Monday, March 14, 2011
Kenichi, dressed in protective gear, stood outside Reactor Two. He hadn’t slept for three
days and was exhausted and on the verge of collapse. “Damn!” he cursed to himself. He
had been worried the amount of water that was being injected wasn’t enough and the
water level might drop below the fuel rods. Within a few hours of the nuclear fuel rods
being exposed to air, their temperature would rise from 100 degrees Celsius to 2,000
degrees Celsius, causing the fuel to melt down. Failure to continuously rotate fresh
coolant water would mean catastrophe.
He looked at the Geiger counter. The radiation level was almost 1,000 times
higher than normal—the same level just before the Number One reactor had exploded.
The water had dropped below the fuel rods. He knew they needed to vent the containment
building, but more of a concern was how much hydrogen had seeped into Reactor Three
through the venting system. He looked up into the night sky and watched the clouds
slowly drifting from the sea to the land. He cursed, knowing that if they vented, the
radiation wouldn’t blow out to sea but inland. The heavier particles would fall within the
evacuation zone. But the lighter particles—cesium, iodine, strontium, and other deadly hot
particles—would float up into the atmosphere and travel much farther beyond the
evacuation zone. They would easily reach Koriyama, fifty kilometers away, where his
wife and children were stranded. He thought how absurd it was to set an evacuation zone
of twenty kilometers. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency knew full well that radioactive
particles could travel much farther. In fact they knew that the fallout could rise into the
atmosphere and blow to the west coast of America. There had been countless simulations
done. But, as usual, they had been hidden from the public; greed and profit had once again
reigned over the safety and well-being of the people.
His thoughts then drifted back to his boyhood. He’d grown up in Fukushima,
near Inawashiro Lake, about eighty kilometers west of the Fukushima power plant. It was
a beautiful prefecture, with mountains, lakes, and hot springs, and a major tourist
destination for Tokyo people. Its produce of fruit, rice, and vegetables was not just
famous in Japan but also overseas.
He had spent his winter weekends skiing at the many ski resorts around Mount
Bandai. In spring, he had enjoyed hiking and mountain climbing; in the summer holidays,
he had gone surfing on the coast; and in the autumn, he had spent most weekends playing
golf with his father. But he knew he had to face the harsh reality: the land was being
poisoned. He understood that no one would visit the prefecture in the future, and no one
would buy its produce; it was dead, finished.
Fifteen minutes later he was back in the control room. He took out his phone and
called his wife. It was six in the morning and a sleepy voice answered, “Hello.”
“Sorry to wake you so early.”
“That’s all right. I was about to get up anyway.”
“How are the children?” asked Kenichi.
“Fine. They’re still asleep.”
Kenichi could visualize his son and daughter curled up asleep. “Give them a kiss
for me.”
“Sure. How are things at the plant?”
He thought about telling her that he had entered the Number One reactor after the
explosion but decided against it. “Not good. The situation is critical. I want you to get as
far south as possible. Did you get some petrol?”
“No, the only people who are allowed to get petrol are the police, firemen,
ambulance drivers, and emergency helpers.”
“When are they expecting petrol to be distributed to the public?”
“Someone told me that new supplies would reach here this morning. And we
will be able to get half a tank. That should get us to somewhere we can buy some more.”
“OK. Make sure you get some and start moving south.”
“I will.”
“I’ll call you later,” said Kenichi.
“Take care,” his wife said.
Kenichi put the phone on the desk. Catch-22, he thought. If he vented the
reactor, then the wind would blow the radiation inland toward his children. If he didn’t, he
risked another explosion, and much more radiation would be released into the atmosphere.
He had no choice but to vent, and the vents would have to be manually opened. He’d
already been exposed to massive amounts of radiation, but he would go in again, knowing
he had a chance to reduce the harm of radiation to the children of Japan.
**
A bitter wind tore through her drenched clothes and Seko trembled uncontrollably. It was
snowing heavily by the time she reached the bottom of the mountain. She had spent the
night climbing up and down mountains and was cold, hungry, and near exhaustion. Her
aching hands brushed the snow off her muddied jacket as she forced her legs to move,
knowing if she rested death was certain. Seko staggered along the river until she came to a
narrow bridge. On her side, the land had escaped the tsunami unscathed, but on the other
side lay utter devastation. She crossed the bridge and then stumbled along the river for
half an hour. The scene was surreal, as if it belonged to some nightmarish fantasy; the
ruins of the town lay under a thin blanket of snow, except for a few remaining skeletal
concrete buildings, their rooftops fluffy white.
Her strength was quickly waning and an icy wind cut into her face, but she
trudged on through the howling wind and snow. A gust hit her and she lost her footing
and fell to her knees. She tried to get to her feet, but her strength was gone.
**
Kenichi turned on his respirator and stepped outside. He stopped and looked up at the
Number Two reactor building. He wondered if he’d ever see his wife and children again.
He had already been exposed to a massive amount of radiation and going into the reactor
to open the vents would expose him to another lethal dose.
The shockwave knocked him to the ground. He lay there staring, his expression
one of utter shock, at the mushroom cloud of black smoke rising up into sky. He got to
his feet and watched debris, chunks of concrete and twisted metal, rain back down on the
ruins of the Number Three reactor building. The roof and most of the sides had been
blown off. Bits of rubble began to fall around him; he felt something land on his boot and
looked down. His heart stopped; next to his boot was a piece of a spent fuel rod. He
turned and fled back into the control room building. Once inside he would have usually
taken off his protective gear, but not this time. He didn’t need to be told what was
spewing out of the reactor—deadly radiation. He sat down to try and organize his
thoughts and make some sense of what had just happened. He remembered he had seen
the flash on the top right side of the building. He assumed the explosion had been caused
by hydrogen leaking from the containment vessel. But why had the initial explosion
occurred on the top right of the building? And why had the explosion been so enormous?
He replayed what he had seen in his mind; the spent fuel pool was located on the upper
right side of the reactor building. It must have reached criticality and caused the explosion,
and that meant that plutonium had been ejected into the atmosphere. How much he didn’t
know, but he did know that a few kilograms spread into the atmosphere was enough to
wipe out all life on the planet.
He heard voices and looked up to see Suzuki, his face ashen, running down the
stairwell followed by the operators.
Suzuki looked at Kenichi bizarrely; his eyes looked as if they were about to burst
out of their sockets. “Evacuate immediately!” he yelled.
“We can’t!” shouted Kenichi through his facemask.
The two simple words stopped Suzuki in his tracks. He fixed his eyes on
Kenichi, who stared back at him unwaveringly through his facemask. Suzuki knew what
he meant. If they abandoned the plant, the crisis would certainly spiral completely out of
control and larger amounts of radiation would be released. Some of them had to stay and
try to gain control of the situation. “How many?” he asked.
Kenichi took off his facemask. It didn’t matter anymore. He wasn’t going
anywhere; his fate had been sealed. “Fifty,” he replied. “All the others should evacuate.”
**
The door crashed open and a man burst into the room.
“Another reactor has exploded!” he shouted.
Saito and the mayor stared at him in disbelief.
“Did you hear me?” he repeated. “The Number Three reactor has blown up!”
“Are you…sure?” asked the mayor. His words struggled in his throat.
“Yes! You can see the smoke.” His voice was filled with panic.
The mayor and Saito got up and went outside. They stood there staring in silence
at the cloud of black smoke.
“We need to evacuate,” said Saito.
“Let me talk to NISA,” said the mayor, taking out his satellite phone and
punching the automatic dial button. He had spoken to the director-general of NISA
several times in the last two days and had been given the same answer every time: The
leak is small and there will be no exposure beyond the twenty-kilometer radius.
Everything is under control. There is nothing to worry about.
“Hello,” came the familiar young woman’s voice at the other end.
“This is the mayor of Tomioka town in Fukushima. Put me through to the
director-general, please.”
“Uh…just a moment.”
But the mayor sensed anxiety in her voice, or was it guilt?
“Director-General speaking.”
The mayor was in no mood to waste time with niceties. “What the hell is
happening at the Daiichi plant? Another reactor just exploded! How much radiation are
we being exposed to? I have no information from TEPCO, and I have received no data on
the radiation levels or the spread of radiation—nothing!”
“Calm down,” said the director-general. “Everything is fine. The amount of
radiation is minimal and poses no threat to anyone beyond the twenty-kilometer radius.”
“If it doesn’t pose any health risk, why have you made the twenty-kilometer
radius a no-go zone?”
There was a short silence on the other end. “It’s just a precautionary measure.”
But the mayor could detect the lie in his words. “So, if there’s no risk, why don’t
you come up here and explain to the people yourself?”
Silence.
“Did you hear me?” insisted the mayor.
“It’s impossible for me to leave my post at this moment. I give you my honest
assurance that there is nothing to worry about.”
“Crap!” The mayor hung up.
“What did he say?” asked Saito anxiously.
The mayor pointed to the cloud of black smoke blowing in their direction :
everything is OK—nothing to worry about.
“Mr. Mayor,” called a man rushing out the door. “The police have been ordered
to evacuate.”
“What?” said the mayor, not believing his ears.
“Yes, they are leaving now. They’ve been ordered to evacuate immediately.”
“They’re abandoning us,” said Saito dryly. “Leaving us to die.”
“Inform the people I will address them at an emergency meeting in ten minutes.”
“Hai. Yes,” the man said and ran off toward the gym.
“We have no choice but to evacuate ourselves.”
“Where will we go?” asked Saito.
The mayor’s face hardened. “I now realize that I cannot rely on the central
government or the prefectural government. They have betrayed us, abandoned us, and
exposed us to unnecessary risk.” He paused and thought for a moment. “I know the
mayor of a city in Saitama. He’s an old friend.”
“We’ll need buses to transport everyone and doubt they will be able to get
enough fuel,” said Saito.
The mayor took out his phone and punched in the number.
A few minutes later, he hung up and looked Saito hard in the eyes. “They can
accommodate us and are sending buses to Koriyama immediately.”
“Thank goodness!” sighed Saito.
“We’ll have to spend the night in Koriyama. We’ll need somewhere to stay.” He
punched in another number and talked to the director of an exhibition site he knew. The
man agreed to let them shelter at the facility.
The convoy set off in the early evening and reached the exhibition site in the city
of Koriyama at midnight. The next day they boarded buses and were taken to Saitama
Prefecture near Tokyo.
**
The prime minister put down the phone. “The Number Three reactor just exploded,” he
told the chief cabinet minister.
“How much radiation has been released?” asked the minister.
The prime minister stared at him fixedly. “Too much.”
“We should expand the evacuation zone from twenty kilometers to eighty
kilometers as suggested by the American Atomic Energy Agency,” he said, taking out his
phone.
“No! Wait!” said the prime minister quickly. “We don’t want to create mass
panic.”
The minister stared at him in disbelief. “We must release the data to the public; it
is our responsibility. The SPEEDI data has still not been sent to the towns and villages
close to the plant. The Americans have also given us a map of where the radiation is
spreading. They collected the data by aircrafts, and it is very accurate.”
The prime minister held the minister’s stare. “TEPCO has assured me that
exposure from radiation will be almost nil outside the twenty-kilometer zone, and there is
no health risk. I agree with them and will issue only a volunteer evacuation order from
twenty to thirty kilometers to be on the safe side.”
“Mr. Prime Minister, you are putting hundreds of thousands of people’s lives at
risk. I strongly urge you to reconsider and start evacuating people from within eighty
kilometers. SPEEDI data shows clearly that towns twenty to thirty kilometers northwest
of the plant will be radiated with between 300 to 400 times the normal amount of
radiation. People at this moment are evacuating from the towns of Namie and Futaba to
these areas thinking they are safe.”
The prime minister glared hard at the minister. “They are only predictions, not
fact.” He paused, not taking his eyes off the minister. “I want you to dispatch a team to
those areas to monitor the radiation.
**
“Moshi moshi. Hello,” said Riona into the phone.
“This is Mackeller. How are you doing?” His tone was flat and emotionless.
“Oh, Mackeller! Nice to hear from you. I’m fine, thank you.”
Mackeller could guess by her tone that she hadn’t heard the news. “Another
reactor at the Fukushima plant just exploded.”
“What? I haven’t heard anything.” There was a pause and he could hear Riona
talking to someone in Japanese. “No one here has heard anything about it.”
“Go look at the TV,” said Mackeller.
He heard the TV turn on.
“You’re right!” exclaimed Riona.
“You need to evacuate now.” His voice was hard but calm.
“Just a moment.”
He could hear her talking to someone again.
“Hello,” she said.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“They are saying that there is no need to panic and it’s under control. They have
set a voluntary evacuation zone from twenty to thirty kilometers. I think it’s OK.”
Mackeller’s blood began to boil, but he kept his calm. “Look, we are detecting
high levels of radiation as far as Tokyo. It ‘s not safe for you to stay. I’m very sorry, but
your government is withholding the facts from the Japanese public.”
Riona let out a short laugh. “You Americans always over dramatize things. Just
like in your movies.”
Mackeller couldn’t quell his frustration any more and his voice went raw with
anger. “You have children in your hospital, don’t you?”
“Hai. Yes,” replied Riona timidly, taken aback by his harshness.
“You are responsible for them, aren’t you?”
“Hai. Yes.”
“Well at least let me evacuate them!”
There was a long silence. “Are you sure we’re in danger?”
“As sure as a bear shi–” He stopped short, knowing she wouldn’t understand.
“Shits in the woods,” she added.
“Yes…that’s right.”
“OK,” she said reluctantly. “We have about forty patients. Thirty are children.”
Relief swept across Mackeller’s face. “We’re on our way. Have everyone ready
for evacuation. We’ll be there within the hour.”
“OK,” replied Riona.
“See you soon,” said Mackeller and hung up.
**
Yukino finished refilling the kerosene heater; lit it and placed the kettle on top. She then
knelt down next to Taka who lay unconscious in the futon, his breathing shallow. They
had only survived the bitter cold because Yukino had taken off her clothes before she’d
dived in the river. She had found Taka clinging to broken beam and had dragged him to
shore where she’d quickly stripped him and wrapped him in the jacket she had worn.
She’d then put on her jeans and shirt and pulled him to his feet. He was shaking
uncontrollably, on the verge of hyperthermia, so she’d put his arm over her neck and
staggered with him along the path. Taka had been only semi conscious and she’d had to
keep talking to him to prevent him from falling into total unconsciousness. As they
entered his yard, his legs gave way and she had been forced to drag him by his arms into
the house.
Now she knelt staring at his pale face. “Don’t die,” she whispered, her eyes
brimming with tears. “Please don’t die.” Suddenly, the eyes of the woman, caught in the
collapsed hair salon, rushed into her mind and her words, Don’t leave me, echoed through
her head. Yukino wiped her eyes and forced the tears back. “No, you’re not going to die.
I’m not going to let you die like the others.” She pulled back the futon cover and climbed
in next to the old man, snuggling close to him. Taka groaned and Yukino whispered. “It’s
OK. I’m here. You’ll be fine.”
“Arigatou. Thank you,” he murmured.
Yukino smiled, hearing the faint words, and closed her eyes. Exhausted, she
slowly faded towards sleep when she remembered Yuta. She had totally forgotten about
him. Her heart began to race and thoughts of drowning people filled her mind. “No,” she
whispered to herself. “He must have survived,” she said, trying to calm herself; but dread
crept over her like a dark shadow and she lay there, wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling.
**
“Uh…uh,” groaned Tomo, rubbing his pounding head. He rolled over and stared up at
the truck seat. “Shit!” he swore. He tilted his head to one side and saw the man who had
knocked him out glaring back at him from behind a makeshift fire. Tomo tried to move his
arms, but they were tied behind his back. “Let me out!” he yelled.
The man got up, walked over to the upside-down truck and then squatted down.
“You killed my Eli-chan,” her rasped.
He looked wild. His hair unkempt, the side of his face caked with dry blood
from the head wound. Tomo looked into the crazed eyes and knew any negotiations
would be a waste of time – he would have to escape.
“I’m going to punish you!” screamed the man, kicking the side of the truck.
Tomo ignored him and looked the other way.
“I’m going to kill you!” screamed the man again.
Tomo didn’t respond.
The man kicked the side of the truck again.
Tomo stayed silent.
The man went back to the fire and sat down keeping his eyes on Tomo.
Tomo let out a long sigh. He began to wiggle his hands free.
**
Mackeller’s chopper set down first, followed by seven others.
“Let’s get these kids on board and get the hell out of here,” said Mackeller over
the radio. He took off his helmet and jumped from the cockpit. He stood scanning the
group of children in wheelchairs for Riona. He spotted her at the back and made his way
quickly to her. “Are you OK?”
“Yes, we’re all fine,” she said, pulling down the surgical mask to reveal a smile.
Mackeller returned her smile. “We’d better get moving before any of these
children gets exposed to any more radiation.
“I’ve made them all wear masks and given most of them iodine pills except for a
few the doctor said were to weak.
“Ok, let’s load up and get out of here.”
Within ten minutes, all the children and nurses were onboard and the rotors were
thumping in the air ready for take off.
“You can fly with me!” yelled Mackeller over the noise.
Riona shook her head.
A startled look came over Mackeller. “What?”
“I can’t leave the other patients. There are still some elderly people in the
hospital!” she yelled back.
Mackeller was stuck for words. He knew she had a duty to stay. He knew the
elderly would probably be dead before the effects of the radiation affected them, but she
was young and it was dangerous for her. “How many elderly people are there?”
“Ten,” she replied.
“I’ll be back in about a hour with three choppers. Have them ready.” He paused
and looked hard at her. “You be ready, too.”
“Hai,” she said bowing.
Mackeller turned and ran, crouched over, to his chopper.
**
The door flung open and a flurry of snow swept into the room. “Quick! Get some dry
clothes, blankets, and some hot tea!” ordered Sachie’s grandfather as he laid Seko on the
carpet.
Sachie raced off and returned with some dry clothes and blankets. “Where did
you find her?” she asked.
“Just down the lane,” replied her grandfather, starting to remove Seko’s clothes.
“Let me undress her,” said Sachie, putting her hand on his.
Her grandfather stood up and went into the kitchen.
Seko was trembling uncontrollably, but she was still semiconscious. “I…to
get…medicine,” she muttered.
“Yes, we can do that,” replied Sachie, “but first I need to dress you in some
warm clothes.”
“I’m…cold.”
Sachie quickly undressed her and put some blankets over her.
“Is she conscious?” asked Kumiko, entering the room with some hot tea.
“Yes, sort of.”
“Help me sit her up,” said Kumiko.
They propped her up against the wall.
“Seko-san, it’s Kumiko.”
Seko’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m cold.”
“Here, drink this. It’ll warm you,” Kumiko said, putting the cup to her lips.
Seko sipped the tea slowly at first and then gulped down the rest.
“Get some more,” said Kumiko, handing the cup to Sachie.
There was a dull rumble in the distance and they all froze. The floor started to
shake and then the rumble turned to thunder.
“Hang on!” shouted Kumiko.
The house jolted back and forth. The Buddhist altar toppled over. The shaking
increased, and plaster fell from the walls.
“Hang on!” yelled Kumiko again over the noise.
And then it faded into the distance.
No one said anything.
Sachie rushed into the kitchen and reappeared with another cup of hot tea. Seko
drank it.
“Do you feel better?” asked Kumiko.
“Yes,” replied Seko, pulling the blanket up around her neck.
“Where did you come from?”
“From my house.”
“How did you get across the river?” asked Sachie.
Seko shook her head. “I didn’t. I came over the mo