Even if this project is completed, there are many people who initially welcomed the plan but have found it impossible to build their own house in the area. This is because, according to a member of an association of tsunami victims, the cost to build a house has gone up 50 percent from the initial estimate of ¥15 million.

The Miyagi Prefectural Government, meanwhile, is building 15,000 houses under a seven-year, ¥180 billion plan. As of the end of last year, about half had been completed. But 16 of the 21 municipalities where those houses were built are plagued with vacancies since many of the more than 20,0000 quake victims currently living in rent-free temporary housing facilities are refusing to move into these permanent houses. As construction work continues on the remaining 7,000-plus houses, the vacancy rate is bound to increase, rendering it foolish to put any more money into the project.

A total of ¥3.5 trillion in public money is to be poured into areas devastated by the quake and tsunami to build housing facilities or to move people to higher ground. But the results of this spending spree are characterized by huge seawalls resembling prison walls, redeveloped highland areas where only a small number of houses have been built and housing with high vacancy rates.

Another sector in which public money is being wasted is road construction. Many plans for new roads, which had been submitted before the 2011 disasters, are now resurfacing as if to ride on the coattails of the massive reconstruction projects.

One example is a 100-km road to connect the inland city of Morioka and the coastal city of Miyako, both in Iwate Prefecture. Local residents had clamored in vain for the new road for more than two decades. After the disasters, however, money was suddenly allocated for the road, ostensibly for the purpose of securing emergency transport.

Similarly, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is pushing a new coastal “reconstruction highway” linking Miyagi and Aomori prefectures.

Such reconstruction projects have brought big benefits to many players in the construction industry — and not just major general contractors but also smaller regional firms. Hashimototen Co., for one, has grown rapidly in the post-earthquake years to become the second-largest contractor in Miyagi Prefecture in terms of completed construction projects, thanks to its close connection with a powerful Liberal Democratic Party Lower House member — Akihiro Nishumura, a former vice minister of reconstruction — and other LDP lawmakers.

A suspicion has reportedly arisen that Hashimototen conspired with third-ranking Maruhon Gumi Corp. to split a pair of tunnel contracts so that each could build one for about ¥1 billion.

Major general contractors are also suspected of collusion. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Hazama Corp. and Maeda Corp., both of which have footholds in the Tohoku region, won many contracts for debris removal. According to a local construction industry insider, this prompted leading general contractors to ask LDP lawmakers to coordinate construction orders for reconstruction projects.

As if to prove that notion, contracts for huge reconstruction projects have all been won by majors like Kajima Corp., Shimizu Corp. and Taisei Corp. Local firms that have been chosen as subcontractors by the majors have prospered so much that their executives are buying expensive cars like Mercedes to reduce their tax payments, says an insider close to a major general contractor.

The very root of this and other unethical conduct in the tsunami-hit areas appears to lie in the staggering ¥26 trillion to be spent by the central government in the first five years following the disasters. If the local governments are not required to bear any cost, it is logical that they won’t worry if the money is going to waste.

Last year, the Reconstruction Agency sought to oblige the prefectures and municipalities to bear part of the cost but faced bitter opposition and was criticized for “bullying the disaster victims.” In the end, it was decided that they will shoulder no more than 3 percent of the total spending. For example, the construction cost of the Sanriku Expressway linking Sendai with Miyako will be wholly shouldered by the central government. A member of the Miyagi Prefectural Assembly, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the ¥26 trillion has “spoiled” the three prefectures hit hardest by the disasters — Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate.

The situation in Fukushima Prefecture is complicated by the nuclear crisis, which forced residents near the affected power plant to flee. Even though the evacuation order was lifted last September for the town of Naraha, more than 2,000 former residents had not returned as of Jan. 14, choosing instead to remain in the city of Iwaki.

Currently they are receiving monthly compensation of ¥100,000. A local newspaper reporter said that many of those continuing to remain in temporary housing units are likely to become public welfare recipients after they have used up the compensation money.

It is true that there are local residents who are still suffering from the effects of the March 2011 disasters. But now that five years will soon have passed, attention should not be turned away from the reality of the devastated areas. Continuing to lavish funds on the victimized areas will only result in money collected from taxpayers from all over the country disappearing into the dark — a world that has nothing to do with reconstruction in the true sense of the word.

This is an abridged translation of an article from the February issue of Sentaku, a monthly magazine covering political, social and economic scenes.