- Sakura in Fukushima >
- Fukushima - Paris – London - Prose
Immediately after the radioactive contamination following the collapse of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, not a single one of the local residents were to be seen in the affected areas. The tightly closed curtains of the houses created a sad, empty and ghostly atmosphere. A lonely dog, once loved by his master, was left behind. Beyond him lay previously cultivated fields, now all covered with weeds. The only consolation for me was the blossom of the cherry trees. The flowers of the sakura were in bloom even in such a devastated place.
I have visited the affected areas of Fukushima often.
People are in anguish. They lament that their lives have been stolen, their lives lost to the radiation from the collapsed reactors.
People hoped. They expected to return to their homes once their land had been decontaminated, only to learn that it takes longer than a lifetime for the radioactive contamination to disappear completely.
Gradually people have overcome their anguish, have married, given birth to children and family lines continue. What were once paddy fields and farmland are now covered with greenhouses for flowers. Contaminated soil and debris are buried in the “Interim Storage Facility” in Okuma-Machi. Recovery is progressing. There, though, I saw the tears of people who have lost their houses, farmland, ancestors’ graves, everything. I see a conflict of emotions which will never disappear from their lives. And yet they try to walk forward, they try to live for the future. I would like to stand with each and every one of them.
Yoshino Oishi
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Between Reactor No. 2 and Reactor No. 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (2019)
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Mitsuharu Nemoto in Okuma-Machi – his house, paddy field, arable land and ancestral graves, which go back 5 generations, have all been destroyed in order to build an interim storage facility. He is in tears as he touches a gravestone. (Okuma-Machi, 2019)
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From left to right – Reactors 1 to 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. All of the reactors exploded and were destroyed after the earthquake in 2011. In the forefront one sees a line of tanks for the storage of radioactive water where once there was a forest. Closer to the viewers are houses, paddy fields and arable land, evacuated and empty. (Okuma-Machi, 2019)
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Mountains of flexible container bags containing radioactively contaminated soil and debris from the affected areas. These bags were brought here as the area near the coast became an interim storage facility. These will be categorized and buried in the future. (Okuma-Machi, 2019)
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Misa, in her second year at a junior high school lives near 1F. “Of course I worry about the radioactive contamination but what can I do? Instead of being anxious about it, I try to live positively and enjoy my after-school activities.” (Soma-Shi, 2011)
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Just married, Tomoe and Daisuke Shigihara were hit by the 2011 earthquake in Yamakiya region of Kawamata, only 1 week into their married life. They were evacuated to Fukushima-Shi and live in rented accommodation. Their baby girl has become their hope for the future, but their original home is in the area still designated a difficult-to-return-to zone with their neighbourhood covered with mountains of flexible container bags of radioactive soil. Their family is growing and they are trying to live for the future. (Fukushima-Shi, 2013)
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Yoshiaki Sato (60 years old) cries out, “The paddy field and arable land are my home, my soul, but I can no longer work there. It’s sad, pitiful, I’m mortified, it’s too bad. Iitate-Mura village will disappear, no one can come home, not my children, not my grandchildren, nobody.” (Iitate-Mura, 2012)
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Mikio Watanabe (62 years old) lost his wife Hamako when she set fire to herself and died at the age of 58 years. “I thought she was burning some rubbish in the garden.... when I realized what she had done, the fire had already engulfed her and it was too late. She was tormented by the thought of not being able to return home.”
(Yamakiya-Chiku, Kawamata, 2012) -
Piles of flexible container bags full of radioactive soil and debris form mountains in the area of the paddy fields, arable land and cleared forest which was Daisuke Shimabara’s native soil.
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8 years have passed since the owners of the houses were evacuated after the explosion of the reactors. The town has become a ghost town. Screens to shelter the houses are gradually rotting away. (Okuma-Machi, 2019)
Yoshino Oishi
30 January 2019