Experience in Nagasaki, Chernobyl and Fukushima has taught Shunichi Yamashita that anxiety and disruption can hurt people far worse than radiation itself

Decontamination in Fukushima prefecture. Thousands of people are yet to return Jeremie Souteyrat/Luz/Eyevine

FUKUSHIMA wasn’t just a nuclear disaster. It was also an information disaster. Before the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and meltdown of three nuclear reactors, there was a myth in Japan about how nuclear power was completely safe. Ever since, we have had a new myth: everybody thought Fukushima was a second coming of Chernobyl, and that they would all get cancer.

I went to the prefecture to give radiation safety advice. I recognise people’s fears about radiation. It is human nature. You can’t smell or see or touch …