This is the fourth installment of an eight-part series looking at the fate and experiences of Mizue Kanno in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, and 25 people who evacuated to her home, following the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Each installment is interconnected.
This is the fourth installment of an eight-part series looking at the fate and experiences of Mizue Kanno in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, and 25 people who evacuated to her home, following the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Each installment is interconnected.
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One couple fled from place to place at the urging of their daughter living in Tokyo, who communicated with them by cellphone.
Hiroshi Monma, 67, and his wife, Shoko, 68, had sought shelter at Mizue Kanno's home.
Their house is located in the Gongendo district of Namie, which lies within 10 kilometers of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. On the morning of March 12, the community wireless station for disaster prevention announced that residents should evacuate to the Tsushima district. They fled by car to the home of their acquaintance Kanno's home.
They arrived at her home before noon. Shoko helped Kanno prepare dinner, making rice balls. After dinner, the 25 evacuees introduced themselves. There were several people they knew among them.
When they heard Kanno's story about the men wearing white protective clothing, the couple was slow to leave and was left behind.
However, the next morning on March 13, they were urged once again by Kanno to flee and left her home before lunchtime.
They had decided to head north and set out for Minami-Soma. The convenience stores and other shops were closed. They found a restaurant and ate a meal of natto (fermented soybeans). They finally found lodging after being turned away at three hotels.
The night of March 14, they boarded a plane at Fukushima Airport and met up with their oldest daughter Mariko, 36, in Tokyo on March 15.
After the earthquake, Mariko had repeatedly tried to call her parents on their cellphones. Immediately following the earthquake on March 11, she was only able to make contact once. Since then, she could only communicate with them via e-mail.
However, at 8:43 a.m. on March 12 her e-mail messages went unanswered.
Mariko frantically searched for any new information about the nuclear accident on TV and the Internet, and continued sending e-mail messages to her parents: "I'm praying to God that you are both safe."
At 9 p.m. on March 12, the day when the hydrogen explosion occurred at the No. 1 reactor, Mariko saw an expert on TV saying everything was all right. She sent the message, "It's been determined that the explosion only occurred at the outer walls and there was no radioactive leak."
It was a terrible mistake.
On March 13 when her parents sought refuge in Minami-Soma, she sent them an e-mail message.
"The radioactivity has reached as far as Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture. It's not safe there either. Come to Tokyo."
Then at noon on March 14: "The No. 3 reactor exploded at 11:30 a.m. Come quickly to Tokyo."
Her father answered, "It's not necessary to go that far, is it?" Mariko chided him saying, "Just come quickly!"
Not one of the people in a position of responsibility tried to help her parents. That feeling of distrust still plagues Mariko.
Hiroshi Monma, who had evacuated to Kanno's home, is a retired high school teacher. His involvement in the anti-nuclear power movement began 40 years earlier when the Fukushima No. 1 plant was built.
The movement began when three residents gathered at the public housing complex in the town of Naraha where he lived at the time. They repeatedly argued against the dangers with the prefectural governor, the town mayor and others. For several years they had held talks with Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) once a month, and another discussion had been scheduled for March 22.
Monma, joined a group of 404 that brought a lawsuit against the nearby Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant, but the group lost. He still clearly remembers the words spoken at that time by the presiding judge of the Sendai High Court.
"You need to stop your constant protests and calmly consider the matter, because nuclear power generation cannot be halted."
That was 21 years ago. The illusion that nuclear power plants are safe has been abruptly shattered.
"TEPCO's presumptions were naive. How much harm has been done to all these people because of that? How do they plan on taking responsibility for it?"
Yet, there is a similar unease with the notion of the Namie town government calling this accident "an act of murder" and railing against the nation and TEPCO.
There is a plan to build a nuclear power plant in Namie. The plan was initially proposed by Tohoku Electric Power Co. 40 years ago in response to the town assembly, which had tried to lure one.
Last year during a gathering of the neighborhood association, a town assembly member looked at Monma and said, "The nuclear power plant will create a bright future for Namie, although you might be against this."
When they temporarily returned to their house in July, they took a radioactive reading. Near their home, it was 4 microsieverts per hour.
There is a large persimmon tree in the field, which was planted when their oldest daughter was born. In some years, it produced more than 300 persimmons.
"We can no longer eat the fruit. It's contaminated now."
About 30 years ago, they borrowed a town gymnasium and asked a theatrical troupe from Tokyo to perform a play about an accidental radioactive leak. The story was about the residents trying to escape after a nuclear accident. That story became reality, and the couple has been forced to settle into a housing complex in Tokyo's Kita Ward.
The 135,000-yen ($1,740) rent is expensive, but they decided to live there since it is close to their daughter's home. They are paying the rent with the temporary payment of 1 million yen they received from TEPCO.
Hiroshi has been fond of singing in a chorus since living in Fukushima. He discovered a choir event in July in Kita Ward and joined it with his wife.
They sang the well-known song "Furusato" (My hometown). "The mountain where I chased rabbits …" Hiroshi and Shoko, overwhelmed, could not finish the song.
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Following are URLs for previous installments:
Introduction (
First installment (
Second installment (
Third installment (