During her walk in Fukushima prefecture she
heard so many sad and devastated stories from the residents. She warns: “The children
need to be made safe. They need to
escape this horror. The people and families who are still in afflicted
areas need to be re-homed and given free medical care. The government and the
energy companies must face their responsibilities and save the children. The
children are the future.”
17th of March 2012. Fukushima city, Fukishima. Japan.
Fukishima city after fasting and
prayer. Some of the local men who joined
us for the fasting and prayers come back to the temple and speak of their
experiences. They are trying to make a
law to protect the children here in the disaster area. There seems to be a great deal of anger at
the English for developing the nuclear power station, and, as they put it, the
bomb.
But it is the Japanese government and power
companies who built so many nuclear power stations.
On the walk to Soma, through the
mountains, we passed through the town of Date. It is a small town with Very high radiation. As we walk through this area there are
little signs of life continuing here. Houses
and fields lie empty. The lucky ones
with insurance or relatives who live far away from the disaster area have
managed to escape. Many people can't
leave here. They have jobs and nowhere else to go. Children can only be outside
for one hour a day due to the high radiation.
Food is kept in lead containers when possible, nothing can be done about
the water or the air. The local
authorities are doing the best that they can. Washing buildings and removing radioactive
soil. But there is nowhere to put it or
deal with it safely, so they bury it. The mayor told us that the government was not
able to help and also that he was told that they have to manage as best they
can as there was no money to spare for them.
It is a desperate and tragic situation.
There is no safe containment, and, in many
people's minds there is the added stress and worry that it can happen again as
the reactors are not safe. Even small earthquake tremors create moments of
panic and worry.
That evening, in Fukishima city, there was
a bigger earthquake .5 magnitude. There
was instant stress visible upon the faces of the people, fear about another
tsunami and reactor leak gripped those nearby. It was heartbreaking to experience this.
We walked to Soma city where the city
council welcomed us warmly. The city suffered the tsunami and is recovering
well, but once again, the fear of radiation is greater than that of another
tsunami.
0.3msv/hr.iIs the radiation reading today. This is very high!
18th march, 2012.
We walk to Minami soma. It is raining
quite hard. At lunch time we reached the makeshift housing for the tsunami
survivors. It is quite small and basic, but the people support each other well
and a close knit, caring community has formed.
Sleeping in a remote area with very little
phone signal.
We will walk through tsunami area again
today. There is nothing for miles. The areas we walk in used to be towns; they
have been wiped off the map.
We walk to the 20km boundary of the
radiation exclusion zone of Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear plant. We offer prayers for those who died and those
who still suffer from the radiation.
From there we go by car, 1 km. It is too dangerous to walk; there is a
"hot spot"
There used to be a town here. Now it is a
barren waste land.
There are some people still living here,
because they have no choice. The
government won't help, yet the government can pay billions of yen to the
American government for relocation costs of U.S. troops from Okinawa to Guam!
It is terrible.
The wreckage from the tsunami is piled like
rubbish whilst new electricity plans are being erected at a furious pace. Sometimes,
the remains of people’s lives are broken down into rubble to provide hardcore
for the heavy machinery. There seems no respect for the lives that were lost.
We stop for lunch, I do not wish to eat
inside the car, so I walk to the beach only to find my appetite is gone and
leave my onigiri (=rice ball) on the sea wall as an offering to those whom the
sea has taken. There are some people
here, they arrived by car to pay respects to their lost loved ones. They talk of the tsunami, but their greatest
fears are from radiation and the future of the children.
It was like walking through hell. Nothing is left for miles except the remains
of shattered lives. The sea shore is
littered with debris and the remains of the sea wall. The tsunami must have
been very high here, at least 20/ 25 feet high.
It swept everything in its path. The land still shows the scars where
the water reached. There would have been
no time for most people to try to get to safety. Everything was washed away.
Humans and animals suffered greatly
here. The ever present, invisible radiation haunts the land now. It is
killing these people more horribly and painfully than the sea. Those who survive still suffer in ways we
cannot imagine, yet the Japanese government is telling people it is safe and
that they should return to this area to live and rebuild. They are saying it is safe, the radiation is
not so high. How can they lie like this?......
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