April 24, 2011. Koriyama, Fukushima.
The bright Easter sun rose this morning in Fukushima after the darkness and rain all day yesterday. I looked through the window this morning and a Shinkensen, Japanese famous bullet train, passed through Koriyama Station, 200 meters away from the hotel where I stayed for the past three nights. Just like the hotel in Iwaki where we stayed, this hotel reopened soon after the disaster last month, and is now packed with business men from outside (not a single woman I saw yesterday!), emergency relief workers, and delegates from large construction companies from other parts of Japan in attempts to repair damages. How long will it take to finish this task of repairing and restoring? Plans were already finalized and actions are moving forward for rehabilitation and restoration from the earthquake and tsunami in Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures now. But, because of radiation, it is a totally different story in Fukushima.
The prolonging negotiation and plans around TEPCO (Tokyo Electrical Power Company)’s compensation to victims are now enraging local people. The central government’s budgetary adjustment and their plans to increase taxes in the new fiscal year have been generating much heated debates and argument in this world’s most affluent nation. The late afternoon of March 11 is remembered by all Japanese for the inconvenience in the half of the nation going through power-cut and traffic chaos as much as panic of the disasters. We the outsiders heard more vocal complaints from the capital city Tokyo than the silent cries of people from Fukushima where the nuclear plants had been producing electricity for consumption in Tokyo until the morning of March 11. TEPCO executed power-cut each day in some of their serviced areas because they couldn’t meet the demands sufficiently with this major breakdown of one of their nuclear plants in another part of the country. The complication of energy distribution system by monopoly of private utility companies are now causing much distress and anger among all residents in Fukushima, not just among disaster victims. Since my arrival in Tokyo, I’ve been fed with so much information about the true nature of this multiple disaster: A human-made disaster to feed our greed and convenience.
Scientists and geologists found evidences that a similar degree of earthquake and tsunami had happened in Tohoku area a thousand years ago. They were warning a potential massive disaster for some time and alerted the nuclear energy producers and other businesses to take necessary protective measure, but no one listened in the interest of their own profit gain. Most people who lived in 20-30 KM radius from Fukushima Dai-chi made their livings either by jobs created around the nuclear plants for the past few decades or by traditional jobs of farming and fishery that they had been handed down for generations. After the earthquake, local residents were told to get on the emergency bus only for a two hour long evacuation from a potential danger of radiation. Since then, weeks have gone by without any promise to return home. Now the government made it illegal to enter the 20 KM zone since three days ago. The central government has been making promises of temporary housing for and TEPCO announced their plans to stabilize the situation with radiation in 9 to 10 months. Over 130, 000 evacuees in different shelters in Fukushima still quietly wait their Easter hope. Many more people left their homes and children started going to school in spite of stigma and discrimination. It will be a long journey of silent battle for people of Fukushima.
I will be on Shinkansen tonight to return to Tokyo. A week after the earthquake, Japan Railways East Corporations quietly announced that there was no derailment of Shinkansen on March 11 even at the shock of this massive earthquake. Through years’ of experiences of carrying passengers, this world’s most advanced road transportation technology has now reached the level to stop the bullet train of over 300 Km per hour speed at any major earthquake warning in a matter of a minute.
Thousands of people were confined in the unmovable trains for the rest of the day, but no one was hurt. I wondered what might have gone through the minds of the people in that train with their cell phones unable to connect their loved ones for hours? Were they even able to reach anyone to tell them they were safe but only delayed? After hours of waiting in the train, passengers were disembarked and they walked home for miles and miles in the dark. After that long walk, where they able to find their homes? Did they find their families safe? Were children evacuated to if they were all at school? Is anyone still looking for their loved ones after weeks have gone by? The memories of my waiting in the afternoon of December 26, 2004 started flooding in my head as I am packing again to leave Fukushima. I spent hours and hours staring at my cell phone as I was waiting for Carole’s call from Phuket, but she never came back alive.
Midori read yesterday's Asahi Shimbun (newspaper) to me that a new voluntary organization was formed to send flowers to evacuees in Fukushima every Friday with words of encouragement (picture at the top of this post is copied from www.asahi.com). Japanese people are known for their stoic, reserved, calm personalities. It warmed my heart to see there are people who would care to fill the hearts of people in Fukushima as I soon leave this nation which I came to appreciate in a very new light: fears, history of deaths and hatred, but more importantly the ever growing friendships in Christ.
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