Overview
- - The forest fire in Otsuchi, Iwate, entered its fourth day on Saturday with about 730 hectares burned and up to 1,176 hectares expected to be affected, and authorities ordered 3,233 people from 1,541 households to evacuate.
- - Emergency Firefighting Assistance Teams from other prefectures boosted ground water spraying to hold the fire line as flames advanced toward houses and the town opened extra shelters in nearby Kamaishi and Yamada.
- - The Environment Ministry moved Fukushima decontamination soil to planting strips at Japan’s Defense Ministry and the Supreme Court in Tokyo, expanding reuse outside the prefecture to 12 government sites and bringing total use to about 74 cubic meters.
- - By contrast, interim facilities near the Fukushima Daiichi plant hold roughly 14.3 million cubic meters of soil, and the law sets a deadline of March 2045 to complete final disposal outside the prefecture, signaling decades of work ahead.
- - Rail resilience efforts continued this week as JR Central ran a blackout drill from Thursday night into Friday that had about 300 staff evacuate a stopped Tokaido Shinkansen by ladder, guide people to Abe-kawa Station, move them by local train to Shizuoka, and test heat-relief steps, and JR Hokkaido began the season for its Kushiro Marsh “Norokko” tourist train with current cars set to retire after this season and future operations undecided.