First Coming of Age celebration since 3/11

January 11, 2016

Fukushima town holds first Coming-of-Age Day ceremony since nuclear disaster

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201601110044

By AKIFUMI NAGAHASHI/ Staff Writer

NARAHA, Fukushima Prefecture--Seventy-three young people marked their entry into adulthood Jan. 10 in the first such ceremony held in their hometown here since the 2011 nuclear disaster.

The Coming-of-Age Day ceremony was for those who turned or will turn 20 years old by April 1. It was held a day earlier than traditional ceremonies scheduled for across Japan.

Addressing the participants, Naraha Mayor Yukiei Matsumoto said, “I want you to embrace the tough and hard times that you have gone through as valuable experiences and carve out your future.”

They had all just attended a graduation ceremony at Naraha Junior High School when the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11, 2011, triggering the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Almost the entire town was ordered by the central government to evacuate the following day.

Since then, Coming-of-Age Day ceremonies for Naraha residents had been held in Iwaki, also in Fukushima Prefecture, as many households evacuated there.

The evacuation order was lifted last September.

Kaede Nogi, 20, speaking on behalf of the participants at the ceremony on Jan. 10, extended her gratitude, saying, “I am very happy that I could mark the milestone day in my hometown which I love, and with my friends whom I love.”

Nogi transferred to a high school in Kanagawa Prefecture after living at an evacuation center in Iwaki. Nogi is now studying at a university in Chiba Prefecture. She aspires to become an elementary school teacher in Fukushima Prefecture so as to pass on her experiences of life as an evacuee to children there.