There were many lives lost in the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, and the evacuation that followed the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
But veterinarian Seido Watanabe saved one life that was within his power.
On March 19, 2011, Watanabe, 53, of Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, cried out loudly in joy on a hill where his house stands: “Woo-yay!”
At that time, he was holding a puppy that had just been born. Toward the central area of the town, he raised the tiny animal and let out a shout with all his might.
“Tokyo Electric Power Co., look at this puppy. Even in a situation like this, an animal is alive. I will also rise up and reconstruct this town by all means,” Watanabe thought.
The town of Tomioka is host to the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant. In addition, his house is located only seven kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, which suffered the accident following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. Watanabe evacuated the next day, on March 12. He would not return to his home until March 19, a week later.
At the time of the evacuation, he did not take with him his own pet dogs or about 20 dogs and cats in his animal hospital, thinking that he would be able to soon return. However, the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant was not likely to be quickly resolved.
Though he feared that another explosion could occur at the plant, he risked returning to his home, thinking that unless he did so, all of the dogs and the cats would weaken and eventually die.
After driving into Tomioka, he passed through a local attraction--a road lined with 2,000 cherry trees. When he turned a corner, he could see his house and the animal hospital on the hill.
Before the disaster, his pets dogs—French bulldogs named Chester and Ponyo—often greeted him excitedly when he sounded the horn of his car about several hundred meters before pulling into his house.
On March 19, he hit the horn for longer than before while thinking that all of the dogs and cats had probably died.
On the day of the evacuation, he put out more food than usual. But he failed to prepare water due to the water system being cut off.
“It will be impossible for them to survive,” he thought.
After arriving at his house, however, he found white and black “lumps” moving in a corner of the garden. They were Chester and Ponyo, without a doubt.
He could not bring himself to believe that they were still alive. The two were barking fanatically. Though they looked weakened, they happily wagged their tails.
Ponyo was pregnant when Watanabe had evacuated. However, her belly had become flat, so he thought that she must have given birth to her puppies. When he looked for them in the garden, he found only one. A black puppy was lying on a glove in a space between the doghouse and a wall of the animal hospital. He did not know where Ponyo had found the glove.
The puppy’s eyes were closed. It was apparent that it was unable to take breast milk from Ponyo because its body was cold and dried up. If Watanabe had returned to the house a day later, the puppy would have undoubtedly died.
When Ponyo was pregnant, Watanabe did an ultrasonography check of her body. At that time, he confirmed the presence of two puppies. He looked for the other puppy in the garden but could not find it, and thought that it could have been eaten by crows.
But he had saved one life.