information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
25 Mars 2013
NAMIE, Fukushima Prefecture--Children's satchels scattered on the floor on March 11, 2011, were just as Shoko Tsushima remembered.
She gently wiped the dust of each satchel and placed them on the desks of her former pupils.
For Tsushima, her March 23 visit back to Namie Elementary School was her way of reconnecting to the evacuated town of Namie after it was designated a no-entry zone following the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant disaster triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Tsushima and 20 other teachers returned to the school to clean up, just days before a ban on entry to the neighborhood is eased on April 1.
“My students have been scattered, but I want to see them someday,” said Tsushima, 52, who was in charge of fourth-graders.
Her former pupils graduated this spring, mostly from elementary schools in municipalities to which they were evacuated.
Tsushima, who now teaches in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, wrote a message on the blackboard, addressed to “all of you I like so much at Namie Elementary School.”
“Hang in there, with hopes and dreams,” the message went on. “I am looking forward to seeing you, all grown up. I will hang in there, too.”
The school is scheduled to be opened, mainly to parents, in May.
“When my students visit here someday, I want them to relive their happy days at the school before the disaster,” Tsushima said.
Takakatsu Watanabe, 40, who was in charge of second-graders, also put satchels and other belongings in order, voicing the names of his former pupils as he went.
“I am cleaning the classroom, hoping that one or more students will want to keep their satchel with them one day,” he said.
Tsushima, Watanabe and other teachers who visited Namie Elementary School were working at the school two years ago when disaster struck.
They were joined by teachers from an elementary school in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, for students who were formerly at elementary schools in Namie.
March 23, 2013
Teacher Keiko Watanabe looks at music boxes that her former sixth-grade students had made as she goes through an abandoned school in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 23. (Mainichi)
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130323p2a00m0na014000c.html
NAMIE, Fukushima -- When 20 teachers entered their former school here, it was as if time had stopped after the triple disasters of March 2011.
On a temporary visit on March 23, Keiko Watanabe and her colleagues combed through the abandoned building of Namie Elementary School -- still designated an off-limits area due to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant
Books, bags and shoes that had fallen from classroom shelves littered the floor. Students' essays and pictures still hung on the wall. Music boxes that Watanabe's graduating sixth-graders had made to commemorate their last days in elementary school sat side by side on a shelf.
"Everything is the way it was that day," Watanabe said. "I wonder if my students are all doing well."
The teachers were beginning the process of returning former students' belongings to their owners -- on condition that the items pass radiation checks.
After Namie Elementary School resumed classes in the Fukushima Prefecture city of Nihonmatsu in August 2011, some of the school's teachers returned to Namie to collect books and other materials they needed for classes. But the children's personal belongings had remained untouched.
The town of Namie will undergo rezoning on April 1, but even if residents are allowed to enter parts of town, they will still be prohibited from staying overnight, and Namie Elementary is not expected to reopen within the town's borders for at least another four years. This situation prompted teachers to try, at least, to return their former students' belongings to their rightful owners, along with the memories accompanying them.
When the massive quake struck, Watanabe was teaching class. Screaming gave way to crying from the majority of her students. Empty-handed and wearing only their indoor shoes, the students were taken out to the school field. From the east -- the direction of the ocean -- they could hear the rumbling of a tsunami swallowing the town. Joyful memories of school were instantly painted over with terror. By the following morning, residents had been ordered to evacuate, with students and teachers scattering around the country.
Watanabe says it pains her to receive letters and calls from her former students saddened by their separation from family members and friends, but hopes that returning the children's belongings to them will help ease the pain.
"When everything's steeped in horrific memories, you can't take a step forward," she said. "I want them to have happy memories in the back of their mind, too."
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