Aizu-Wakamatsu Journal
Hopes of Home Fade Among Japan’s Displaced
Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
The community center of a temporary housing complex in Aizu-Wakamatsu, where some fled after last year’s nuclear disaster.
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: November 25, 2012pan — As cold northerly winds sprinkle the first snow on the mountains surrounding this medieval city, those who fled here after last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster are losing hope that they will ever return to their old homes.
Related
-
Fish Off Japan’s Coast Said to Contain Elevated Levels of Cesium (October 26, 2012)
Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
Cleanup in Kawauchi, a village in Fukushima
Prefecture. In Okuma, decontamination efforts have been slow to reduce
radiation dosages.
The New York Times
Okuma’s town hall officials and about 4,300 of its
residents relocated to temporary sites in Aizu-Wakamatsu.
The mayor of Okuma, a town near the Fukushima Daiichi plant that was
hastily evacuated when a huge earthquake and tsunami crippled the
reactors’ cooling systems on March 11, 2011, has vowed to lead residents
back home as soon as radiation levels are low enough. But the slow pace
of the government’s cleanup efforts, and the risk of another leak from
the plant’s reactors, forced local officials to admit in September that
it might be at least a decade before the town could be resettled.
A growing number of evacuees from Okuma have become pessimistic about
ever living there again. At a temporary housing complex here in
Aizu-Wakamatsu, a city 60 miles west of the plant, the mostly elderly
residents say they do not have that much time or energy left to rebuild
their town.
Many said they preferred plans that got them out of temporary housing
but helped them maintain the friendships and communal bonds built over a
lifetime, like rebuilding the town farther away from the plant.
“I was one of those who kept saying, ‘We will go back, we will go
back!’ ” said Toshiko Iida, 78, who fled her rice farm three miles south
of the plant. “Now, they are saying it will be years before we can go
back. I’ll be dead then.”
Such feelings of resignation are shared by many of the 159,000 people
who fled their towns after the earthquake and tsunami caused a triple
meltdown at the Fukushima plant, spewing radiation over a wide area of
northeastern Japan in the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 disaster
at Chernobyl, in what was then the Soviet Union.
After first being reassured by the authorities that the accident was not
so bad, then encouraged as the government began its costly
decontamination effort, many evacuees are finally accepting that it may
take decades, perhaps generations, before their town could be restored
to anything like it was before the disaster.
“We all want to go back, but we have to face the obvious,” said Koichi
Soga, 75, a retired carpenter who once worked on reactor buildings at
the plant. “Look at the Soviet Union. They are still not back, right?”
Such sentiments have led to a very public loss of hope by the 11,350
displaced residents of Okuma, one of nine communities within 12 miles of
the stricken plant that were evacuated.
After living in school gymnasiums and other shelters for about a month,
Okuma’s town hall officials and about 4,300 of its residents relocated
to temporary sites in Aizu-Wakamatsu, with most of the rest scattered as
far as Tokyo, about 140 miles away. The mayor, Toshitsuna Watanabe,
immediately began drawing up plans for returning to Okuma that called
for a group to resettle a small corner of the town where radiation
levels were relatively low. The settlers would then slowly expand the
livable areas, decontaminating one street or building at a time, like
colonists reclaiming a post-apocalyptic wilderness.
Last fall, the plan won de facto approval when Okuma residents
re-elected Mr. Watanabe over a challenger who had called for building a
new town at a safer location. Hopes were still high early this year when
the Environmental Ministry began a decontamination program, with a
budget of $4.8 billion for 2012 alone, that employed a small army of
workers to scrape away top soil, denude trees and scrub down buildings
in Okuma and other evacuated communities.
But the ministry said this summer that an experimental effort to
decontaminate a 42-acre area in Okuma had failed to reduce radiation
dosages by as much as had been hoped, leading officials to declare most
of the town uninhabitable for at least another five years. That forced
Okuma’s officials to change the target date of their “road map” for
repopulating the town to 2022, instead of 2014.
“People are giving up because we have been hit by negative news after
negative news,” said Mr. Watanabe, 65, who set up a temporary town hall
in a former girls’ high school on a corner of Aizu-Wakamatsu’s
six-century-old castle. “Keeping our road map is the only way to hold
onto hope, and prevent the town from disappearing.”
Mr. Watanabe admits that his plan has a dwindling number of adherents.
In response to a questionnaire sent to Okuma’s evacuees by the town hall
in September, only 11 percent of the 3,424 households that responded
said they wanted to go back, while 45.6 percent said they had no
intention of ever returning, mostly because of radiation fears.
Hopes for a return took another blow in early November, when
Environmental Ministry officials told Mr. Watanabe that they planned to
build as many as nine temporary storage facilities in Okuma for dirt and
other debris from the cleanup. Many evacuees said they did not want to
go back if their town was to be used as a dumping ground for radioactive
refuse.
At the temporary housing site, where prefabricated apartments stood in
rows like barracks on a former soccer field, many evacuees said they had
been allowed to return to their homes in Okuma wearing hazmat suits and
masks on tightly monitored, one-hour visits to retrieve some
belongings. Many said that as the months passed, it was becoming more
difficult emotionally to think about spending the time and energy to
rebuild.
“My house has become a playground for mice,” said Hiroko Izumi, 85,
adding, “Every time I go back, it feels less and less like my home.”
Many others said the town needed to move fast to keep its relatively
small number of working-age residents, who were already beginning to
find jobs and start new lives in places like Aizu-Wakamatsu.
“If too much time passes, Okuma could just disappear,” said Harue Soga, 63, a health care worker.
For those who do not want to move back, Okuma drew up an alternative
plan in September that calls for building a new town on vacant land
safely outside the evacuation zone around the plant. The new town —
including a town hall, fire and police stations and housing — would be
built within five years.
Mr. Watanabe admits that he is now among a minority of former residents
who are still determined to go back to the original Okuma. He describes
an almost spiritual attachment to the land where his family has grown
rice for at least 19 generations, and that holds the family graves that
Confucian tradition forbids him to abandon.
“We have been living there for 1,000 years,” he said. “I have promised
myself that one day, I will again eat my own rice grown on my ancestral
farm.”
A version of this article appeared in print on November 26, 2012, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Hopes of Home Fade Among Japan’s Displaced.
福島県民「移住したい」３４％ 被災３県世論調査 東日本大震災の発生から半年を迎えるのに合わせ、朝日新聞社は岩手、宮城、福島の３県で各県のテレビ朝日系放送局と共同世論調査（電話）を行い、震災に 対する見方や放射性物質への不安などを探った。このうち福島の調査では、放射性物質への不安から、３人に１人が「できれば移り住みたい」と答えた。
原発事故による放射性物質への不安では「あなたや家族に与える影響について、どの程度不安を感じているか」と４択で尋ねた。「大いに感じている」は岩手３２％、宮城３４％に対して福島は５４％に上る。
福島県民だけに「放射性物質による被害を避けるため、県外や放射線量の少ない地域へ、できれば移り住みたいか」と聞くと、３４％が「移り住みたい」と回答。中学生以下の子供がいる家庭では５１％に及ぶ。
福島県民だけに「放射性物質による被害を避けるため、県外や放射線量の少ない地域へ、できれば移り住みたいか」と聞くと、３４％が「移り住みたい」と回答。中学生以下の子供がいる家庭では５１％に及ぶ。
圖片來源：天下雜誌 輻射污染的陰影籠罩，加上經濟疲軟，危機四伏，日本人過往引以為傲的生活不再。為尋一處安樂淨土，日人開始災後大遷徙。
俄國大文豪托爾斯泰在《安娜．卡列尼娜》中寫道，「幸福的家庭都一樣，但不幸的家庭原因各不相同。」正好形容國際經濟現勢，也能解釋日人遠離家園的實況。
三一一震災後，日本人的生活出現天翻地覆的巨變：
‧從空氣、食物到飲用水的基本生活安全，處處充滿輻射污染疑慮。
‧節電限電，生活諸多不便，企業生產成本上升，就業環境惡化。
‧日圓空前升值加速企業外移，國內產業空洞化危機升高。
‧經濟成長趨緩、高齡少子化，消費低迷，增稅及債務負擔加重。
錯綜複雜的現象，歸結成一句話：日本人過去引以為傲的生活，已經一去不復返。
福島第一核電廠方圓三公里，測得放射線量推估一年高達五○八毫西弗，是安全標準的二十五倍，意謂著二、三十年內都不宜人居。
災民長期安置計劃尚無雛型，輻射污染在水裡土裡四處擴散，核廢料處理估計至少要十年，一想到連安全的生活基本條件都沒有保障，真的叫人寢食難安。
大遷徙 無奈上演
在消息曝光之前，焦慮的日本人早已開始為生命找出口。
或尋求無污染淨土，或從巨大生活壓力中解脫，或把握當下、實現夢想，大遷徙的戲碼一綱多本，同步無奈上映。
被迫撤離家園疏散到避難所的災民非自願遷移，不算。近則根留日本，從首都圈移往關西；遠則釜底抽薪，跨出國門。熱烈期待展開變色人生的第二部曲。
三一一震災後，日本人的生活出現天翻地覆的巨變：
‧從空氣、食物到飲用水的基本生活安全，處處充滿輻射污染疑慮。
‧節電限電，生活諸多不便，企業生產成本上升，就業環境惡化。
‧日圓空前升值加速企業外移，國內產業空洞化危機升高。
‧經濟成長趨緩、高齡少子化，消費低迷，增稅及債務負擔加重。
錯綜複雜的現象，歸結成一句話：日本人過去引以為傲的生活，已經一去不復返。
福島第一核電廠方圓三公里，測得放射線量推估一年高達五○八毫西弗，是安全標準的二十五倍，意謂著二、三十年內都不宜人居。
災民長期安置計劃尚無雛型，輻射污染在水裡土裡四處擴散，核廢料處理估計至少要十年，一想到連安全的生活基本條件都沒有保障，真的叫人寢食難安。
大遷徙 無奈上演
在消息曝光之前，焦慮的日本人早已開始為生命找出口。
或尋求無污染淨土，或從巨大生活壓力中解脫，或把握當下、實現夢想，大遷徙的戲碼一綱多本，同步無奈上映。
被迫撤離家園疏散到避難所的災民非自願遷移，不算。近則根留日本，從首都圈移往關西；遠則釜底抽薪，跨出國門。熱烈期待展開變色人生的第二部曲。
總務省公布今年三至五月人口移動報告顯示，從東京圈遷往大阪圈的人數增加一四．五％，遷往福岡增加二五．四％；五、六月舉家調職前往關西的比例，更是去年同月的兩倍。
遠離安全威脅，展開新生活，不見得人人都辦得到。具有帶得走的能力，成為這波調職的主流。若再加上流利外語、海外工作經驗，在國外就業市場也很吃香。
一名四十歲電腦繪圖員，原本在東京工作，震災後一週躲到沖繩避難，二個月後決定正式定居。
他的新家坐擁濱海景觀、垂釣休閒隨時可得、生活費減少四成，遠離東京，竟因禍得福，享受無輻射污染、低物價、高品質的意外人生。
提供海外留學、長住（long stay）、移民生活的各類諮詢及代辦安排
的業者及類似網站，如「全國鄉間生活指南」網站，及其他「日本脫出」為主題的網站，在核災之後，業務大增。
日企業 承受六重苦
老百姓自主出走，決策和行動比較單純；企業加快外移腳步，則牽涉更多複雜的商業利益考量。
《日本經濟新聞》調查指出，一百位受訪企業當中，包括東芝、三菱、豐田等在內的四成業者表示，為緩和日圓持續升值的衝擊，將擴大在海外的採購及生產事業。
擔負許多民眾生計的企業界，除了一般百姓所承受的「四重苦」，更沒有選擇餘地的加碼到「六重苦」——電力不足、日圓急漲、貿易自由化進展緩慢、稅賦沈重、排碳減量目標和勞動法規嚴苛等。
原子彈轟炸的殷鑑不遠，時隔六十六年，日本又陷入較當年更險惡更苦的煉獄，孰令致之？
「走？不走？大哉問（to leave or not to leave，that is the question）」。日本人有權利選擇要不要遠離家園，但或許更有權利要求政府，「還給我們一個能夠留在家鄉安居樂業的機會。」
遠離安全威脅，展開新生活，不見得人人都辦得到。具有帶得走的能力，成為這波調職的主流。若再加上流利外語、海外工作經驗，在國外就業市場也很吃香。
一名四十歲電腦繪圖員，原本在東京工作，震災後一週躲到沖繩避難，二個月後決定正式定居。
他的新家坐擁濱海景觀、垂釣休閒隨時可得、生活費減少四成，遠離東京，竟因禍得福，享受無輻射污染、低物價、高品質的意外人生。
提供海外留學、長住（long stay）、移民生活的各類諮詢及代辦安排
的業者及類似網站，如「全國鄉間生活指南」網站，及其他「日本脫出」為主題的網站，在核災之後，業務大增。
日企業 承受六重苦
老百姓自主出走，決策和行動比較單純；企業加快外移腳步，則牽涉更多複雜的商業利益考量。
《日本經濟新聞》調查指出，一百位受訪企業當中，包括東芝、三菱、豐田等在內的四成業者表示，為緩和日圓持續升值的衝擊，將擴大在海外的採購及生產事業。
擔負許多民眾生計的企業界，除了一般百姓所承受的「四重苦」，更沒有選擇餘地的加碼到「六重苦」——電力不足、日圓急漲、貿易自由化進展緩慢、稅賦沈重、排碳減量目標和勞動法規嚴苛等。
原子彈轟炸的殷鑑不遠，時隔六十六年，日本又陷入較當年更險惡更苦的煉獄，孰令致之？
「走？不走？大哉問（to leave or not to leave，that is the question）」。日本人有權利選擇要不要遠離家園，但或許更有權利要求政府，「還給我們一個能夠留在家鄉安居樂業的機會。」
沒有留言:
張貼留言