A man working to decontaminate the vehicles being used at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is singing the "radiation blues" at live music houses and on the streets of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture.
A man working to decontaminate the vehicles being used at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is singing the "radiation blues" at live music houses and on the streets of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture.
Kenji Sato, 28, who is living in Iwaki and sings under the name of Yushi Saito, wrote "Voices of the Stricken Area" in early April to reflect how he felt at the time and his yearning for the day when he could return to his native town of Tomioka, also in Fukushima Prefecture.
In mid-May, he sang his tune at a live music house in Iwaki, also located in the stricken area.
"My hometown is smeared with radioactivity from the nuclear plant accident/ Her house was swept away by the tsunami/ The cherry trees we saw together, the sea where we had fun together/ were all contaminated, everything."
Since his early 20s, Sato has been employed in electric works, valve inspections and other jobs at nuclear power plants as an employee of a partner company of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Fukushima No. 1 plant operator. The daily wages were 20 to 30 percent higher than at building or road construction sites.
"You could afford slightly more luxury items than typical construction workers," he explained.
Sato began playing the guitar as a junior high school student, and he has performed for about three years at live music houses and on the streets of Iwaki.
Sato's home lies close to Yonomori Park in Tomioka, which many people visit in spring to see rows of cherry trees and azaleas in bloom. After the nuclear plant accident, however, all parts of the town were designated a no-entry zone. His family members, who evacuated to Saitama and Niigata prefectures, have no prospects of returning.
"Perhaps the blame should be put on ourselves who never doubted that the nuclear plant was safe," Sato said.
He lived for a while with an acquaintance in Kanagawa Prefecture following the nuclear plant accident, but returned to Iwaki in early April as another acquaintance told him about the vehicle decontamination job. He works at J-Village, a sports facility in Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, which is serving as a base for restoration work at the plant.
His task is to wash down with water TEPCO's and TEPCO partner companies' vehicles that have returned from the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
Sato has to endure the oppressive heat as he works in protective gear and an overcoat on top of it. Sometimes, the radiation level of the vehicles will not go down, however hard he may wash them. Water containing radioactive materials also sometimes splashes on his protective gear.
Originally, part of the lyrics of "Voices of the Stricken Area" harshly condemned TEPCO, but he changed the words, because he came to feel, while working on the restoration team, that some of its employees were working earnestly to help bring the crisis under control.
Sato is becoming busier these days, because he now has to decontaminate vehicles driven out of the no-entry zone during temporary home visits by evacuees.
"I'll do my best in the belief that I will one day be able to see the cherry blossoms of Yonomori Park again," he vowed.