IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--Born amid the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake last year, little Runa Hoshiyama has had an unsettling first year of life.
IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture--Born amid the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake last year, little Runa Hoshiyama has had an unsettling first year of life.
Just before the March 3 Girls' Day, in which families wish for a happy life for their daughters, her mom made a special promise to Runa.
“Though this apartment is a temporary home for us, we will hold a celebration party for you because the coming Girls’ Day is the first one for you,” Mayumi Hoshiyama, 31, told her.
In late February, Hoshiyama had set up new “hina-ningyo,” or dolls for Girls’ Day, in an apartment in the prefectural government-run housing complex here where they were forced to evacuate to.
Someday, when her daughter has grown up, Hoshiyama wonders how she will tell her about the accident at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and the havoc it created on their lives.
On March 11, 2011, Mayumi was staying in the Futaba Kosei Hospital in Futaba, also in Fukushima Prefecture, which is located only about four kilometers from the nuclear plant. She was able to see the ventilation stacks of the plant from the hospital.
Amid the confusion and chaos caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake, which struck at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, she gave birth at 6:49 p.m. that evening by a Caesarean section.
In the early morning on the next day, a police officer ran into the hospital, and said, “The nuclear power plant is in a dangerous state. Please evacuate immediately.”
Mayumi took Runa, wrapped in a towel, in her arms and got on a bus as directed. In the evening, they finally arrived at a hospital in Fukushima city. When she watched television there, she saw the nuclear plant’s No. 1 reactor building, whose roof had been blown off due to a hydrogen explosion.
Hoshiyama thought, “Is this CG (computer graphics)?” She could not believe that the destroyed reactor building was real.
Her house is located in Tomioka town, about 9 kilometers south of the nuclear power plant. Entire portions of the town are located within the no-entry zone due to the nuclear crisis. The Tomioka government’s office has been moved out of the town, and its residents have evacuated to various parts of the country.
Thinking about the hometown she cannot return to, she has mixed emotions because she was once in a position explaining to others that nuclear power plants are safe.
For Hoshiyama, who was born and raised in Tomioka, nuclear power plants have always been part of her life. In 1971, 10 years before she was born, Tokyo Electric Power Co. began operations of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which spans Futaba and Okuma towns. When she was 1 year old, TEPCO also began to operate the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant, which spans Tomioka and Naraha towns.
When she was a child, she visited those nuclear plants on study tours organized by the local association of families with children. Adults in her neighborhood were also working in those plants.
After graduating from a senior high school, she worked as a temporary staff member in the No. 1 nuclear plant, inputting data. When she was 20 years old, she worked part time in public relations for the nuclear power plant, guiding visitors around the plant while wearing an orange uniform.
In the job, she explained about the plant to visitors as she had been trained. She would tell them, “When an earthquake occurs, control rods will function, suspending the operation (in the reactor) safely.”
Another was, “At present, a nuclear reactor is operating 2 meters below your feet. Please watch your dosimeter. Its hand does not move, doesn’t it? That means that this reactor is safe.”
She married Koichi, now 34, who was working in the Fukushima No. 1 plant as an employee of a company that was a business partner of TEPCO. Hoshiyama worked in the nuclear plant for nearly 10 years until December 2009.
She never had doubts about the safety of the nuclear power plants until the day when Runa was born.
After the nuclear accident, her family moved from one evacuation center to another in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, and Iwaki, also in the prefecture, following her parents, and finally moved into the apartment in February.
Now, she is constantly tormented by concerns about possible effects from radiation. She is choosing rice grown in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast for her baby’s “okayu,” or rice porridge, which is a weaning food. She never uses tap water. Instead, she buys water through a home-delivery service.
As she refrains from taking Runa outside to play, she wonders whether her daughter can make friends with other children about her age.
In mid-February, for the first time since the nuclear accident, Mayumi entered Tomioka on a temporary visit to her house. While she was breast-feeding her baby, she was not able to go to the town. Though her house itself was safe, her dosimeter showed 60 microsieverts per hour near a gutter drainpipe.
To Runa, Mayumi sometimes thinks, “I am sorry for giving birth to you on such a day.”
Now she thinks about what she can do for Runa, who is growing by the day.
The morning after the Great East Japan Earthquake, when Runa was held by Mayumi in the bus, she was small and light. Today she weighs 9 kilograms.
More than 100 babies were born in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures last March 11.
Runa is one of those.
When she becomes an adult, her mother wants to ask her, “Are you happy?” Mayumi hopes Runa will say, "Yes."