[ad_1]
Kenichi Kurosawa had to hold onto a tree branch as the water began to rise, flooding the surrounding streets. On March 11, 2011, March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake, the strongest in Japan’s history, struck 370 kilometers north of Tokyo, creating a massive tsunami. Ishinomaki, coastal city where Kurosawa used to live.
Minutes before the 10-meter-high wave hit, Kurosawa, then 40 years old, climbed a 3-meter-high pine tree. He wrapped his legs tightly around a tree branch, suspended there to save himself.
20,000 people have died or disappeared after the disaster of the double earthquake: the Fukushima tsunami. But the aftermath was even greater, when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant also turned into a tragic disaster.
50 minutes after the first earthquake, a 10-meter high tsunami destroyed the factory’s protective wall. The water overflowed and caused the cooling system to fail. The nuclear cores of the three reactors melted, causing deadly radiation to spread.
March 11, 2021 was 10 years of such a terrible disaster. The survivors tried to rebuild everything, but the pain will still linger.
Of the great tsunami
Ishinomaki, the second largest city in Miyagi Prefecture, is among the worst hit. The tsunami waves spread over an area of up to 500 hectares, flooding almost 15% of the city. The disaster destroyed 50,000 homes and private skyscrapers in downtown Ishinomaki. Almost 3,100 people died.
Kurosawa is a plumber and works in a town 12 km from the city when the earthquake occurred. He called his wife, who was sheltering in a bank, and told them that they would meet at home.
Earthquake Disaster – Fukushima Japan Tsunami
A few minutes later, the tsunami warning was issued. He tried to call his wife, but the phone lost all signal. Worried about his wife, Kurosawa got into the car as fast as he could to get home, but as he got closer, he realized that something resembling a barrier had been erected in the distance. Closer that fence were other cars, crushed by the tsunami.
Turning desperate, he saw another man trying to flee the flood. “I dragged him into the car through the window, then escaped on the gas. But by that time, the waves had already passed us.”
The difficulty advanced, both left the car, ran to seek refuge. Kurosawa climbed a tree, but the branch broke, causing him to fall. When I got back up, it was time for the water to pass.
“I thought I couldn’t make it in time” – he remembered. “It’s really hard to imagine the power of the tsunami until you see it first hand. Total destruction, wiping out everything in its path.”
To the radioactive disaster
The tsunami penetrated deeper into Fukushima prefecture, leaving the Daiichi nuclear plant in serious disaster.
Japan confirmed the March 11 event as one of the most terrible nuclear disasters in history since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986. More than 300,000 people living near the Daiichi plant were forced to evacuate. The 50,000 people nearby also volunteered to leave.
In the following years, a part of Fukushima became an abandoned city. Only experts from TEPCO (the Tokyo Electric Power Company) visited, along with a few safety surveyors. Since the disaster, TEPCO has had to pump hundreds of tons of water into the plant to cool the reactor, in order to prevent the radiation spill.
Disaster cleanup is expected to take decades and cost billions of dollars. More than 35,000 people are still homeless, even if 10 years have passed.
The areas hardest hit by the earthquake and tsunami have almost recovered, said Hajime Matsukubo, a spokesman for the Tokyo Nuclear Information Center. However, the area around the factory remains the same, because since the disaster, the surrounding population has been reduced by half. “After 10 years, the lesson we have learned is that when a nuclear disaster strikes, dealing with the consequences is extremely difficult.” – He shared.
Currently, TEPCO still reserves millions of tons of water to cool the reactors. But this water will soon run out, and lawmakers argue that the only solution is to release the polluted water into the ocean. Of course, this opinion meets the objections of environmentalists and representatives of fishermen.
In 2014, the Japanese government lifted the limit on access to the area, with radioactive concentrations below 20 millisieverts per year, a safe level recommended by the international, barely equal to two X-rays. However, according to a 2020 survey by Kwansei Gakuin University, 65% of people who have left no longer want to return to Fukushima. Of these, 46% said they were afraid of radiation, while 45% had stabilized elsewhere.
Fukushima was also the event that shook Japan’s nuclear energy commitments. Before the disaster, 50 reactors were responsible for providing 30% of the country’s energy. But then, under public pressure, the reactors slowly shut down. In May 2012, Hokkaido’s last reactor shut down, leaving Japan for the first time in 45 years without nuclear power.
But gradually, the experts also divided. Nuclear technology will continue to provide more environmentally friendly energy than fossil fuels, while public attitudes will gradually change as well. In August 2015, the Sendai (Kagoshima) reactor was reopened.
And the pain is not forgotten
On the morning of May 12, 2011, Kurosawa got off the trunk of a pine tree. The surroundings appeared to have been bombarded and the city was in ruins.
He cleared the debris and found his way home, dodging the boats washed ashore. The collapsed buildings are still flooded with water. The atmosphere was also charged with smoke and dust.
Kurosawa’s wife is still alive. She was evacuated in a high school. But after that night, they lost many family and friends, and memorable places in their lives.
For the next six months, Kurosawa and his wife lived in a rented house or a friend’s office. In August, they moved into a disaster resistant home and stayed there for the next 3 years. Kurosawa uses his own profession as a water repairman and volunteers to help the neighbors. Until now, they still live in Ishinomaki.
“1 year passed, then 2 years and the strangest things became normal”, – He shared. But for five years, he still dreamed of moving among the ruins of a ruined city. In Ishinomaki now, Kurosawa said that everyone’s feelings for nuclear power were still quite chaotic, and that he himself He had to fight to rebuild his life and his work.
However, the heart wound to heal also takes time, although Kurosawa believes that he should not live with the past. Today’s grandfather is actively teaching and training people on disaster prevention.
“One thing I learned from the disaster is that people need to depend on each other. I think hope comes from that.” – he said.
Source: CNN
[ad_2]
