HOPES SLIM TO RETURN HOME
The 11, 000 residents of Okuma town fled their homes almost a year ago because of the nuclear disaster triggered by Japan's giant quake and tsunami. Miyoko Takeda is one of them. This is her third trip back to check on her home and collect some of the belongings they left behind. The house is intact but Takeda says her life certainly is not.
Miyoko Takeda: "It's as if I have depression. I can't sleep, I can't eat. I've lost eight kilograms and when I went to the doctor I threw up everything I took. Now I can't sleep without medication." Others used the few precious hours inside the exclusion zone of what they once called home to visit family graves and repair others damaged by the quake.
It's the first time residents returning to Okuma have been allowed to this graveyard. Minoru Fukuo: "We just prayed that we will come back soon and clean up the grave properly. We've just asked them to wait until then." Throughout Fukushima prefecture nearly 80, 000 have been evacuated from their homes. The evacuees live in accommodation ranging from apartments to hastily-constructed temporary shelters.
Tomiko Ikinobu and her four children have one of those specially-built temporary homes. Unemployed since the disaster, she says uncertainty is a constant cloud over their lives. Tomiko Ikinobu: "If it's a normal disaster you recover from it and you go forward a bit every day but this time you don't. All that's left is uncertainty. I just don't know when I can go back."
" The government says it could take up to 40 years to fully decommission the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. About 2, 400 square kilometers of land around the site, an area the size of Luxembourg, may need to be decontaminated. The day Fukushima's evacuees can return home without a radiation counter may be a very long way off yet.
(Paul Chapman/ Reuters)
延伸閱讀
- HOLLYWOOD READY FOR OSCARS2012/02/24
- JENNIFER GETS HER STAR ON WALK OF FAME2012/02/24
- "THE ARTIST," A GLORIOUS THROWBACK2012/02/23
- "THE IRON LADY" IN TW CINEMAS 2/242012/02/24
- POST-911 NEW FLICK OUT IN TW2012/02/23
- GUARDS CONFESSED IN ASSISTING PRISON BREAK2012/02/24
- NZ REMEMBERS QUAKE VICTIMS2012/02/23
- HONDURAS PRISON FIRE, ACCIDENTAL?2012/02/24
- TRAIN CRASH IN ARGENTINA KILLS 492012/02/23
- OBAMA STOPS IN ALL THREE SITES2011/09/12
- KAHN QUESTIONED IN SEX-RING PROBE2012/02/23
- CONCORDIA DISASTER, 8 MORE BODIES FOUND2012/02/24







