A couple who has supervised various dorms in Fukushima Prefecture for Tokyo Electric Power Co. over about two decades considered their residents like their own children.
A couple who has supervised various dorms in Fukushima Prefecture for Tokyo Electric Power Co. over about two decades considered their residents like their own children.
So, they are at a loss for words when some who continue to work at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant say things like they will never marry because of cancer fears due to the leaked radiation from the plant.
On March 11, the couple was working as supervisors of a dorm for single TEPCO employees located about five kilometers from the Fukushima plant when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck.
The couple has now evacuated to a public housing unit in Ehime Prefecture about 800 kilometers away. Despite the distance, dorm residents still call the couple and tell them what is on their minds.
One dorm resident who called said, "I have now worked to the limits (of radiation exposure)."
Another said, "While we have to do everything we can to stop (the nuclear accident), in a sense we are all guinea pigs."
The 62-year-old wife occasionally does not know what to say to the dorm residents.
She said, "I only want to think that the time will come when all the trouble they have gone through will someday work to their advantage."
There was one time when she was at a complete loss for words.
A dorm resident said, "Since I have no idea when I will develop cancer, I probably can never get married even if I go to a place that matches couples."
The only thing she can think of to say on those occasions is, "Everyone knows how much you are trying your best."
With tears welling up in their eyes, the couple said they felt sorry for such young workers who have their entire lives ahead of them.
As employees of a company affiliated with TEPCO, the couple worked as supervisors at various dorms near the Fukushima plant. Their duties included handling administrative matters and taking out the garbage. They would also listen to the problems experienced by dorm residents and held year-end parties for them.
"They were all like our children," the couple said.
When the March 11 quake hit, the stairway in the dorm for single employees was damaged.
One dorm resident said, "It would have been better if I remained at the nuclear plant."
The husband said, "We also felt the reactor building was safer based on the explanations given by the company and government officials."
Although the public address announcements for disaster management called on local residents to evacuate to a junior high school, the couple had no idea of the extent of damage because their TV was not working. They remained at the dorm in case any residents returned.
However, at about 7 p.m. on March 11, the P.A. announcement said, "To be on the safe side, please close all the windows."
That is when they first thought that radiation may have leaked from the plant.
The following day, the P.A. announcement called on local residents to evacuate to the west.
One dorm resident who returned from the plant told them, "You should leave. The radiation level at the front gate (of the Fukushima No. 1 plant) has increased considerably."
The couple finally fled by car to an evacuation center about 30 kilometers away. That night, while watching TV they learned that a hydrogen explosion had occurred at a reactor building while they were fleeing.
Rather than become frightened, what the couple thought of first was the faces of the dorm residents.
They were reunited at the evacuation center with a woman TEPCO employee, who burst into tears when she saw the couple. She told them a senior at work, who worked at the Fukushima plant, had been swept away by the tsunami. The employee went to the turbine building to check on damage when the tsunami hit. The woman extended her hand and shouted, "Get up here now." However, the senior employee did not make it.
While wiping away tears, the wife said, "The workers at the plant are really trying to do their best. The one who told us to flee was working on March 11, but grabbed his things and returned to the plant because he said, 'My replacement cannot make it to work.' "
The wife added, "I do not believe the dorm residents were guilty of the same things as those high-ranking elite officials who should have engaged the gigantic technology they faced with considerable insight."
The couple gets by on assistance money from the prefectural government and by dipping into their savings they had set aside for retirement.
They have no idea how long their life as evacuees will continue.
But, they do not want central government officials to simply say, "The time will come when you can go home."
There are some areas around the Chernobyl accident site that are still off-limits even 25 years after the nuclear accident there in 1986.
"They should stop saying superficial things in order for evacuees to think more positively about the future as well as to allow plant workers to do their jobs with pride," the wife said.