Messages from Fukushima

2 years of living in a nuclear disaster From ordinary people in Japan to ordinary people in India

Ayano Yoshida Fukushima native Resident of New Delhi Embassy of Japan warned Japanese people in India (especially in Delhi, Mumbai and other big cities) about Air Pollution. I know that this act is necessary to protect Japanese life, but Government of Japan has never warned Fukushima citizens for radioactive contamination. They need Fukushima citizens to stay and live life as usual. Even if Nuclear Plant was totally safe, plant workers are exposed to radiation every day. I feel anger and shame that we, Japan, have such discrimination because Japan is the only country where Atomic Bomb was dropped. Japan must be against all nuclear energy as a leader. If we call Japan an advanced nation, why we can't be a leader against nuclear? I'm from Fukushima and my family and friends are still living there. After 11 March, our life has been changed. We can't see the radiation so we cant' judge which food is safe. Some of them try to believe Fukushima/products of Fukushima are safe. I am against it, but I can understand that they don't want to think their hometown is unsafe. Earthquake is a disaster, but to be a victim of radiation is a MAN MADE DISASTER.

From a middle-aged lady working at a post office Koriyama City, Fukushima I have been determined to accept the facts as they are. These facts include that nuclear powers have been considered to be necessary for the Japanese economic development, and that a big accident happened. In retrospective, as a Japanese living in this country, I must have accepted that. However, the effect of radiation has completely changed the sceneries around me. I can no longer see with joy the small children playing outside freely without any worries. I have to admit I am also responsible to have benefitted from nuclear power. I remember reading in some book, "An ordinary person learns from experiences, and a wise person learns from history." And I suppose human beings don't learn their lesson no matter how many times they fail. What I am going to choose from now on and what I will hope for will depend on how I can throw my hands on things and be totally responsible for myself and the society I belong to. And I sincerely hope we will be doing our best. (Translated by Kaoru Sasaki)

From a woman in Fukushima, to each and every person in India Chiemi Kamata Miyagi Prefecture It has been 2 years from "that day" and there have been a lot of things that have been lost or broken. Our reality is overwhelming and it cuts our hearts in a big and deep way. On the other hand, these 2 years have been the time when I felt a lot of gratitude for the people I love, the irreplaceable land and the happiness to live. As long as we live on the earth, we will be always inquired what and who we love, what we cherish and how we live. I, as a future mother and a person, would like to live in a positive way, hand in hand with as many people as possible. I wish from my heart each one of you in India will have a lot of happiness in the future. Finally, I would like to share my friends' activity in MinamiSoma, my hometown, the city that was hit by tsunami and destroyed as well and has been affected greatly by radioactive contamination. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvuVXY0utdw&feature=yo utu.be (Translated by Kaoru Sasaki)

Hitosada Yoshitake An activist in his 70s, living in Kansai (western Japan) Dear Friends, On the occasion of March 11th, the second memorial of Fukushima disaster let me send a solidarity message from Japan to all peoples in India and around the world. Japan has been the sole country nuke-bombed in a war. But Japanese nation now shamefully is the biggest assaulter with nuke, streaming ceaseless massive volume of radioactive contaminated air and water from the Fukushima reactors over the whole globe since 3.11. 2011. Ruling mongers of Japan, however, are desperate still to reoperate or construct other nuke plants and to make their way also of exporting nuke power plants to India, Vietnam, Jordan, and so on, with little review of the accident. Nukes and humans cannot coexist. Nevertheless, greedy circles of Japan have chased nukes. They plotted to make, though failed, A-bombs of their own in advance of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, fiercely promoted atomic energy developments in the past half century and writes in a governmental paper `keeping opponents aware Japan has the great potentiality for nuke-armed makes the pillar of our diplomacy'. Indeed Japan has summed up its amount of Plutonium of dozens of thousand times more than Democratic People's Republic of Korea is said to do so far. Such radioactive substances accumulated out from nuclear reactors humankind can never deal with except for making into the end use of horrendous arsenals. Let us now together abolish all nuclear weapons, get our world free from nuke energy and leave it for the generations to come! Peace! 5

To everyone in India, from a Fukushima resident T.M. Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture Self employed Hello to everyone in India. Im just another ordinary person who was born and raised in Fukushima. I witnessed the 03.11.2011 earthquake and nuclear meltdown in my very own Fukushima. Thus, trying to overcome this difficulty since 2 years Ive been piling up on small deeds possible along with questioning my ability to do something day after day. Even in Japan, differences on things like the pros & cons of nuclear energy, economic growth, society, values and views have led to a lot of opposition, division and chaos. Cant we human beings overcome our differences and understand each other forever? Cant we build a society someday, where we live together sharing with and supporting each other? Spending these 2 years in Fukushima, Ive realised something. Without changing your own point of view, however hard you try, you cannot change other people or the system, even if you try changing yourself on the outside. We can voluntarily choose to either be useful to the present economic and social system or become victims of it. Instead of becoming slaves of this system, we need to think and share things we can do in the present system itself. Its about doing it on your own and not about expecting someone else to do. For this, along with the people around, understanding the truth, we need to talk and figure out as to what is it that we are feeling right now and why do we want to go on living? This not only includes people with similar opinions but is also about understanding people with different opinions. Ive come to 6

think that instead of criticising, protesting and opposing, what is important is that each and everyone needs to look into their own self, talk, and share and to change the present situation needs to do everything they can. Isnt this something not just limited to Japan but also the same for everyone in India as well? Each and every one of us was an innocent baby, born out of our mothers womb, causing her a lot of pain. Each and every human being was born with a purpose to fulfil. The opinion of a large number of people is important. The opposing viewpoint might hold a very important hint in trying to create a new reality. Beyond the ideas, principles and values, beyond positions and roles, beyond skin colour and culture, what we need right now is to be with each other. All these problems piled up, we need to look for a solution to these a solution that works not just on the symptoms but instead goes all the way to the root of the cause if that is taken care of, I really doubt that a tragedy like this would be repeated. In order to not repeat the pain and suffering of Fukushima anywhere else in this world, there has to be something that each and every one in India and around the world can do. Every one of us should think together, put in our wisdom together and instead of fighting, I really hope that with small little steps we can bring in harmony. This is a message to all of you in India from the bottom of my heart someone who has been trying to find some hope here, still living in Fukushima. I pray for a better future for the people of India, and a lot of happiness. (Translated by Deepali Varshney)

A prayer from Fukushima Katsuko Arima Fukushima Prefecture I am a farmer who lives in a place in Fukushima 65 kilometers away from the Daiichi power plant. I have 5 children, from age 1st year junior high through 27 years old. 14 years ago I opened a small restaurant serving cereal and vegetable based foods, aiming to achieve a sustainable lifestyle and we were basically selfsufficient, using the food we grew ourselves. I and my friends have always been interested in environmental issues. Through an NGO, I was very shocked to learn that the mining of uranium, which fueled our supposedly clean and safe nuclear reactors, promoted as national policy, was causing terrible suffering of indigenous people in Australia and America, from whose lands it was mined. After Three Mile Island and Chernobyl I was worried that there would be another nuclear accident somewhere in the world, but I never for a moment thought it would be right in our backyards. Just as radioactive fallout is being scattered throughout the world, the name of FUKUSHIMA has become infamous. Even though it was a power plant built to send electricity to people in the cities, not even for the people of Fukushima themselves. One of my friends said: this nuclear accident is the worst thing that could possibly happen, but at least now all the nuclear power plants will be shut down. Even now the reactors are still leaking radiation and nobody even knows what sort of condition the radioactive fuel that melted through the containment vessel is in. In order to graduate from nuclear power, we do everything we canwe make petitions to the government, collect signatures, have demonstrations and protests and so on. Despite all that the Japanese government has restarted some reactors and is trying to export them overseas. (They havent even been able to end this disaster, so there is no way they can say this technology is safe!) 8

There are children and adults who are living in areas that are outside those legally designated as radiated areas, but have much higher levels of radiation. They are living human experiments, without receiving any help, without even being aware of the facts. Others have evacuated on their own, without any compensation, to unknown places. Ive heard that the Indian government is eager to build new nuclear power plants, saying: Japanese people are living normally despite all the radiation. This is truly terrifying. Children can no longer play outside. Farmers cant sell their vegetables or rice, the land, which is more important than anything else has been contaminated, and people are losing hope. There are many families, whose land is highly contaminated, but the compensation has not come through, yet they cant go home. Radiation contamination has also prevented recovery work from the earthquake and tsunami. Facts which should have been told to us come out well after the events. We have lost all trust in the government and the electricity companies. As we live in such anxiety, confirmation of thyroid gland abnormalities in children has begun. I guess if we continue at this rate, there will be many sacrifices in our communities, including children. Even now there is no place for the spent fuel to go and no way to dispose of it. If we continue with nuclear power it is obvious that the danger and the costs to us will only increase. How many more sacrifices do we have to make beyond this in order to get electricity from nuclear power plants? Ever since the accident happened, the government has repeated the phrase no immediate effects on health and now most people have realized that this actually means that there will be an effect on health in the long-term. We wont know if everything is OK for another 5 or 10 years, maybe even longer. So how can we be assured of peace of mind? Until then we have to live with further exposure to radiation and suffering. 9

And thats precisely why we must not give up, why we must continue to raise our voices and tell the world what is happening to us. Without technology that allows rapid clean up in case of a nuclear accident, without a proper way of disposing of spent fuel, without the will to make life the most important priority, it is absolutely wrong to restart the nuclear reactors. We must not make the economy and convenience more important than life itself. We must stop damaging the earth so far that she will never be able to recover. We must stop squandering resources and shift immediately to sustainable energy. We must protect or perhaps return to a life which is in balance and which is spiritually rich. I believe that we can rebuild our lives like this. I really hope that our words will reach your heart. Thank you for this opportunityI am very grateful. (Translated by Keito Hirabayashi)

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Mineko Takahashi Im really happy to hear that there is an anti-nuclear meeting in India! Together somehow I want to make nuclear free a reality. We do not need nuclear energy neither in Japan nor anywhere else in this world. Lets join hands together to protect our lives, health and for a peaceful life ahead. (Translated by Deepali Varshney)

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