For the first time in several years, I am in Vancouver this March. Normally I would pay my yearly visit to Fukushima this time of the year, coinciding with the 3/11 Triple Disaster anniversary. I find it hard to call it an anniversary, but there it is. With a plan to visit Fukushima in April, I am home reading online news about Fukushima instead of visiting friends there.
I imagined that the echoes of the triple disaster would gradually disappear from media even on these anniversary dates now that seven years have passed. But I was surprised to see a news article (click here) which mentioned some scholarly reports saying, "The evacuation was a mistake."
There have been countless arguments about Fukushima issues right from the day one, seven years ago. About the level of radiation risks, about how far people must evacuate, about how long they must wait, about how soon they could return and to what level of restoration and so on.
2557 days have passed since the triple disaster in Fukushima. For more than sixty thousand people from Fukushima, that's how long they have carried the stigma of evacuees. More than half of that number of people are still wandering with lost hope, not just lost homes and possessions. It is not easy to get an accurate count on how many more people left their homes in Fukushima voluntarily and unofficially. But in the first year of the disaster, the number was over a hundred thousand.
Since the very first visit I took in April 2011, I've met people who have pointed out how wrongly this triple disaster recovery was unfolding ever since the official recovery began in Fukushima almost a whole year after the disaster. Now we hear a voice of ivory tower saying that the evacuation was a mistake. Grassroots people knew it, but they had to follow the voice of authority. The people of Fukushima did not have a voice back then. Only one in two people who were forced to evacuate returned to their homes. Where are the rest? Do they have a voice now?
Questions arise if the evacuation was indeed a mistake. What if these people had all stayed home, would they have recovered better? What if there was another tsunami and earthquake, would people then have evacuated or stayed? What if, what if, what if.... We do not have answers.
We can't return to those evacuees the precious 2557 days that they have lost in evacuation even after monetary compensations have been made by TEPCO to those evacuees. But perhaps one thing we can do is to remember the big mistake and not repeat it. Now is the time to think about the present moment and future.
I imagined that the echoes of the triple disaster would gradually disappear from media even on these anniversary dates now that seven years have passed. But I was surprised to see a news article (click here) which mentioned some scholarly reports saying, "The evacuation was a mistake."
There have been countless arguments about Fukushima issues right from the day one, seven years ago. About the level of radiation risks, about how far people must evacuate, about how long they must wait, about how soon they could return and to what level of restoration and so on.
2557 days have passed since the triple disaster in Fukushima. For more than sixty thousand people from Fukushima, that's how long they have carried the stigma of evacuees. More than half of that number of people are still wandering with lost hope, not just lost homes and possessions. It is not easy to get an accurate count on how many more people left their homes in Fukushima voluntarily and unofficially. But in the first year of the disaster, the number was over a hundred thousand.
Since the very first visit I took in April 2011, I've met people who have pointed out how wrongly this triple disaster recovery was unfolding ever since the official recovery began in Fukushima almost a whole year after the disaster. Now we hear a voice of ivory tower saying that the evacuation was a mistake. Grassroots people knew it, but they had to follow the voice of authority. The people of Fukushima did not have a voice back then. Only one in two people who were forced to evacuate returned to their homes. Where are the rest? Do they have a voice now?
Questions arise if the evacuation was indeed a mistake. What if these people had all stayed home, would they have recovered better? What if there was another tsunami and earthquake, would people then have evacuated or stayed? What if, what if, what if.... We do not have answers.
We can't return to those evacuees the precious 2557 days that they have lost in evacuation even after monetary compensations have been made by TEPCO to those evacuees. But perhaps one thing we can do is to remember the big mistake and not repeat it. Now is the time to think about the present moment and future.
