誰かが言わなきゃならない

1. Lavatory and toilets in the Big Palette

The first evacuation camp at a junior high school gymnasium in Kawauchi-mura Village had only one toilet for 500 people: A long queue at all times and dirty. Another toilet next to the tennis court, a couple of minutes walk, was also dirty. The Big Palette is a modern exhibition hall, well equipped with toilets and air conditioners, but no lavatories and bathrooms, because it was not designed for overnight stays.
The toilets were not sufficient, either, for the “Beyond-design-basis” population of refugees.No room shoes (sandals) were used at the beginning. Later they are served by volunteers. Few women do a make-up.

2. Radiation screening for newcomers

First thing for newcomers to do at the Big Palette is to go through the radiation screening.Following the sign of “Radiation Screening,” they visit the inspection station located in a stockroom. The whole body with clothing on and both hands are surveyed in two minutes.
The inspection certificate is issued on the spot. It reads simply “Survey done, the Big Palette Fukushima”: No dates, no identification of the inspectee, no official signatures. Dialogue at the reception: “Inspection
finished? “Yes.” That’s it, nothing more. No request of showing the certificate. Personally I am concerned about its simple procedure. I hope this does not cause any problems in later days.
This radiation screening is executed at all evacuation camps: at the very first camp in Kawauchi-mura at its Fire Station, and at the second in Tamura-cho for temporary stay, too.No certificates were issued, but instead we were instructed to write our names and addresses in a separate note. The survey took time in Kawauchi-mura, probably because the location had had a higher background level.
My shoes showed a bit high values. I took a second survey after cleaning my shoes with papers. The inspectors kept all the records, and no copies,no explanations were given to the inspectees. The vehicles and their tires were not inspected.No commodities in the car were inspected, either. This is different from the inspections at the check points for the foot-and-mouth epidemics.
Two residents, who continued to stay in the evacuation zone of 10km from the NPP and later brought to the camp, showed no abnormal values when inspected. A lot of people in the “indoor sheltering” zones decided to evacuate,not because of radiation fears, but because of insufficient material supply for living.
This happened because the drivers from other areas were hesitated to approach the zones for delivery, being concerned about the radiation contamination.
A potential problem will be the unclear objectives of the radiation screening and its target
people.

3. The reality of the evacuation operation

The reality of the evacuation plans is really poor and shuddering. How did it start? We spent the night of the quake in the car, napping. At 9:00 a.m. on March 12, the village emergency broadcast shouted:Dear towners, an emergency started at the Fukushima Daiichi NPP! Evacuate immediately to the Kawauchi-mura Town Office. Drive yourself, if you can. If you cannot, take a bus at the town meeting point ASAP.
The emergency alert for nuclear accidents was just this one in the morning. This emergency broadcast usually informs us, in quiet and peaceful tones, of the time of children’s return to home from school: Dear towners, it is time for children to leave for home; Please watch the children for safety. The only message from the broadcast we heard this time was the one, immediately after the quake on the previous day. It was repeated more than a couple of times:
A big tsunami will hit us in 30 minutes; Please evacuate to a height in the back; Leave and do not approach the coastline.“I have to hurry before losing time.” Upon the nuclear alert, this hasty mindset came to me, not because of fears against radiation, but because of the traffic jam foreseen ahead. Repeated
aftershocks still in the morning also accelerated my hastiness. In 30 minutes,
I collected and packed some pieces from the house into the car and rushed to start. I could manage to add a cat cage and some prey for it. I was lucky to have filled my fuel tank of the car the day before.
I left the height near the house facing the coastline, made for Kawauchi-mura to the west and crossed Highway 6 in a couple of minutes. The traffic jam started soon after I drove about 100m in a path to Kawauchi-mura, far before the town center.
Eventually we needed five hours to get the evacuation camp there. It took little time until the inside of the car became dreadfully hot, with all windows closed. Most vehicles in the long queue seemed private cars.No coaches were seen. The coaches owned by Tomioka-cho for immediate use are very limited. The NPP has a lot of commuting buses for their workers, but nothing of them was
available in such a situation.
Essentially, private cars are the only means for immediate evacuation of the whole town. Every evacuation camp was full of such private cars on its
open field.The evacuation camp for us is limited to a location right to the west in the mountainous area. The east is blocked by the Pacific, the north and south routes were destroyed by the tsunami, no other choice but to the west. The escape route is inevitably limited to one.
This caused the heavy traffic. Wind direction should be taken into account for evacuation, but no other choice was left to us, but Kawauchi-mura in the west. For the people of Okuma-cho, the only choice was to Tamura-cho and its next-door villages in the west. All the refugees were very fortunate, because the roads to the west had no serious damage to the bridges and tunnels due to the big quake. Depressions of the roads were limited.
No roads collapsed seriously. We were very fortunate by chance. It is really surprising to notice that as many as 40, 000 people could evacuate with no panic, although it took them more than a couple of hours to complete the evacuation.
Big lessons should be learned from the experience: the evacuation plan and its
pre-arrangement; prior dissemination of evacuation logistics to the people; practical training,etc. The people were not well prepared, either.
Irresponsibility existed everywhere and everybody. Is the Nuclear Safety Commission right when it says “we need some simplicity for practical evacuation”? Nobody wants to be simplified, but it may be the reality in a war.