Voices from Fukushima: My thoughts today

By Abe Yurika

“The experience must not be forgotten.”

“Such a nuclear disaster must never happen again.”

I experienced the nuclear disaster. My family was torn apart. I lost friends and my hometown. While struggling with the feelings of loss, anger, distress, and conflict, I have continued to speak out, having the above intentions in mind.

I was nine years old when the disaster occurred. Leaving my father, my mother and I traveled around and decided to evacuate to Kyoto on our own.

It is now 15 years after the nuclear disaster. I was an elementary school child, but today I am a grown-up with a job.

I feel that people are forgetting the earthquake and the disaster. From time to time, I feel that only we are being left behind since March 11, 2011.

However hard I continue to speak out, the experience of the disaster is being written off with time. Restarting once-stopped reactors is being promoted, although their security is not ensured. The international conditions are unstable. Being unable to fend off anxiety, I have a sense of crisis that the risks of a nuclear accident are becoming higher than 15 years ago. Don’t you think the circumstances are becoming worse, rather than remaining unchanged? Tired of being angry, I am sometimes inclined to give up realizing my wishes, wondering if what I say might be meaningless.

Year by year I suffer from the feelings of despair and hopelessness more frequently, but at the same time I feel I need to keep making efforts to speak out.

The nuclear disaster is not over. No problems have been resolved. By facing up all the divisions and discriminations due to the accident and communicating with people in different positions, I would like to continue speaking out even in a low voice, while looking for what I can do today, even if no immediate change is to be expected. I hope to change the situation even if it is little by little.

Another nuclear disaster must be prevented.

Now that 15 years has passed since the disaster, I feel that we are all probably standing at the crossroads of where we will go in the future.