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Fukushima and Hiroshima: Two Years After the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, Part 6

Memories are fading

by Naoki Imai, Staff Writer

As a tape recorder was turned on, Hideko Takada, 57, slowly began to tell her story. “I lived 13 kilometers from the nuclear power plant,” she said. “The first four days after I evacuated, the only thing we ate were biscuits.” In a room at the Hiroshima City Social Welfare Center in Naka Ward, Hiroshima, she spoke about the indelible experience she has suffered as a result of the accident at the Fukushima No.1 (Daiichi) nuclear power plant, an incident which has turned her life upside down.

Ms. Takada used to live in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, but now lives in Higashihiroshima with her husband. The City of Hiroshima’s volunteer center for supporting disaster victims requested that she provide her account. To date, the organization has compiled the accounts of 12 people who moved away from the Tohoku and Kanto regions in the wake of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake.

Two years after the quake struck, news coverage of the disaster, and support for the victims, has declined. Chikako Suzukawa, 55, director of the volunteer center, stressed that memories of the disaster must be kept from fading. At the Hiroshima City Council of Social Welfare, where she works, social workers are helping survivors of the atomic bombing record their accounts.

This year will mark the 68th anniversary of the bombing. In Hiroshima, A-bomb accounts have been collected. But out of a sense of urgency that the A-bomb memories may fade, an effort has been launched to foster a group of people who are able to convey the A-bomb experiences on behalf of the survivors.

Noriyuki Kawano, 46, an associate professor at Hiroshima University’s Institute for Peace Science, said, “The accounts of the A-bomb survivors give weight to the arguments against nuclear weapons and for peace. The accounts of Fukushima citizens will provide a significant basis for judging the pros and cons of nuclear power plants. If we forget the accident at Fukushima, we would end up learning nothing from it.”

The effort to record the victims’ accounts has another purpose as well. The records of their activities around the time of the accident will provide convincing evidence if they should later suffer ill health as a consequence of their exposure to radiation.

Members of the Association of Social Workers for Hibakusha, based in Naka Ward, Hiroshima, a group which helps A-bomb survivors prepare applications for A-bomb Survivor Certificates, visited Fukushima Prefecture last November. Masahiro Mimura, 67, head of this group, referred to the fact that some residents have been reluctant to preserve records which cite their proximity to the nuclear accident out of fears that they may experience prejudice or discrimination.

In Hiroshima, the lack of records from around the time of the bombing resulted in delays and confusion when it came to issuing official certificates and recognizing A-bomb-related diseases. “Hiroshima’s mistake should not be repeated in Fukushima,” Mr. Mimura said. He hopes to have the opportunity to convey the know-how of recording the experiences of A-bomb survivors to medical experts in Fukushima Prefecture.

(This article concludes the series “Fukushima and Hiroshima: Two Years After the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake.”)

(Originally published on March 9, 2013)

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