Tepco’s ‘Deal With Devil’ Signals End to Japan’s Postwar Era

Kazutaka Kikawada ran track and field at Fukushima’s Yamafunyu Elementary School before becoming the local boy made good, attending the elite University of Tokyo and carving out a career that made him president of Tokyo Electric Power Co.

The school ground where he ran his races a century ago now has a yellow backhoe digging out topsoil irradiated by the wrecked nuclear reactors Kikawada approved for construction 60 kilometers (38 miles) away. The dirt is piled under sky-blue tarpaulins. Graffiti in red and black kanji on the main road demands Tokyo Electric remove its “radioactive trash.”