LETTER FROM EX- RESIDENT OF FUKUSHIMA

Let me release a Letter written by an ex- resident of Fukushima, who I consider is very smart and made the right move by going to Taiwan when everyone else were told it is ‘safe”. She took the trouble to write this very informative Letter, and so it is my duty to let many others have a chance to read and learn from her. It was originally written in Japanese and this is a translated version - I'm a mother who has two kids. I lived in Koriyama, Fukushima. When the earthquake happened, I heard from the radio that the nuclear plant exploded. "We can't go back to Koriyama anymore," was the first thought came to my mind. Sendai, where my husband worked, was not a safe place, either. Although the distance between the nuclear plant and Sendai is about 120 km, the wind direction made it not safe there. After the electric power was restored, we watched TV. A famous professor repeatedly talked about how the nuclear plant functioned, and our government also said that there was no direct effect, but I felt uneasy. The danger of the third reactor is different from others, because it generates power from MOX ( mixed plutonium and uranium oxide) fuel. If the plutonium diffuses, it will be extremely dangerous -- it will make a lot of people die even if the diffuse amount is as little as one teaspoon. None of this information was reported on TV, so many Japanese didn't know it. I knew it only because I had a friend who was devoted to being against MOX fuel. It was terrible that information like this couldn't be broadcast on TV, so I took my two kids to run away to my parents' place -- Kyoto. Many people thought that as long as we stayed 10 km away from the nuclear plant, it was safe enough, but those big US corporations actually asked for their people who were within 80 km (even 100 km) to evacuate. The Fukushima government had possession of the forecast chart of radiation levels in the air, but they didn't publish them. On the contrary, they held a speaking tour to advocate that there was no need to worry about radiation. Unfortunately, I couldn't make my friends who lived there understand how dangerous it was. Many residents listened to the government, who claimed that people could live there without problems and enjoy outdoor activities as usual. Therefore, many residents gave up the idea of escaping from Fukushima [and continued to live there]. The expert (Dr. Yamashita) even said that radiation wouldn't affect happy people. Many people believed him, because he is from Nagasaki, which had suffered from the radiation of the atomic bomb. They thought that he should know more about radiation due to his background. However, the exposure to radiation is more complicated than you can imagine. The more serious problems included eating food that had been exposed to radiation. It was just like letting your internal organs be exposed to radiation. After the explosion, I came back to our home several times - with a hat and mask. Even if I stayed there for a short time, I felt like I had a headache. Once I left there, I abandoned all the clothes and shoes I had been wearing. Before arriving at the refuge, I also washed my car. Three months after the explosion, my friend who lived there told me that many kids there experienced serious nosebleeds and other symptoms like incessant diarrhea, chest pain, recurrent headaches and more severe allergies. Their faces were as red as if they had been sunburned and their vision became poor... After the explosion, more and more residents got sick. Up to now, I've had three Fukushima friends who died in the prime of life because of myocardial infarction. A junior high school student also died because of acute leukemia. The Japanese government didn't ask for local residents to evacuate, but instead paid them to dig, mow, cut down trees and clean buildings with water. These actions couldn't help much, because the contaminated soil was not removed, and when you burned the grass and trees, it resulted in radiation being transferred to smaller particles which then accumulated in the environment. Needless to say, many people died because they did "the cleaning". It was a tough situation, because the key information was being concealed completely. Even now some people still don't understand. Some of them wanted to run away, but in the end they gave up due to disagreements between family members. (Many couples divorced due to reasons like this.) Some people felt they could do nothing and tried to escape from the reality. Also, many people didn't have money to move away. I gave up my friends and my job, even my home, because I knew no matter how cautious I was, I couldn't avoid coming into contact with contaminated water, land and air, so the only thing I could do was to be far away from my home. We finally came to Taiwan because contaminated food was everywhere in Japan, even in kids' school lunches. The debris was transported to burn in Kansai. Kansai received compensation for this, but, at the same time, local residents were harmed. Japanese TV news deceived people, saying that the rising radiation levels were because of atmospheric pollution coming from China. I wanted to protect the lives and future of my children and myself, so I decided to move away from Japan. Everything can be regained, but lost lives cannot. I truly hope that Taiwan won't be like Japan. People need to have a greater understanding of nuclear power before they can make the right decisions and take proper action. Then we can protect our beloved family. In order to protect them, I would like to promote the idea of anti-nuclear power to all Taiwanese.