Fukushima today is a safe place to be, but most people do not know this.

Eight years ago an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident devastated Fukushima, Japan. News coverage of the nuclear accident dominated headlines and “Fukushima” became infamous, and stood for all that was wrong with nuclear power. Fukushima is vastly different today, and deserves a different headline: “We’ve come back!”

Fukushima Prefecture is the third-largest of 47 prefectures in Japan. It is located 150 miles north of Tokyo and its size of 5,321 square miles is about as big as Oahu, Maui and the Big Island combined. Radiation levels have decreased tremendously to a safe level where people live, work, go to school and play. Residents go about their daily lives as we would in Honolulu.

The radiation level remains unsafe in a small coastal area of approximately 144 square miles — the size of the Island of Lanai — where the nuclear plant is located, and the area from which people evacuated. This area has restricted access and specialized recovery work is underway. Most residents never go there. There are also forested areas with higher radiation levels where the nuclear radiation plume caused by the power plants’ hydrogen explosions passed overhead.

Hawaii and Fukushima are closely connected. Many relatives of Fukushima immigrants reside in Hawaii, and both for-profit and nonprofit organizations continue to support the ongoing revitalization, especially in the exchange of students between Hawaii and Fukushima. In 1966 the Joban Hawaiian Centre opened in Iwaki, Fukushima, to capitalize on Japan’s enchantment with Hawaii as a prime tourist destination. Today, it is known as the mega resort Spa Resort Hawaiians, the most popular resort in Fukushima’s largest city. Hula is bigger in Japan than in Hawaii, and in the Fukushima supermarket where I shop, one of the checkout staff recently told me she was headed to Hawaii soon “to dance the hula.”

I obtained a one-year visa in March 2019 to research and write about Fukushima’s current condition and I’ve seen up close Fukushima’s tremendous recovery. It’s unbelievable how Fukushima has reinvented itself. But when I spoke to residents they emphasized that although normal life had been restored for most residents, few people outside of Fukushima knew it. They were still victimized by a baseless negative reputation. They urgently asked me to tell others the truth about Fukushima, and I agreed.

I thought the only credible way to do that was to go there, travel throughout the prefecture, and meet people in all walks of life. As I did that, I frequently checked my personal dosimeter to see how much radiation my body was absorbing. The dosimeter readings closely matched the government’s published radiation measurements and those of a third-party civilian site. They were all in a safe range.

Global media reported extensively on Fukushima’s nuclear disaster in 2011 and all of the scary news stigmatized Fukushima. My “first word association to Fukushima” game with people in Hawaii results in two frequent responses: disaster and radiation. To make matters worse, misleading online stories equated Fukushima with Chernobyl or described a permanent Japanese wasteland. Today, the internet is full of outdated information and unproven accusations about Fukushima’s danger.

Fukushima is a place where nearly 2 million Japanese people live. I believe the media that created the Fukushima stigmatization when reporting on the disaster, have the moral obligation to report when the situation has improved, to make things right for the people of Fukushima. I challenge the media to go to Fukushima and do their research, to probe and dig, and then explain to the world what they have found.

Steve Terada has worked in Hawaii real estate, for the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Army Installation Management Command in Japan overseeing Army real estate from Tohoku to Hiroshima, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Seattle.