information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
11 Mars 2015
March 11, 2015
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201503110018
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Members of the Seo family on March 11 made the familiar trek along the coast of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, to a plot where a stone monument, figurines, flowers and even a white Christmas tree stand.
Sobbing, Shinji Seo, 60, his wife, Hiromi, 56, and their son, Ryosuke, 27, prayed for the memory of daughter Kanae, who disappeared four years ago from this spot in the Okirai district after risking her life to save an elderly woman.
The Seo family’s small ceremony was one of countless held around the nation on the fourth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeastern Tohoku region.
From schoolchildren to the emperor, people in Japan prayed for the souls of the 15,891 people killed and the 2,584 missing in the March 11, 2011, catastrophe.
Prayers also went out to the 229,000 people who are still living as evacuees, including many who were driven from their homes after the tsunami caused the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The central government has designated the five years after Japan’s worst postwar natural disaster as the “period for intensive recovery.” But numbers show that a huge amount of work is still needed in this immense project.
After the magnitude-9.0 earthquake rattled the Tohoku region, horrific images spread of the tsunami destroying villages and carrying houses, cars and even ships far inland. The nation was in shock, and untold misery spread across the Tohoku region.
At a government-sponsored ceremony at the National Theater in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on March 11, Sayaka Sugawara, 19, explained how she was swallowed up in the cold, dark water that engulfed her home in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture
Sugawara said she tried to free her mother who had become trapped under debris, but it was too heavy to move. The last words she heard from her mother were, “Don’t go.”
“I told her, ‘Thank you, I love you’ before I swam to a nearby elementary school,” she said.
The ceremony was attended by Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and bereaved family members.
They offered a silent prayer at 2:46 p.m., the time the earthquake struck.
Sugawara has since spoken and written about her experiences as part of a group that wants to pass on lessons of the disaster to others.
Emperor Akihito urged people to do the same and to never forget those who are still suffering from the disaster.
“The situation surrounding the affected people is still severe, and I think it is important for the entire nation to unite from now on, too,” the emperor said. “It is important to hand down lessons from the disaster to future generations and to continue making efforts to build a safer country.”
On the day the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, Kanae Seo was a 20-year-old student at Kitasato University’s School of Marine Biosciences whose campus is located in Ofunato.
She was swallowed by the waves after she helped an elderly woman in a wheelchair escape the disaster.
Almost every month, Shinji and Hiromi, who live in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward, have visited the site where Kanae disappeared. They never found her.
In March 2014, they set up a stone memorial about 1.5 meters wide and 60 cm high about 200 meters from where Kanae’s apartment building once stood. The couple had become acquainted with a local resident who offered land for the memorial.
However, they will have to transfer the memorial by the end of this month to make room for work to elevate a prefectural road.
“I want to put it in a quiet place that commands a view of the sea,” Shinji said.
Work on roads in the Tohoku region has made steady progress since the disaster. About 99 percent of national roads directly managed by the central government have been rebuilt.
But work in other critical areas has been slow.
Only 4,543, or 15 percent, of the 29,517 planned public houses that will become permanent homes for disaster victims have been completed in the three hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. The delays have been caused mainly by the sharp rises in prices for construction materials and workers’ wages.
The number of households living in temporary housing facilities in the three prefectures fell by 13,000 in the year to Jan. 1, but it was still 77,000.
Reconstruction Agency data underscore the problems and hardships facing those forced to live away from their homes after the disaster struck. The agency said 3,194 of them killed themselves or died because of deteriorated physical conditions as of the end of September 2014.
Infrastructure is not the only thing that needs rebuilding in the Tohoku region.
In Fukushima Prefecture, home of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that was swamped by the tsunami, evacuation orders were lifted in the nearby municipalities of Tamura and Kawauchi in 2014.
But fears of radiation contamination and distrust of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. and government authorities continue around the crippled plant. Only 40 percent of the evacuees from Tamura and 10 percent of those from Kawauchi have returned home.
The accumulation of contaminated water at the plant has been a constant problem in efforts to finally decommission the reactors. The volume of highly radioactive water peaked at 367,000 tons in September 2014, and has since been declining.
However, radioactive water leaks and malfunctioning equipment continue to be reported, sometimes belatedly.
The processing of highly contaminated water stored in tanks at the plant is scheduled to be completed in May. But the method will not eliminate radioactive tritium, and how to dispose of the water has yet to be decided.
Around the nuclear plant, soil, debris and other materials contaminated with radioactive substances remain at temporary storage sites in Fukushima Prefecture and several other prefectures.
The recovery rate of farmlands and the total fish haul at major fishing ports in the affected areas are both around 70 percent of pre-disaster levels.
According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in autumn 2014, sales at 80 percent of companies in Tohoku’s main industries, such as fisheries and food processing, remain below pre-disaster levels.
As of the end of January 2015, the total population in 39 of 42 municipalities hard hit by the disaster decreased by about 92,000, or 6.7 percent, in the nearly four-year period, according to an Asahi Shimbun survey.
The three municipalities where the population increased were Sendai and the neighboring municipalities of Natori and Rifu. Local officials said the rise was due mainly to an influx of evacuees from other areas and workers seeking jobs in the reconstruction effort.
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A panoramic view of Ukedo Elementary School in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, that remains deserted and unrepaired four years after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami: http://www.asahi.com/panorama/150220ukedoprimaryschool/
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150311p2g00m0dm001000c.html
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan marked the fourth anniversary Wednesday of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country's northeastern region, left more than 18,000 people dead or missing and triggered the continuing Fukushima nuclear crisis.
The anniversary comes as reconstruction in the hard-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima has not progressed as planned, with many evacuees still forced to live away from their hometowns amid the ongoing decommissioning work at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and decontamination work in Fukushima.
"I would like to pray for the peaceful repose of the victims and express my sincere sympathy to their families and those who are still living as evacuees," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga at a press conference in the morning.
A government-sponsored memorial service will be held in Tokyo, attended by Emperor Akihito, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and representatives of people who lost family members, with a moment of silence to be observed at 2:46 p.m., when the magnitude-9.0 quake occurred four years ago.
In severe cold weather just like four years ago, local people prayed for the victims early on Wednesday.
In Wakabayashi Ward in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, residents prayed in front of a monument bearing 192 victims' names.
The disaster "seems like a long time ago but it was also like only yesterday," said Makiko Ito, a 39-year-old company employee mourning the loss of a colleague.
While police in the three hard-hit prefectures conducted search operations for the bodies of people still unaccounted for at a coastal area along the Pacific Ocean, evacuation drills were held across the region.
"It is hard recalling the bitter memories of the disaster. But I think today's drill is important," said Sachiko Kitamura, 79, who joined one in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture.
The temblor was one of the most powerful quakes on record in Japan, and the ensuing tsunami left 15,891 people dead and 2,584 unaccounted for, most in the three prefectures in the Tohoku region, according to the latest tally released by the National Police Agency on Tuesday.
Among the 228,863 people evacuated due to the multiple disasters, 47,219 Fukushima residents remained outside the prefecture as of Feb. 12 after being hit by the world's worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear crisis.
None of the nation's 48 commercial nuclear reactors is active at the moment. Despite persistent safety concerns among the public, the Abe government is pushing toward bringing some of the reactors back online.
Four reactors -- two at a plant in southwestern Japan and two at a plant in western Japan -- have obtained safety clearance to restart under tighter regulations introduced after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The government has allocated a total of 26.30 trillion yen ($217 billion) for reconstruction work over the five-year period through March 2016, mainly for infrastructural improvement, including relocating communities to higher ground and building coastal levees.
But the reconstruction of residential areas remains slow due to a shortage of construction workers and higher construction material prices.
The number of people living in prefabricated makeshift housing complexes in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures at the end of February totaled 80,372.
The disasters have also taken a heavy toll on survivors, leaving some vulnerable to ill-health as they continue to live in temporary housing. Since the disasters, 3,244 of them have died due to infirmity, suicide and other causes.
March 11, 2015(Mainichi Japan)
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150311p2a00m0na005000c.html
ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi -- Ten cherry trees were planted at an elementary school here as a present from the bereaved family of a girl who would've become a student there in April 2011 had she not been lost to the tsunami that struck the previous month.
Rio Fuse was trying to evacuate from her home near Ishinomaki Municipal Watanoha Elementary School with her grandmother when she was swallowed by tsunami waves on March 11, 2011. Ten days later, the six-year-old girl's body was found near the school fence.
The image of Rio carrying a light blue satchel that her grandparents had bought for her in preparation for elementary school is etched into the mind of Rio's 33-year-old father, Hidehiko.
"If she were still alive, she would've been able to meet so many people," he lamented.
A year after the triple disasters of 2011, when life began to regain some semblance of normality, Hidehiko started to consider seeking permission to plant cherry trees on the school grounds in his daughter's honor. He finally asked the school in January this year, saying he wanted to present the trees as proof that his daughter had lived. The school readily accepted the gift and the sentiment behind it.
Watanoha Elementary School had 456 students at the time of the disasters, seven of whom died that day four years ago. The student body is about half of what it was then as many families were evacuated, and the children who remained had to take classes in prefab facilities.
"The students have done their best while having a whole range of feelings and thoughts," the school's principal, Tatsuo Matsuura, said. "Hopefully the cherry trees will nudge us further toward recovery."
The trees stand four meters tall and were planted around a small artificial hill in the school playground. Hidehiko held a photo of Rio as his daughters Kokoro, 12, and Kanon, 3 -- the latter born five months after the disasters and set to enter the school three years from now -- shoveled soil onto the tree roots.
A base for a sign that reads "Cherry Blossom Row, Rio" was created by Shinichi Endo, 46, a woodworker in the Miyagi Prefecture city of Higashimatsushima who lost three children in the quake disaster and met with Prince William on his recent visit from Britain.
The trees have buds on them, which are expected to blossom next month. "Watch over the children (at the school), will you?" Hidehiko asked his late daughter as he looked forward to the day the trees are covered in blossoms.
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