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Nuclear winter awaits Naoto Matsumura, lone resident in Japan's forbidden zone
Nuclear winter awaits lone Japan resident near crippled plant
NEAR MIHARU VILLAGE, FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN — Naoto Matsumura claims to be the only man still living within a 12-mile radius of the worst nuclear meltdown since Chernobyl.
He lit a cigarette in a bitter wind near the edge of the forbidden zone around Fukushima's crippled nuclear reactors.
"I would become sick if I stopped smoking," he said.
Mr. Matsumura, 52, said he smokes a pack a day because he has a lot of worries. Scientists recently calculated that explosions at three reactors about eight miles from his backyard spewed 168 times the radiation of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
The nuclear accident is the worst since the one that crippled a reactor in Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.
Living without electricity or enough money to fill his generators with gas, Mr. Matsumura wonders whether his neighbor's supply of charcoal will keep him warm enough through the frigid northern winter, where temperatures can plummet below zero.
He is worried that the hundreds of animals he has been feeding - some 400 cows, 60 pigs, 30 fowl, 10 dogs, more than 100 cats, and an ostrich - will not survive to see another spring.
"They need help from humans," he said in an interview in a rice field about 25 miles due west of the ongoing meltdown at the nuclear power plant.
"My supplies to feed them will be gone by the end of December. They need food, and buildings for shelter from the winter. I'm the only one taking care of everything. The government should do it, but I'm doing it."
From an ancestral line of samurai warriors, he was raised by a "spartan" father to work hard and think for himself. A life-long farmer, he has been alone since separating from his wife 10 years ago. His adult children, 23 and 21, live in Saitama province in suburban Tokyo.
When they called him after the March nuclear explosions, Mr. Matsumura said, he told them, "Don't worry. If the whole world dies from this nuclear disaster, I'm still not going to die. I'm not going to leave here."
He views himself as a maverick in a toxic desert, hunted by an invisible enemy called "radioactivity" eating away at living things now and into the future.
After sundown, he is surrounded by miles of total darkness, devoid of human movement. He has no TV or Internet, only a mobile phone that quickly loses its charge. He stokes up a charcoal fire, tucks into a futon and goes to sleep by 7 p.m., haunted by nightmares of what is happening inside his body.
He wakes with the rising sun, eats another can of food and takes his dogs for a 20-minute walk among barren fields. He spends daylight hours cleaning grave sites and tending animals withering around him, while cows and pigs set free by their fleeing owners in March fend for themselves.
He blames the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the nuclear power plants, for "killing" his 100-year-old aunt, who died from exhaustion after being moved from several hospitals between Tomioka and finally Aizu-Wakamatsu in western Fukushima province.
"Many people died like that because of Tepco. It's a terrible company. They have more power than the national parliament because they control the supply of electricity, and they have power over the media through advertising," he said.
Though Mr. Matsumura, who doesn't have a Geiger counter, thinks that radiation levels are decreasing, he said it is not safe for former residents to return to Tomioka. He said children should not eat rice from eastern Fukushima province, though he has been eating it himself.
On a Sunday afternoon this month, an ambulance suddenly showed up at his door.
"I was a bit unnerved that they came into my house, and I don't know who sent them," he said. "They checked my body and my health, but they didn't find anything bad in particular. I am not bored or depressed, because I'm used to being alone. My own doctor says I'm a 'champion of radiation.' "
He gets most passionate talking about animals and nuclear power.
"The whole world should stop using this bad form of energy," he said. "Anything we build with our hands can break someday."
He said that Tomioka, like other towns in the forbidden zone, will disappear unless drastic action is taken immediately.
"Only senior citizens are saying they want to move back, not the younger people," he said.
"Eventually, in 20 years, all these elders will pass away, and there won't be any younger generation to maintain the circle of life. Nobody will be left."
Mothers grapple with radiation fears in Fukushima
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/7/parents-doctors-overcome-radiation-fears-fukushima
FUKUSHIMA CITY, Japan — Unlike many mothers who have moved away, Ayako Okada, 40, is staying with her 5-year-old daughter in Fukushima city, about 40 miles from nuclear reactors leaking radioactive particles since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
She drives her daughter to school every day, then goes to work as a receptionist at a private school. Her grandfather picks up her daughter after school and looks after her. Like other kids who remain in Fukushima city, population 290,000, the daughter is not allowed to play outside, at home or a school.
"Many mothers who stay at home are worried sick about radiation levels, because they have time to research online and think about what might really be happening," Ms. Okada tells the Washington Times in an interview. "I am a working mother, so I do not have time to think about radiation levels too much. And I do not want to transfer unnecessary fears to my child, even though she has been taught at school not to go outside too long, and to wash her hands and wear masks to avoid getting sick."
She says many parents have taken kids out of elementary schools in Fukushima city and sent them to stay with relatives in other provinces, such as Yamagata or Niigata. "The younger the kids are, the more likely are the parents to take them away from Fukushima," she says.
In many cases, only the mother and children move to other cities, while fathers stay behind in Fukushima city to work. At night, the city's karaoke clubs are full of lonely men temporarily separated from their wives and children, she says. Many workers are staying in Fukushima because they figure they won't find work elsewhere during a bad economy. Since she has little choice but to stay in Fukushima, she at least wants to know the truth about radiation levels.
She's upset that Fukushima city has been slow to test radiation levels in children compared with other cities in the province. "In Fukushima city, they said they will start testing kids next February. That is too long to wait. Everybody is complaining that it's taking too much time." She said other cities already have given mothers portable Geiger counters, called "garasu badges," for children. "But I had to buy one for my daughter because our city didn't provide us one. I want to know the truth."
Education Ministry and Fukushima provincial government officials have told reporters that they are installing dosimeters in about 500 elementary schools and 100 sites, including public meeting halls, fields and gyms where children gather. Starting this month, they plan to measure radiation levels constantly at all elementary schools in the province and update the results every ten minutes on the Internet. They hope to measure levels at all kindergartens and junior and senior high schools in the province by the end of the year, the Asahi newspaper reported.
Mrs. Okada says many mothers might not trust this information: "Sometimes, mothers get into arguments because they have different opinions. As for myself, I am quite relaxed about all this. But there is misinformation and different news coverage in other countries. My sister who lives in South Korea with her husband is really concerned about my mother and I because we are still here in Fukushima."
Stressed out since March 11, her best friend took her family on a two-month summer holiday to Hokkaido in the far north of Japan, she says. They hoped that Hokkaido's mountain air and food would rinse any radioactive toxins out of their systems. While there, they discovered high cesium levels in one of the adults, but surprisingly, not in the children. They have moved back to Fukushima city, and they are not sure how long they will stay, she says.
Stressed out about radiation concerns, Ms. Okada took her daughter and her own mother on a brief vacation to Austria. "In Austria, I said to my daughte, 'We don't need to care about radiation here.'" But they couldn't stay in Austria forever. She had to get back to work in Fukushima in order to pay the bills. "For the future of my child, I wish she can stay at least three more years where she is, because I do not want her to be separated from her friends. But maybe after she graduates from elementary school, I should move her to another environment."
Many professionals already have left Fukushima city for work elsewhere. At least 41 doctors and 68 nurses have left the city's hospitals, while 400 doctors and 1896 nurses remain, according to a Fukushima provincial government survey conducted in July. About 23 percent of doctors have left Iwaki city south of the reactors, and nearly half have fled Minami-Soma, closer to the damaged atomic reactors. The actual totals could be higher, since only half the province's hospitals responded to the survey, the Asahi newspaper reported.
Though many foreigners have left Fukushima, Samantha Reeves, 21, from Melbourne, Australia, decided to take a job teaching English in a private company near the main train station. "I feel OK in Japan. I wasn't scared to come here, because we can get cancer anywhere. Some members of my family who live in Australia have cancer, so why should I run away from Fukushima back to Australia," she says. "I think there is a lot of disinformation about radiation in Japan and in the world. Being on an airplane can also expose you to radiation."
Japan tsunami survivors struggle to find hope
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/30/japan-tsunami-survivors-struggle-community-hope RIKUZEN-TAKATA, Japan — With schoolchildren playing in front of her house every day, a tsunami survivor who identifies herself only as "Mrs. Sugawara," says she often thinks about suicide. Her daughter and two sons survived the March 11 disaster, but her husband and three grandchildren did not. "They were my future, and now they are gone and not coming back," says Mrs. Sugawara, 69. "The tsunami took my sense of hope away with them." Her lonely struggle mirrors that of thousands of tsunami survivors, especially seniors now isolated in temporary houses after spending months in crowded but more sociable gymnasiums. Since her children have gone to work elsewhere, Mrs. Sugawara lives alone, in a prefab unit in the parking lot of a junior high school overlooking the obliterated northeastern city of Rikuzen-Takata. "Immediately after the tsunami, we were all fighting to stay alive, and it brought us closer to together," she says. "But ever since we all moved into temporary houses, people stay to themselves. We have lost our ties." This isolation has deepened her depression, she says, and there's little — other than the playful schoolchildren — to take her mind off thoughts about her lost loved ones. She says she's too traumatized to search for work or even to look at the devastated town below. "After the tsunami, I could see where the remains of the city hall were, but I couldn't even recognize where my house used to stand. I was too scared and disoriented to walk around and figure out where things used to be. Everything was washed away, even my memories," Mrs. Sugawara says. She says she often blames herself for her losses on March 11. After the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, she heard a single tsunami warning. "Then the electricity was cut off, and the authorities didn't say what we should do." Her husband left her at home alone and drove toward low ground to pick up their grandchildren at school. Instead of waiting for her husband to return, she fled in a friend's car to the top of a hill. "He probably was planning to come back to get me at home. That's why they were too late to escape. I feel terribly guilty for this," she says. Soldiers eventually found their battered car, empty. The bodies of her husband and two grandchildren were found farther away, while another grandchild, age 5, remains missing and is presumed drowned. She hoped police would find something — anything — from her past. Her neighbor, Kazumi Murakami, 67, was uplifted when someone found a tattered photo album in the debris and gave her and her husband a 30-year-old graduation photo of their missing son. Mrs. Sugawara wasn't as fortunate. Police officers later found her husband's wallet, which contained only his birth certificate. She initially survived on handouts of food and water from the Red Cross and other charities. By midsummer, the government kept its promise to provide temporary housing for everyone. Her pre-fab unit has a refrigerator, humidifier and a gas tank for cooking. But there is only an air-conditioner in the family room, not her bedroom, which gets stuffy during hot days and nights. She had to buy a fan, and her daily needs of food and water, using money saved in her bank account. She hopes the government will provide compensation for deceased relatives, as well as a fair price for her uninhabitable land. Though aftershocks are less frequent than before, she is always ready to evacuate in case of earthquake and tsunami. Yet she rarely ever leaves her temporary home. "As a widow, it's difficult for me to go on. I guess this is how all lonesome seniors feel. I am retired, and I do not want to work. My husband was my support, and I lost him. My whole life was based around my grand-daughters, and they are dead. Now I have no future ambitions. I lost everything, including my motivation. Ever since the tsunami hit, I have only thought about surviving one more day." One weekend, her daughter came to her temporary house to take her over the mountains to see normal life in the city of Morioka. But she couldn't muster the courage to go to the annual Tanabata star festival that locals had organizedto cheer up survivors. "There was going to be a lot of little children there, and that would hurt me." Her neighbor Taizo Kumagai, 71, says he's glad he went to the festival. For 40 years, Mr. Kumagai owned the Ofuna Ryokan, a little hotel that was like a community center for travelers. His guests helped him overcome the loss of five family members due to the 1960 earthquake in Chile that drove tsunami waves all the way to Japan. Accustomed to taking care of strangers, he saved two elderly women who were being swept away in the March 11 tsunami. He swallowed a lot of water, and spent three months in a hospital with a back injury. He now shares a cramped space with his 80-year-old mother and three others, but says he misses the camaraderie of the hospital and evacuation center. "It feels lonely here now," he says, watering plants. "There were always many people hanging around in the shelters. It was easy to talk, share our feelings and make new friends. Now, everybody is scattered somewhere else. I miss the people from the hospital and the shelter." By chance, he met the two women he rescued at the Tanabata festival. "It was wonderful to see them again. They told me 'Thank you, sir, for saving our lives and giving us a second chance to live.' That gave me some more hope for the future."
Imaginative survivors add color to Japan's ghostly disaster zone
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/16/survivors-add-color-japan-ghostly-disaster-zone OFUNATO, Japan — In the morbid gray tones of the disaster zone in northeastern Japan, a colorful barber shop stands out above the fields of debris in this port town. A sign proudly declares that the shop opened on March 26, only two weeks after a monstrous tsunami swept up the narrow Ofunato harbor and over four-story-high buildings. Refusing to surrender to the hellish scene around him, the shop's owner, Yasuo Shimizu, wanted to do something to cheer up survivors and those working in the wreckage around the shop. With the help of foreign and Japanese volunteers, and the fruitful imagination of painter Kensuke Miyazawa, Mr. Shimizu turned what could have been an ugly aluminum structure into a beacon of hope amid the rubble. Like the storytelling artwork of Buddhist temples across Asia, the wall paintings on his barber shop depict scenes of the activities of the smiling volunteers themselves. One wall bears the name of each volunteer. "It's colorful, and it makes people smile when they see this," said Mr. Shimizu. "I want people to believe that we can rebuild this into a bright, beautiful community for our children." Across the disaster zone, survivors and volunteers are adding a cornucopia of colors to apocalyptic scenes. On high ground above the obliterated town of Rikuzentakata, a new supermarket has opened in a prefab structure festooned with festive decorations and colorful banners inside and outside. In the same, newly paved parking lot, the bright signs of a mobile-phone shop call out to survivors who were without cellular-network connections for at least a month after the March 11 tsunami. In the highlands above the wasteland of the town, a number of vibrant and friendly cafes and noodle shops have recently opened. They serve construction workers and survivors who are learning to fend for themselves again while staying in temporary housing for at least the next two years. Having lost much of their material world, survivors say they value color more than ever before. Small containers of flowers add life to the uniformity of temporary houses built on the parking lot of a local junior high school. Carpenters are even decorating doorways with wood. Taizo Kumagai, 71, who lost his home and guest house under nearly 50 feet of floodwater on March 11, said he enjoys watering bitter gourd "goya" plants, which are already starting to wind their way up nets outside the aluminum structure. "They add some green color to life," he said. "Little things like this are important to help us cope with our suffering." Many visitors who have returned to the battered northeastern coast are encouraged to see flowers planted along roadsides, in the parking lots and even outside the makeshift trailers housing offices for the new local officials. Hundreds of professional and amateur painters and illustrators have contributed small and massive works to nearly every town hall, evacuation shelter or train station in the disaster zone. Children's paintings and white Japanese banners bearing hundreds of signatures and messages create a friendly atmosphere at the Ofunato town hall, where overworked officials still smile at the sight of visitors. Mr. Shimizu, 64, said his colorful barber shop has helped him overcome his phases of shock, grief and despair after the tsunami washed away his old shop and his traditional Japanese home, where his family and ancestors had lived for 130 years. He said the process of renting land and obtaining new business licenses was long and frustrating, not only for him, but for other entrepreneurs in the area. While business is slow, especially on weekdays, he said he's doing it for the community spirit, not for the money. "We aren't expecting too many clients to come around here. But we are just happy that we are still alive, and we want to do whatever we can to brighten up the world around us." He now shares a tiny, three-room prefabricated house with his wife, Setsuko, and his daughter, Tomomi, 33, both of whom help out at the barber shop, while his 84-year old mother takes care of their dog at home. "It was very difficult for us to move from such a large old house to a crowded evacuation shelter and now a small, temporary house," he said. "Coming to this barber shop every day keeps me dreaming about better days to come."
Chris Johnson: Japan fish market thriving again
Fish market restored following disaster surviving and thriving Six months after a tsunami and nuclear disaster wiped out the fishing industry in northeastern Japan and scared domestic and foreign consumers away from Japanese seafood, Ofunato’s fish market is bustling again. (Christopher Johnson/Special to The Washington Times)
OFUNATO, Japan — As she drives a forklift, Shoko Tada - one of the few women working among the blood and guts of the local fish market - has a smile on her face. Six months after a tsunami and nuclear disaster wiped out the fishing industry in northeastern Japan and scared domestic and foreign consumers away from Japanese seafood, Ofunato’s fish market is bustling again with fishermen offloading their catch and buyers hollering out bids. “I’m happy to have a job again,” said Mrs. Tada, 52, working among scavenging birds and about 300 sweaty men unloading nets or stabbing fish with ice picks. “It’s great to see that so many of my friends and colleagues survived the disasters.” Ofunato’s fish market was under 50 feet of water on March 11, the day the tsunami struck. Now it is thriving - partly because of the tsunami and the restoration efforts of hundreds of workers and partly by volunteers who reopened the devastated port in May. Kazushi Nagazawa, a port official, said fishing vessels from the northern island of Hokkaido are rushing to fill the void created by the tsunami’s destruction of about 80 percent of Ofunato’s own fleet, especially smaller craft. Fishing trawlers sail as far as the Russian Far East to catch sanma, a Pacific fish much loved in Japan during autumn for its taste and shiny, knifelike appearance. Instead of selling it cheap in Hokkaido, fishermen bring it to Ofunato, where renewed demand - and a reduced number of suppliers - nets them a higher price. “It’s a great opportunity for them to make a better profit off their catch,” said Mr. Nagazawa, 59. “When they sell it here, it’s 20 to 30 percent more expensive than in Hokkaido.” By using the restored section of the Ofunato port, the Hokkaido merchants also save about half of their fuel and transportation costs. Ofunato in Iwate prefecture is much closer than Hokkaido to the huge markets of Sendai, Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. Mr. Nagazawa said Japanese consumers, who normally consider seafood as a staple of their diet, are desperate to eat fish again, after several months of avoiding fish because of fears that the leaking Fukushima nuclear reactors tinted seafood with radiation. “People from Tokyo are no longer paranoid about radioactivity tainting the fish they love to consume,” said Mr. Nagazawa, a fit man who used to cycle across Japan in his spare time. He pointed to documents, taped on a wall near a list of fish prices. They show the results of government radiation checks five days earlier that found radiation levels safely below the legal limit. “These sanma come from far away from the Fukushima nuclear disaster area, so people are especially eager to consume them this season,” he said. The Ofunato fish market is also providing badly needed jobs for fishing industry workers from the nearby Rikuzen-Takata, where 50-foot-high sea surges obliterated the town. Mr. Nagazawa said about 10 percent of the 300 or 400 people who work in the fish market are from Rikuzen-Takata. “The local people in Ofunato welcomed them, in order to help them recover,” he said. Azuma Higashi, a sprightly 62-year old fishing boat captain, flexed his muscles like a bodybuilder when he talked about the resilience of fishermen. “We are no longer afraid of the ocean, and we are eager to bring fish to the consumers of Japan and the world,” he said, dressed in a white uniform and traditional headband. “Fishermen are hardy folk. We never give up.” Like Mr. Higashi and Mrs. Tada, Mr. Nagazawa said that many fishermen escaped from the tsunami in time because they instinctively knew about the overwhelming force of the sea, whereas many residents with land-based jobs did not, and died in their homes or cars as a result. “Most of the victims were sure there was not going to be such big wave, so they did not try to escape. But people who work with the ocean knew exactly what was going to happen. So the percentage of fishermen who died was relatively low.” Though the tsunami spun his boat around in a whirlpool, Mr. Higashi said it survived because of his prayers to the sea gods and his respect for the power of nature. “I knew the tsunami would destroy many boats left in the port, so I drove out to sea as soon as I felt the earthquake,” he said. “I normally pray a lot for good health and safety. That’s why I believe that God is protecting me and my ship.” |
Japan: six months after 3/11, sunflowers and a Tree of Hope
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/9/6-months-japan-disasters-sunfl... Rikuzen-Takata—
The Tree of Hope stands alone, the sole survivor out of 70,000 black and red pines on a barrier island that was swallowed whole by the Pacific Ocean on a gloomy Friday afternoon, March 11, 2011.
Officials such as Mayor Futoshi Toba have told reporters that they will do everything it takes to keep the tree from dying due to salinity eating away at its roots and core. But there is nothing to block the full force of typhoon winds whipping off the ocean.
On a cloudy afternoon nearly six months after the tsunami, officials won’t let anybody – not even photographers or tsunami survivors -- go near the tree. While his colleagues in blue uniforms and masks operate giant cranes and trucks, a stern official closes a gate and hollers “get out of here” at a driver who stops on route 45 to take a brief look at the forlorn tree.
Most of the hardy survivors, who now live in small temporary houses on high ground above their obliterated city, have never seen the tree, and many are not interested in talking about it. Having lost relatives and most of their material world, they are still too distressed to even look at the massive reconstruction efforts going on in a disaster zone stretching more than 300 miles along Japan’s northeastern Pacific coast.
“I don’t go there because it’s difficult to figure out where I am,” says Emi Sato, 34, who lost her home and many relatives in Rikuzen-Takata, and now lives with her husband’s family in Ofunato. “In the night it’s totally dark, and it’s scary even during the day. There are many accidents, and no street signs. I’m too afraid to go there again.”
In a country dotted with ancient tsunami stones warning future generations to beware of tsunamis after earthquakes, there are no official monuments to the tragic victims and heroic survivors of 3/11, Japan’s equivalent of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. There is no televised public debate about how the nation should honor the dead or celebrate the gift of living.
There is also no public investigation – no 3/11 inquiry --into official failures to warn victims about the approach of massive waves, or the fateful – some say criminally negligent -- decisions to corral thousands of people into low-lying designated evacuation shelters instead of ordering them to safely escape up nearby hills.
While Japanese politicians grapple for power, and Japanese media focus instead on the latest food scare or celebrity arrest, the folksy rural people of Tohoku – the northeast of the main island of Honshu – have been largely forgotten.
Like the thousands of homeless people in the parks and train stations of Tokyo and Osaka, many tsunami survivors have been left to fend for themselves, despite a massive initial outpouring of sympathy in Japan and overseas. Now living in small, hot pre-fab temporary houses made of aluminum, they must pay for gas, water and electricity bills, as well as their own food and drinks. “People tell me I should look for a job in order to support myself, but I am still too depressed to go out,” says Mrs. Sugawara, who lost her husband and three grand-children in Rikuzen-Takata. “Now that I am alone without the others in the shelters, I feel more sorrow. I am suffering from trauma, and it seems to get worse every day.”
The number of volunteers, who did so much to cheer up survivors such as Mrs. Sugawara, has dwindled since their peak during the Golden Week holidays in May, and many Japanese have seen their enterprising efforts run into a dispiriting wall of dysfunctional bureaucracy.
Yet many tsunami survivors themselves are continuing to exist on a spiritual level – of acceptance and gratitude – that continues to inspire visitors from the stressed out cities of the “normal” Japan. The people of Tohoku, who were long known for their vibrant festivals and traditional lifestyles, remain the friendliest, most hospitable people in the country.
In small ways which often go unnoticed in Tokyo, they are slowly rebuilding their lives one step at a time.
Women and men such as Yasuo Shimizu, a barber in Ofunato, are opening small, simple shops – a grocery store here, a café there – with no great economic ambitions other than to provide a lifeline to their community. "We are not making money right now, but we are just happy to be alive and to show people that we can start to rebuild our lives again," says Mr. Shimizu, who lives with his family of four and a dog in a temporary pre-fab house on the grounds of an elementary school.
Their entrepreneurial gumption is spreading across the disaster zone, as larger companies, such as Lawson convenience stores and Maiya supermarkets, are opening franchises on high ground to serve residents who refuse to leave their hometowns in search of new lives in Sendai, Morioka or Tokyo.
In late August, more than 70 percent of eligible voters – including seniors who can barely walk – cast ballots to elect a new town council to replace the 31 officials who died at their posts as a wall of water hurtled over the Otsuchi town hall built fatefully on low land behind massive tsunami walls. The percentage was higher than during nationwide elections for the Parliament, and the winners are younger than the older men who continue to dominate national politics behind the scenes in Tokyo.
In Rikuzen-Takata, Naoki Suzuki, a burly man who lost his town, home and wife Kazue on March 11, has recently begun a paying job driving a truck to organize debris into piles of wood, tires and cars, including his wife’s vehicle, which he found beside the road on the day then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan came to visit Rikuzen-Takata with his entourage.
Mr. Suzuki’s mother Yoneko, who lives in a farm-house at the place where the tsunami stopped about 5 miles from the ocean, has just started to plant a winter crop of white radish and broccoli on soil which she earlier feared would be forever ruined by saltwater from the invading sea.
Her neighbors, meanwhile, are repairing the heavy tile ceramic shingles of roofs that were rocked by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Others are growing sunflowers, which they hope will absorb any radioactive cesium that may or may not be blowing their way from the mysteriously-unreported meltdown still underway at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors.
From the steep mountain valleys of coastal Iwate province to the flat coastal plains of Miyagi and Fukushima, sunflowers are growing everywhere out of the tsunami-swept fields of debris and mud. Many survivors say that the sunflowers represent the souls of the more than 20,000 people who died or went missing on March 11.
Rarely noticed previously in Japan, the sunflower, more than the Tree of Hope, has become the unofficial monument to the victims of 3/11. Sunflowers are springing up everywhere in Japan, from the backstage areas of the Fuji Rock Festival, to the temporary pre-fab aluminum houses on school grounds and the dark and ghostly streets of Ishinomaki city, Ofunato town and other human habitats across Tohoku. “It adds color and life to our world of destruction,” says Mr. Shimizu, who planted sunflowers next to his barber shop in Ofunato.
Even on a cloudy day during the typhoon season of September, the sunflowers radiate a golden smile to people such as Mr. Shimizu, who continue to see their future in their beloved seaside towns and hamlets of Tohoku. No matter how much gruff officials try to keep people away from the Tree of Hope, the sunflowers are continuing to multiply in numbers across the northeast of Japan.
Fishermen, hotel managers, pub owners, electricians, carpenters, teachers, students and debris collectors all say that they believe their towns will eventually recover, even if it takes 10 years. “We are strong people. We can survive anything,” says Fumie Musashi, a bartender in Ofunato. “We will never be defeated by the tsunami.”
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Japan: go to Tohoku
A heartrending drive on the rebuilt roads of Tohoku
Before the March 11 tsunami, the Miyako area of Iwate Prefecture was a beloved tourist destination, famous for the beaches of Jodogahama and a national park with majestic views of coves and shimmering Pacific waters.
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| Wave of mutilation: A house near the Iwate Prefecture town of Yamada lies in ruins after March's tsunami. CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON PHOTOS |
On March 11, an indented coastline funneled a surge of water into a monster 15 meters high in many areas that killed at least 15,774 people in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.
But that coastline still has much to offer travelers: fresh air, open spaces, and a chance to help the local economy recover, one visitor at a time.
Only six months since the catastrophe, a "disaster tour" of the Miyako area might not seem right for everyone. The obliterated towns of Yamada and Taro are indeed graveyards of mangled debris, ghosts and nothingness. Children wander among charred ruins, looking for missing belongings. Even hardened journalists can't help but to cry at the shocking scenes of devastation.
But hardy locals are already hiring staff and rebuilding hotels and restaurants to welcome visitors, whether they are volunteers, aid workers or travelers aiming to raise their awareness of the plight of disaster victims and spend badly needed money in the local economy.
To get there, travelers can take the Shinkansen bullet train on repaired tracks and through refurbished train stations in forlorn cities such as Koriyama and Fukushima. In the hotel district near the South Exit of Morioka Station, some car rental agencies offer special weekend rates. One generous employee at a Mazda rental shop even went home to lend me CDs from his J-rock collection to enhance my journey.
The two-hour drive east from Morioka to Miyako is breathtaking, following rivers and rapids over high mountain passes studded with bamboo, cedar and the cooling aspect of waterfalls. Approaching Miyako City, population 60,000, one might think nothing had ever happened here, as mom-and-pop shops, chain stores and a vast supermarket complex are teeming with customers.
In the central hotel district a few kilometers from the devastated port, it's hard to notice where the tsunami inundated many buildings. Proud locals and volunteers spent weeks digging out debris and scrubbing every corner of hundreds of premises. The Central Hotel Kumayasu appears brand new, with a sparkling lobby that bares no trace of being flooded with black water in March. The grateful young staff, who apologize for the lack of fax machines and breakfast, seem more flexible about rules than at many hotels in more rigid parts of Japan.
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| In nearby Taro, Shinpei Oshita is a survivor of tsunamis in 1933 and 2011. |
Only a few months after the disaster, more than a dozen family-run restaurants and pubs quickly reopened to serve relief workers as well as locals. Each place has its own inspiring story of rebirth. After the tsunami swept through his Daruma yakitori(grilled skewered chicken) shop, Tetsumi Yoshino, 68, figured he would finally retire. But his customers wouldn't let him; they needed a place to eat and drink. Banding together, they shoveled out the goop so thoroughly that many diners still can't believe the shop was ever flooded.
"I had no choice then. I had to come back to work," says Mr. Yoshino. "We are strong people. We believe we can recover from anything, even this disaster."
From Miyako, the drive 30 km south to Yamada can seem like a journey into a nightmare. It's hard to accept how the Pacific, which looks sopacifying, could rip apart so many trees, roads, houses, schools, hospitals, pachinko parlors, hot-spring bathhouses and wedding halls.
Driving south down highway 45, you could meander for days — through Otsuchi, Kamaishi, Ofunato, Rikuzentakata, Kesennuma, Minamisanriku, Ishinomaki and Higashimatsushima — and still be only halfway through the path of the tsunami. The sheer scale of destruction is what overwhelms most observers. It's a grandiose absurdity, more than 500 km long and up to 10 km inland, which can't be captured on a video camera.
In Yamada, one of the hardest hit towns in the disaster zone, traffic moves in a slow, reverent procession, as if at a funeral. All the myriad materials of civilization, it seems, have been stripped down to a single, harrowing tower standing above the wreckage.
Yet signs of life emerge down by the sea. Amid the debris of upended ships and pulverized buildings, resilient seniors push little buggies toward a grocery store opened in the wreckage of a warehouse. There, they buy food and gather information from the shop's determined owner, Katsunori Buto.
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| His son (right) stands by one of Taro's two "tsunami stones," erected to mark the disasters of 1896 and 1933. |
"People here are sick of staying in shelters, so many are coming back to live in their damaged houses," says Buto. "They have no other way of getting food, so I have to help them."
The tsunami surmounted a 7-meter-high wall and wiped out almost everything in the fishing village, including Mr. Buto's home and grocery store, run by his ancestors since the 19th century. Like many others, he contemplated starting a new life elsewhere in Japan. But when he returned to search for photos and mementos, he found that his storage house, built after the 1960 tsunami, was surprisingly intact.
Amid the stench of fish and death, he spent weeks shoveling out mud and decontaminating the walls and floors. In order to provide a lifeline of supplies to seniors who couldn't leave their neighborhood, he reconnected with his supply network in Miyako City and stocked the warehouse with basic foodstuffs.
He figured that he owed his neighbors a favor, since they had found an urn of his ancestor's ashes. "I am lucky to be alive, but I have a regret," he says. "I ran away from the tsunami so fast, I didn't have time to close the warehouse door. I wish I had: It would have saved us weeks of work cleaning out the place."
Thanks to restoration of electricity, he can store fish in small freezers, and offer fresh vegetables on trays to seniors, many with hunched backs from a lifetime of farm work. Isolated by the disaster, many seniors appear happy to meet visitors who can help them to carry home groceries, or even drive them to evacuation shelters or town halls to look for relatives or acquire medicines. Many elders simply enjoy having someone to talk to, and every little bit of kindness — a small gift, a compassionate smile — helps the recovery gather momentum.
After returning for a night in Miyako, the highway north leads to the fortress town of Taro, where 18-meter-high waves overwhelmed a series of thick, 10-meter-high walls. In a cemetery near the sturdy town hall at the high end of town, two "tsunami stones" recall the disasters of 1896 and 1933.
Famous for harvesting seaweed, urchin and abalone, Taro was again obliterated on March 11, but most residents escaped to high ground thanks to the town's habit of holding tsunami drills every March 3 on the anniversary of the 1933 disaster, which killed 911.
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Many residents, such as Shinpei Oshita, 87, trace their lineage back to the 36 survivors in 1896, and they can tell amazing stories of how they survived tsunamis in 1933, 1960 and 2011.
Most residents now stay in temporary housing units, the Green Pia resort, or an indoor dodgeball gym on a flat slice of mountain a few minutes north of Taro. Immaculately clean and bright, the gym has an unusually cheerful vibe, with cardboard partitions dividing the area into "streets" and "homes" often decorated with teddy bears, name tags and even drawings of "windows." After checking in with local staff, visitors can chat with seniors or help kids do homework, play games or read manga from a well-stocked "library" of donated books.
Just beyond the Green Pia resort complex, a back-road leads to a tourist destination of the future: the narrow cove where the tsunami reached up a cliff to a record 40 meters above sea level. Gazing downward, it feels like standing on a 12th-storey balcony and imagining the ocean come all the way up to your feet.
Like everything else in the disaster zone, it seems beyond imagination until you actually see it for yourself. And once you see it, you might never forget the hospitable people of Tohoku, who will need your help and understanding for years to come.
Japan's government indecision leaves disaster victims in limbo
FUKUSHIMA CITY, JAPAN FUKUSHIMA CITY, JAPAN — Disaster survivors in northeastern Japan are demanding that government officials spend more resources on them instead of focusing on political squabbles in Tokyo, where Yoshihiko Noda took office this week as the country's sixth prime minister in five years.
From the tsunami-ravaged towns of Ofunato and Rikuzen-takata to the radiation-troubled city of Fukushima, residents of Japan's wide-ranging disaster zones told The Washington Times that Japan's weak national leaders have left their lives in limbo. Nearly six months since a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear reactors, Fukushima residents said they are still waiting for the government to provide Geiger counters and to test their children for exposure to cancer-causing radioactive isotopes. "Decisions are not being made fast enough because of the political problems," said Ayako Okada, who is raising her 5-year-old child in Fukushima city. "Many mothers are worried about what they should do for their children, and whether they should move or stay in Fukushima city. But they aren't getting proper direction from the government."
Daisuke Okamato, a teacher at a private school in Fukushima city, has been living in a sort of limbo since the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis. He and his wife recently moved from Iwaki city, about 30 miles south of the damaged nuclear reactors, to the outskirts of Fukushima city farther inland, only to discover that his new neighborhood has higher levels of radiation than he expected, though not high enough to warrant immediate evacuation.
"Nobody knows what is really happening to us right now," he said. "It's surreal, like living in a mystery movie. This could go on for the next 10 or 20 years."
Disappointment and frustration over the government's performance run deep and wide in Japan, a recent survey shows. According to an Associated Press-Gfk poll, nearly 75 percent of Japanese citizens doubt the government can handle another major disaster. About 67 percent believe Japan is weaker internationally than it was 10 years ago. Some 44 percent believe children born today will be worse off when they grow up than people are now, the AP reported. In coastal areas of Iwate province devastated by the tsunami, many survivors say they can't make plans because the government still hasn't figured out where and how to rebuild destroyed towns.
Yasuo Shimizu, 64, a barber in the port town of Ofunato, said his family of four is desperate to build their own home in order to get out of a hot and cramped temporary house at an elementary school. But the government hasn't determined where they can build or whether they will be compensated for the loss of their former home. "We have dreams of the home we would like to build, but it could be a long time before they can become a reality," Mr. Shimizu said.
Yutaka Kinno, 34, an employee at the Japan agricultural cooperative in the devastated city of Ofunato in Iwate province, said Tokyo politicians have been too busy grappling with their own problems to solve issues in the disaster areas. "We often feel sad and forlorn here because the leaders in Tokyo aren't coming here to visit us," he said, near a damaged port area that still reeks of leaking chemicals. "We're not very much concerned about what's happening in politics in Tokyo. All we know is that the leaders haven't been doing what they are supposed to do for us," Mr. Kinno said. "We really need them to come here and listen to us, and then we can all make important decisions about the future of our children." He said Tokyo's political paralysis has even slowed the process of verifying DNA samples of bodies found in the disaster zone. After the disfigured remains of his aunt were found in Ofunato, he said he had to wait almost two months for confirmation by DNA analysis.
Indecision in Tokyo also has held back agricultural development in his area, he said. "Even though we don't believe that our soil and products have been tainted by the nuclear reactors in Fukushima, we can't get proper testing and we can't get important agricultural projects started in our region," Mr. Kinno said. Disaster survivors in northeastern Japan are demanding that government officials spend more resources on them instead of focusing on political squabbles in Tokyo, where Yoshihiko Noda took office this week as the country's sixth prime minister in five years.
From the tsunami-ravaged towns of Ofunato and Rikuzen-takata to the radiation-troubled city of Fukushima, residents of Japan's wide-ranging disaster zones told The Washington Times that Japan's weak national leaders have left their lives in limbo. Nearly six months since a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear reactors, Fukushima residents said they are still waiting for the government to provide Geiger counters and to test their children for exposure to cancer-causing radioactive isotopes.
"Decisions are not being made fast enough because of the political problems," said Ayako Okada, who is raising her 5-year-old child in Fukushima city. "Many mothers are worried about what they should do for their children, and whether they should move or stay in Fukushima city. But they aren't getting proper direction from the government."
Daisuke Okamato, a teacher at a private school in Fukushima city, has been living in a sort of limbo since the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis. He and his wife recently moved from Iwaki city, about 30 miles south of the damaged nuclear reactors, to the outskirts of Fukushima city farther inland, only to discover that his new neighborhood has higher levels of radiation than he expected, though not high enough to warrant immediate evacuation. "Nobody knows what is really happening to us right now," he said. "It's surreal, like living in a mystery movie. This could go on for the next 10 or 20 years."
Japan needs more helps in disaster zone
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/18/tsunami-hit-areas-need-more-h... ISHINOMAKI, JAPAN — When Masaru Tanaka joined a rush of volunteers during holidays in May, he planned to stay in the tsunami disaster zone for only a week.Three months later, long after many volunteers have gone home, Mr. Tanaka is still helping feed survivors in Ishinomaki city in Miyagi province. More than five months after the March 11 tsunami, thousands of disaster victims still need someone to help them eat, find medicine or dig out their homes and shops. Taking an extended leave of absence from his job at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo, Mr. Tanaka, 35, is at the forefront of a new generation of Japanese who are discovering the challenges - and joys - of volunteering. “Life is more important than money,” Mr. Tanaka said. “I just feel like I have to help out people here as much as I can.” A specialist in Internet technology who grew up in Tokyo, Mr. Tanaka is volunteering with the Peace Boat nongovernmental organization at a “central kitchen” in an abandoned pub in the entertainment district of this city of 160,000. On a sweltering summer night, he and many others, who wear blue jerseys identifying them as Peace Boat volunteers, cook up massive pots of soup and other hot meals for survivors living in shelters or in the remains of damaged homes in dark streets riddled with flies and odors left over by the tsunami. While the number of volunteers has declined across the tsunami zone,Peace Boat is continuing to take in about 300 fresh volunteers a week, who get two free meals per day, showers and places to sleep in tents or on the upper floors of shops. Mr. Tanaka said many of the new volunteers end up staying long-term like him for the camaraderie of new friends and the positive feeling attained by helping people in need. In the Ishinomaki area, Peace Boat volunteers are helping dig mud out of homes and shops. They clean mold and bugs off beds and mats. They also are helping fishermen restore their work environments. While the physical labor of carrying supplies and digging out homes and shops was vital at the beginning of the relief effort, the focus has shifted to providing spiritual support to victims who still lack proper homes, jobs and diet. “The biggest thing for me is not about what kind of activity you do, whether it’s cleaning homes or distributing food,” Mr. Tanaka said. “The important thing is that we are showing local people that we are here from all over the world, and all over Japan. Some victims have mental problems because of the disasters, so it’s important to support them mentally and give them a more positive feeling.” In the first six weeks after the March 11 disasters, about 190,000 volunteers came to the tsunami-hit provinces of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. Many volunteers such as Mr. Tanaka have had to overcome fears of ingesting radioactive air, water or food from the damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima province, and the nuclear disaster has perhaps scared away thousands of potential volunteers. Those who remain are at least helping build momentum during the recovery process, which experts say could take 10 years. Mr. Tanaka and the Peace Boat volunteers recently have been organizing barbecue parties at shelters. “When we cook together over the barbecues we set up, it helps to break down the hierarchy between volunteers and victims,” Mr. Tanaka said. “We want people to become motivated to help themselves, to learn to stand up on their own.” |
Japanese tourists returning to miracle Matsushima
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/17/matsushima-japan-japanese-tou... Matsushima, Japan—
While foreign visitors are continuing to avoid the disaster zone, Japanese tourists are coming back to Matsushima, a fabled destination which locals say miraculously escaped the wrath of the March 11 tsunami.
Considered one of Japan’s “three great views”, with pine trees studding 260 islands in a majestic bay, the seaside resort town of Matsushima in Miyagi province has long been known for its esoteric powers, which inspired Japan’s haiku master Matsuo Basho in the 17th century to write “Ahh, Matsushima. Ahh.”
Despite the devastation of nearby towns and cities such as Ishinomaki, Matsushima, which sits in the heart of a 300-mile long swath of wreckage, is already welcoming a third of normal tourist arrivals, say local tour operators.
Many visitors are amazed to see the town’s hotels, seafood shops and thousand-year old temples relatively unscathed, because smaller islands in the bay bore the brunt of 50-foot high tsunami waves from the open Pacific. Train services have resumed from nearby Sendai city, and hotels this week were fully booked with domestic tourists, as well as aid workers and reconstruction crews who park cranes and other heavy machinery in resort parking lots.
The “natural miracle” which saved Matsushima was a mixed blessing for Kengo Doi, who works on a sightseeing boat taking tourists around the bay for 1400 yen per person. The tsunami washed away 40 out of 120 houses on his native island of Katsurajima, including his home. “My island was like a wall protecting the Matsushima tourist resort from the tsunami,” he says, as tourists take photos during a cruise past devastated islands villages on a scorching summer afternoon. “Fortunately we all fled safely to high ground because we are highly conscious of the power of the sea.”
Thanks to Katsurajima and other barrier islands, the weakened tsunami was only about 6 feet high as it swept over the main dock in Matsushima, dockworkers say. Koji Irakawa, a senior official overseeing tourism boat operations, says Matsushima lost 30 smaller boats, but the larger sightseeing boats survived intact. Thanks to volunteers efforts to help locals clean debris and mud off the dock area, the tour operators are now back in business during the peak summer season.
“The economy is very bad in Japan and we have almost no foreign tourists at all,” Mr. Irakawa told the Washington Times. “We can’t say when the tourism industry will recover in full. The tourism business is only a third of what it would normally be at this time of year, but at least we have a third.”
Compared with last year, the total number of foreign visitors to Japan decreased by roughly 60 percent in April, 50 percent in May, and 36 percent in June, when only 430,000 tourists came to Japan, according to the Japan National Tourist Organization. Small traditional ryokan hotels, often run by senior citizens, have often suffered more than larger nationwide chains such as Toyoko and Tokyu hotels catering to the Japanese business crowd. After 47 years of hosting international backpackers paying 5000 yen (about $64) per night, Shozo Okihara, the owner of Sansuiso ryokan in Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, was hoping the increase of international flights to nearby Haneda city airport would bring more guests, according to a report in the Asahi newspaper. But Mr. Okihara, 88, said no foreigners came in the four months after the March 11 disaster, and only five backpackers stayed in July. “Our business cannot survive if the current situation continues." The Foreign Ministry and Japan Tourism Agency are planning to help the Japanese Inn Group, which has 81 members nationwide including Sansuiso, to launch a campaign on Facebook to tell potential visitors about discounts in Japan. The United Nations has also tried to help Japan by recently granting UNESCO World Heritage status to Chusonji temple and other historical sites in Hiraizumicho in the hard-hit province of Iwate. The number of daily visitors to the temple, in the mountains outside the disaster zone, has recovered from 200 after the March 11 quake to about 4000 recently, a 30 percent increase over last year, according to the Yomiuri newspaper. The tourism industry in Fukushima province, on the other hand, has suffered greatly from fears of radioactive fallout in the air and food. Large and small resort operators even more than 50 miles away from the seaside nuclear reactors are reporting almost no tourist arrivals, though their rooms are often filled with “nuclear refugees”, especially children who aren’t allowed to play outside in towns closer to the plant. In Matsushima, the local tourist association says the number of visitors has rebounded from almost zero in March to about 30 percent of an average year. Though frustrating for many business owners, the minor recovery is at least providing badly-needed jobs for locals such as Mr. Doi and his neighbors on Katsura island. Using money earned in the tourism industry, they have reinstalled an intricate network of oyster traps in the waters around their island. They hope to have a good harvest this winter, even amid fears of cesium contamination from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactors. “Even if the government decides to ban the sale of oysters this winter, we locals will eat them,” says Mr. Doi. “We know what we are growing, and we don’t want to waste what we’ve worked hard to make.” |
