Feature: Japan mourns lives lost 4 years after triple disaster amid growing mistrust of TEPCO

The nation stopped for a moment of silence on Wednesday afternoon to remember the tens of thousands of lives lost four years ago when an earthquake-triggerd tsunami pummeled the eastern sea board of Japan and devoured swathes of coastal land before triggering an ongoing nuclear crisis that continues to threaten the region as radioactive materials still regularly flow into the Pacific Ocean.

Four years ago to the day at 2:46 p.m., a devastating magnitude- 9.0 earthquake struck off northeastern Japan, triggering a massive tsunami with waves as high as 20 meters washing away entire towns and villages, with the Tohoku region being one of the worst hit, in a disaster that finally claimed the lives of as many as 18,000 people, with 230,000 people still remaining in evacuation shelters.

The massive tsunami knocked out key cooling functions at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear facility causing three reactors to meltdown within what has recently been revealed as shoddily constructed reactor buildings, in an ongoing nuclear crisis that the plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has, indefensibly, failed to bring under control.

With the amount of radioactive materials being released into the environment being twice as much as the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the avoidable calamity at the Daiichi plant has become the worst civilian nuclear disaster in history.

In total some 470,000 people had to be evacuated after the earthquake and tsunami struck, with around 120,000 still living in temporary housing and makeshift residences due to the nuclear crisis, many of which look like internment, or asylum seekers' camps, with families of up to four or five people forced to share a single room in a wood hut and having no idea when they will be allowed to return home or be rehoused into permanent residences.

Reconstruction work in the hardest hit regions of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures has been inexplicably slow and decontamination work in and around the leaking nuclear plant in Japan's northeast described following a recent visit by Xinhua to the region as "rudimentary," "unscientific," and "painfully slow," as contaminated waste in black refuse bags pile up alongside deserted streets and rice fields, both in and outside of the 20 km "no go" zone, as industrial equipment for the decontamination work lies idled and a handful of part-timers and day laborers sprinkle new soil over old by hand and hose down tiny areas with water.

The refugees in the camps struggle to live meaningful and healthy lives, with instances of obesity and other health problems plaguing the younger evacuees, who have nowhere to play, and mental health issues such as chronic depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) affecting the older generations, particularly the elderly, at times resulting in suicide -- an epidemic which has, according to recent accounts from one refugee camp in the Minamisoma region of Fukushima -- been spiking of late.

According to official figures, 3,244 of those living in temporary shelters have died due to disease, old age and suicide among other causes, since being evacuated four years ago.

As thousands continued to languish in makeshift camps, prayers were offered at a state-sponsored ceremony in the capital attended by 1,200 people.

"I would like to pray for the peaceful repose of the victims and express my sincere sympathy to their families and those who are still living as evacuees," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga earlier Wednesday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe conceded that life remained difficult for the post-disaster refugees and vowed, once again, to speed up the reconstruction efforts and strive for progress as Japan's forefathers had done during times of adversity.

Japan's emperor said that it was important to remember all of those who continue to suffer on a daily basis four years on, and to never forget the lessons learned from the triple disasters and to pass these lessons down to future generations and strive to make the country safer.

Goodwill wishes and prayers aside, the reality of the situation is that TEPCO is still grappling with a myriad of problems at the plant, with Japan's nuclear watchdog describing the situation at the plant as still being "risky."

"There have been quite a few accidents and problems at the Fukushima plant in the past year, and we need to face the reality that they are causing anxiety and anger among people in Fukushima, " Shunichi Tanaka, head of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority ( NRA) said at a gathering to mark the fourth anniversary of the nuclear disaster.

Such problems include TEPCO's inability to disclose vital information to the government, NRA, public and the international community -- a problem that has plagued the embattled utility since the moment the tsunami struck four years ago.

Just over a week ago, TEPCO finally admitted after almost a year of concealing the fact, that radioactive water had been freely flowing from a drainage ditch into the Pacific Ocean every time it rained, unbeknown to the local fisherman who have faced an uphill battle to sell their produce at home and particularly oversees.

In the latest of a string of pathetic pseudo-apologies from the gaffe-prone utility, TEPCO President Naomi Hirose said Wednesday that they could have been more empathetic towards the local fisherman whose livelihoods have effectively been stripped.

"We could have dealt with the situation differently if we had been able to give consideration to the feeling of the local fishermen," Hirose said, adding, predictably, that TEPCO would strive to enhance safety at the plant.

As TEPCO continues to bungle its decommissioning project, Abe said Tuesday that the government will, by summer, have an "outline " of a plan for the recovery of the Fukushima region and craft a new five-year plan to rebuild and restore the struggling northeast region.

Abe's talks of yet another "plan" to assist the devastated area come at a time when evacuees in the shelters in Fukushima are becoming increasingly frustrated with the central government and TEPCO for flip-flopping over relocation subsidies and compensation payouts following the nuclear crisis, and angered by the fact that the government has misused funds earmarked for restoration and reconstruction, with trillions of yen still sitting unused in state accounts.

"Hope here is diminishing as the temporary housing concept was only supposed to be for two years, then it was extended by the government as decontamination work near the nuclear plant was so slow, meaning it would be impossible for those displaced to safely return to their homes and now nobody knows when these evacuees will be able to return," Hajime Yamamoto, who works for a notable Japanese construction firm, told Xinhua recently at a shelter in Minamisoma, Fukushima.

"A few years ago hope still existed in these camps and that's what kept people going, but the residents now do not believe anything TEPCO or the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says, as it's all lies."

"Compensation rules keep getting changed as do living subsidies, " added Yamamoto, who has assisted in charity and relief work in both Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures since 2011 and has in fact relocated from Tokyo and dedicated himself to reconstruction work in Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, a coastal town almost completely obliterated by the devastating tsunami four years ago.

He also said that decontamination work around the plant could take up to 30 years, probably longer, and that this has torn families apart, with younger generations leaving the prefecture to rebuild their lives, vowing never to return, while older generations are desperate to return to the homes they built, the land they own and are utterly desperate not to see their golden years expire in a wooden hut.

An associate of Yamamoto also added that it was "disgusting" that the government had named TEPCO as one of the main sponsors of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and that the Games "should be boycotted by the world if the nuclear disaster and evacuee problem are not solved by the time of the Games." Endi