ONLY ON AP Tokyo billed as 'Recovery Olympics' The torch relay for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will start in Fukushima, devastated almost nine years ago by an earthquake, tsunami and the subsequent meltdown ...
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“This recovery Olympics is in name only,” Toshihide Yoshida told AP. He was forced to abandon Futaba and ended up living near Tokyo. “The amount of money spent on the Olympics should have been used for real reconstruction.”
Olympic organizers are spending $12.6 billion on the Olympics, about 60% public money. However, an audit report by the national governments says overall spending is about twice that much.
The government has spent 34.6 trillion yen ($318 billion) for reconstruction projects for the disaster-hit northern prefectures, and the Fukushima plant decommissioning is expected to cost 8 trillion yen ($73 billion).
The Olympic torch relay will start in March in J-Village, a soccer stadium used as an emergency response hub for Fukushima plant workers. The relay goes to 11 towns hit by the disaster, but bypasses Futaba, a part of Fukushima that Olympic visitors will never see.
At apnews.com
