Thursday, December 29, 2011

External article: first person account from a Fukushima exile involved in radiation measure (by KS at Safecast)

The article is actually entitled "My present situation (from KS in Fukushima)" but this title does not capture at all the meaning of the letter: how he was hardly persuaded to evacuate after 3/11, how he had to leave beloved elderly people behind, how he gradually became aware of the outrageous fact of children were playing on the ground where radioactivity was very dangerous thanks to government's criminal negligence...

The explosions at the nuclear power plant right after 3.11 were a great shock to all of my family. The earthquake affected phone connectivity, but my father who lives away from us due to his work managed to contact us by phone. He told me, “Get your wife and child and run, right away!” I did not understand what he meant. I thought, “Why do we need to run, when the government is saying that it’s safe?”

We had a heated argument on the phone – It’s the only time I have been yelled at by my father since I became an adult. He said to me, “Look at the map!” Then I realized that the nuclear power plant was much closer to our home than I had thought. I realized how close it is to our home, although it felt so far away when I went there with my family in my childhood.

However, I could not convince myself to leave my mother and my grandparents behind. It is a natural thought because they are my family. But in reality, it was impossible — both of my grandparents are over 85 and they require nursing care. Evacuating could have made them ill, so we had to make a sad decision. They had to stay with my mother. When we were having this discussion, I saw my grandmother cry for the first time. Facing the reality that they could not evacuate, although they wanted to, left me feeling powerless. We packed our things with tears in our eyes. 


The article was published on November 11 but I was not aware of it until today, via Enenews.

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