Survivor Stories
遭難者 の 物語
遭難者 の 物語
The strength of our generation is our experience...Rather than telling healthy old folks that you will support them, it would cheer them more to say that you’ll strive to get through this together.
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Let these historic moments move you, inspire you and invigorate you for as long as the feeling lasts, because believe me, that initial adrenaline and humanitarian solidarity will wear off. Ride it as long as you can, let it make you a better person, and let it wake you up from the complacency of your life.---
I was on the 8th floor of our building, which swayed so violently I couldn’t stand up. The decorative plants around the office toppled over. Computers tumbled from desktops...I’m sure it will take many years for the areas directly affected by the quake and tsunami to recover. It’ll be far longer for teh spirits of the survivors who lost their homes and families to recover. ---
Every time we face a horrible natural disaster, it makes me think that the land, sky, seas and mountains are exploding in anger.
Eight Years After Fukushima, What
Has Made Evacuees Come Home?
Justin McCurry, The Guardian
03/10/2019
Has Made Evacuees Come Home?
Justin McCurry, The Guardian
03/10/2019
I can’t imagine what this village’s future looks like. I fear it’s slowly dying.
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The new school was built with government money to bring young families back to Namie, where only 900 of the pre-disaster population of 21,000 have returned.---
I grew sample batches [of rice] and tested them--they were well below the government-set radiation limits--but I had to throw it away because it was against the law to eat my own rice.---
There were harmful rumours about Fukushima rice at first, but attitudes are changing. My friends and relatives are more comfortable eating rice from here than from other prefectures where the rice isn’t tested.---
The neighborhood was home to 230 people--but only 23, with an average of 70 years old, have returned.
To grasp that we exist, silence is necessary. Creation awaits after destruction.
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The tsunami severed time. Time before yesterday suddenly disappeared and, as a consequence, tomorrow was too gone...---
Even now, the sounds of their steps still ring in my ears...the crowds of people making the hours-long journey home by foot that day.---
April 2011, all these places were just so quiet. I realized for the first time how quietness connotes fear.