誰かが言わなきゃならない

1. Children to school

Breakfast service time was expanded for children to go to school. Now it
starts at 6:30 a.m. It started at 8:00 a.m. till yesterday. Breakfast this
morning was: a bun, a bottle of milk, a canned sweet and one canned jelly. After breakfast primary school pupils go on a coach to school and junior
high pupils on foot.
Pleasant faces and voices were seen in front of the Big Palette. It was long time ago for everybody to see such pleasant scenes. But the place the children
return to from school is a small family space in the cardboard enclosure in the Big Palette. Not suitable for “study at home.” One good thing is that children can take lunch under school catering.

2. US$2,000 per month per family

The governments (central, local) seem self-righteous in planning their support to the refugees. For each of family members, who opted to stay at a ryokan or hotel on the governments’ subsidiary, US$50 per day is paid to the ryokan or hotel owners. Those refugees are very well treated as compared with those staying in the Big Palette.
This plan has a second objective to support the hotel or ryokan owners; their business has been also hit by the decreased tourists after the earthquake. How
much do they get for each family per month? It reaches about US$1,500 per member and US$6,000 per family with two kids. Even if the cost is halved for a kid, it reaches US$4,500 per month. If a modest house is rented for the family in the market, it costs about US$600 per month. Additional US$1,000 will be
sufficient for the meals and other needs.
In total, much less than US$2,000 can support each family. Most people here want to stay near their homes in Tomioka-cho or Kawauchi-mura. They want to live in a similar life environment as before. They want to cook what the family likes,send their kids to school and wash things with their own machines. Those staying at a hotel are the same.
They have to be idle by doing nothing themselves. Only very few people are interested in taking an option to stay at a high quality hotel Akasaka Prince in Tokyo, which offered its unused rooms, free of charge, for temporary stay before the building is dismantledfor reconstruction.

3. A story of a family on a hotel top floor

The family was granted for a stay at an onsen ryokan (hotel). The hotel area was hit by the earthquake, too. The big hotel bath cannot be used. The family has to manage to use a small room bath. The parking lot is 15 minutes walk far. But the family stays there, because the location is convenient for the kid to go to school. Their problem is the room on the top floor.
In aftershocks, the top floor of an old building is strongly shaken and the kids are often scared.They want to move to a lower floor. The family has no right to choose the room to stay. They are “instructed” where (in which room) to stay. Well-considered care should be something to handle the thing to the mindset of the recipient (the family in this case).

4. Rent-house markets in Koriyama

Koriyama-city is a biggest city in Fukushima Prefecture (about 340,000 residents). Many business firms and rent-houses/apartments exist, more than Fukushima-city where the prefectural government has its headquarters. The market price of rent-houses varies. The average rent for an average family is about US$400 to US$600, or even cheaper.
Many properties are in circulation, according to the agents. March to April is a high season of migration of people at large, due to transfers, graduation, etc. Flyers and references are circulated in the Big Palette, too. But, the prefectural project of rent-houses for the refugees is not very active.
How come? Different logistics may be more practical, e.g., ask the local agent
association to make a list of possible properties, or let the refugees find their favorite candidate property. The prefectural people stick to their traditional way of handling everything by themselves, even in this emergency environment.

5. Personalities of nuclear people are challenged

Nobody of nuclear community is visible; those of electric power companies, nuclear vendors, research institutes and government agencies controlling nuclear powers. Under the pretext of concentrating on terminating the accidents, they don’t show up before the local nuclear refugees, they don’t supply visible supports to the refugees.
It is not a good thing at all for the nuclear community. To the local people, nuclear people might look extremely cold-hearted It should be not too late to take visible actions even one month after the accidents. There may be some individuals or organizations who collects donations or contribute supporting materials, but not visible.
A Zen-priest Soukyu Genyu of Fukushima Prefecture came back to my mind. He tried to help children understand a relation of their soul and body by letting them say, while lying on the floor, “I’m sorry” to other people. A news report on a scene came to me, too, in this connection.
When Emperor and Empress visited the refugees staying in Tokyo, the refugees remained sitting on the floor in “agura” (informal, casual) style, while Emperor and Empressexchanged words with them in “seiza” (formal, polite) style with their knees down on the floor. Their style is the style to show the sincerity and heartfelt sympathy.
I am convinced that, when apologizing, man should keep their eye views at the same level with those they are speaking to. President of Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) impressed me when he visited the bereaved families of the victims who had been killed in the nuclear accident of Mihama Unit 3 (of 2004). He kept bowing on the floor and apologizing in stormy complaints of the families and being camera-flashed by the media.
If the TEPCO people had taken the style of Emperor and Empress or the president of KEPCO, their sincerity would have been better conveyed to the people. If they want to restart the operation of NPPs, if they want to recover people’s trust in nuclear power, every nuclear stakeholder should show up before the people and behave with a strong determination of sincerity to deal with the matter. Incompetency in humanity means incompetency in nuclear usiness.