At 6 A.M., March 25th, I am writing this, praying that the nuclear power plant accident will continue to head toward successful containment. News programs are reporting that radioactive materials have been detected in the tap water of Tokyo municipality and mineral water has been distributed to mothers with infants.
For the past several days I have been engaged in urgent support efforts in Sendai and Fukushima. I visited Higashi-matsuhima City, Ishinomaki City, and yesterday I entered Shinchi-machi Town in Fukushima Prefecture and Soma City.
In Minami-soma City, we were able to deliver emergency supplies to the spot 25 kilometers (15.6 mile) from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This area, being between 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) and 30 kilometers (18.8 miles) from the nuclear plant, is designated as “Area where the residents should remain indoors.”
On our ways to Minami-soma City three policemen at a check point approved us to pass, noting, “25 kilometers is as far as one could venture to go. The clinic may lie exactly on that border line.” One of the policemen wore a black metal mask covering his entire face, looking just like a knight with full head gear.
The very clean city was a ghost town with not a soul to be seen. Of course, there were no pedestrians and stores were closed with shutters. A few cars come and go occasionally, while only the traffic lights continue to change from green to yellow and to red. Orange letters run across the electronic sign board above the traffic lights: “Due to a nuclear plant accident, those in the area between 20 and 30 kilometers must take shelter in their own homes..."
http://www.culturalnews.com/?p=4121A Letter From Japan - A flavor of life in Sendai, near Minamisoma..
Roko Sherry Chayat, priest of the Syracuse Zen Center, shared a letter that was sent to her from a sangha members in Sendai who also lived through WWII.
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 11:51 PM
http://www.facebook.com/notes/the-peoples-republic-of-portland/a-letter-from-japan-a-flavor-of-life-in-sendai-near-minamisoma/10150177950408825 Hello My Lovely Family and Friends,
First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am
very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all.
But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.
“Those who can leave have already left,” Nanae Takeshima, 40, a resident of Minamisoma, a city of 70,000 about 16 miles from the nuclear plant that lies within the area covered by the advisory to stay indoors, said by phone from her home. “Those here are the ones who cannot escape.”
Instead, the task has fallen to some local governments and even private companies and organizations that have made limited but heroic efforts to help those left behind, adding to the burden of coastal communities already overwhelmed by tens of thousands of people left homeless and the search for bodies, which the nuclear evacuations have now made impossible.
Residents reached by telephone said the order by the government to evacuate a 12-mile radius around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, as well as the request for those who live 12 to 18 miles away to stay indoors, has turned communities like Minamisoma into virtual ghost towns, populated mostly by the unwilling and the unlucky.
http://www.ongo.com/v/590686/-1/C69070E9D7493906/in-japans-danger-zone-the-stranded-await-the-merciful
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