Three years later.
Mackeller and his wife became very active in an organization called, ‘Help Save The
Fukushima Kids From Radiation’. He received an email from a politician to visit a town,
which lies 24 km from the nuclear plant—half the town is a no-go zone.
After the visit he wrote this on his blog.
I left his house early, driving through the paddy fields where the farmers were
harvesting the rice—a telltale sign that the unbearable summer heat would soon flee and a
much more pleasant autumn would take its place.
I drove through several villages that had been evacuated. The once fertile
farmland now lined with blue sacks filled with radioactive topsoil that had been removed
with the naive hope of decontaminating the area.
I was surprised when I drove through the town. Everything looked normal—a
mother pushing her baby in a stroller, a man out cycling, young people milling around the
Seven Eleven store.
I visited the house of one of the town politicians. He had evacuated his wife and
two daughters to another prefecture.
“How bad is the situation here?” I asked.
“We’re living in a nuclear nightmare,” he said.
“What is the government and the power company doing to help?”
He looked at me a long moment and then shrugged. “Not much. It’s still spewing
out 10,000,000Bq of radiation every hour, every day.
I was stunned.
“Best we go indoors,” he said, gesturing to the door.
We had a long talk about how bad nuclear energy was and what the government
and power company should be doing to help the people – but I won’t bore you with those
fruitless words. He informed me that in some areas in Fukushima 60% of the children
already have lumps in their thyroids. 30 to 40% are expected to develop cancer. Around
30 to 40 thousand children.
Later he took me to the house of an old couple. They had prepared a beautiful
lunch—fish, rice, salad and some fruit. I thought it would be rude to ask where the food
was from – so I didn’t ask.
After lunch I had a chance ask a few questions.
“Do you feel the government and Power Company are compensating you
adequately?”
“No!” blurted the wife. “They do nothing!”
“Calm down!” said the husband.
“What do you mean calm down! People need to know what is really happening!”
insisted the wife.
A tense silence hung in the air for a few moments.
“She’s right,” said the husband. His tone was solemn. “We feel like we have
been abandoned by the government.”
“They’ve left us to die!” snapped the wife. Her voice was sharp with anger.
“They treat us like damn guinea pigs!”
“Has the decontamination work been effective?” I asked.
“No!” replied the wife quickly. “They take the topsoil off but when the wind
blows the dust is carried back and the radiation level climbs again.”
“We live in constant fear,” said the husband.
“I haven’t had a good night sleep since the accident,” said the wife, standing up
and moving to the sliding door. “At anytime it could release 20 to 30 times more radiation
than Chernobyl.”
I was confused. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know about the Number Four reactor?” she said with a bemused
expression.
I shook my head.
She slid the door open and a hot breeze blew in to challenge the air-conditioning.
“The wrecked Number Four reactor building is leaning precariously to one side.
Engineers say it will collapse if there is another 6.5 quake. The spent fuel pool will then
drain and catch fire, releasing 20 to 30 times more radiation than Chernobyl.”
I felt a sense of panic and wanted to jump in my car and speed away. “Are you
kidding me?”
“No,” said the husband. “If that happ–”
There was a sudden rumble in the distance and then the ground shook. I leapt
from my chair and raced to the door. A jolt of energy hit the house and I stumbled to the
side—then it was gone.
“A 5.5,” said the wife calmly. “Second one today.”
“Yeah,” I said, staggering back to the table.
“Are you OK?” asked the husband.
I nodded.
“As I was saying, it means game over for Japan as well as large parts of the
Northern Hemisphere.”
“What are they doing about it?” I asked.
“Not much,” he shrugged. “The technology to deal with it hasn’t even been
invented.”
No words came to my lips.
“They say no one has died,” the wife said, breaking the silence. “Lies! People
have died of leukemia, heart disease and lung cancer.”
The husband closed the sliding door. “It’s not just the physical effects—it’s also
the psychological traumas. Just two days ago, our good friend’s wife poured petrol over
herself and burnt herself to death in front of her husband—the stress of never being able
to return home was too great.”
I sat there trying to gather my thoughts. “Why isn’t this in the news?”
The husband came over and sat in front of me—his eyes bore into me. “The
media has been ordered not to publish it.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Would you like to see first hand?” asked the wife.
“Uh…yeah,” I said, nodding.
A few minutes later, we were in a house a few doors down. The house was dark,
the shutters closed. The couple, in their mid-thirties, bowed politely and we exchanged
small talk about the weather. They then ushered me into the bedroom where their teenage
daughter sat next to the bed stroking her younger sister’s bald head.
“Cancer,” said the mother, her eyes brimming with tears.
“How old is she?”
The mother wiped her tears back. “She turned twelve yesterday.”
I moved a little closer and saw the frail body—no more than a skeleton covered
by skin. Next to her bed was a pencil sketch of hills and flowers—a spring scene I
guessed—at the top was written, Mommy Don’t Let Me Die.
“Let’s go back into the living room,” suggested the father.
We all sat at the table in silence.
“I will never be able to get married!” blurted the sister suddenly. “No one wants
to marry women from Fukushima!”
There was silence.
“Even if I do get married, I’d never have a baby!” I’d never put a child through
what my sister is going through!” She began sobbing. “Why doesn’t anyone…help us?
Why has the world abandoned us?”
I left the Town at sunset. The sky was awash with orange, the hills a vibrant
green—the countryside so so beautiful—but so toxic with an invisible poison.
Two weeks ago I received an email that the girl had passed away.
I feel guilty! I feel like I’ve abandoned the kids of Fukushima.
I’m going back next month to see if there is anything I can do. As an individual,
I can’t do much. But individual contributions add up and I’ll work on the principle that
every little bit helps.