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According to Idogawa there are about two million people residing in the prefecture who are reporting\u201call sorts of medical issues,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0but the government insists these conditions are unrelated to the Fukushima accident. Idogawa wants their denial in writing.<\/p>\n\u201cI demanded that the authorities substantiate their claim in writing but they ignored my request.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nOnce again, Idogawa alludes to the nuclear tragedy that hit Ukraine on April 26, 1986, pleading that the Japanese people\u00a0\u201cnever forget Chernobyl.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Yet few people seem to be heeding the former government official\u2019s warning.<\/p>\n\u201cThey believe what the government says, while in reality radiation is still there. This is killing children. They die of heart conditions, asthma, leukemia, thyroiditis\u2026 Lots of kids are extremely exhausted after school; others are simply unable to attend PE classes. But the authorities still hide the truth from us, and I don\u2019t know why. Don\u2019t they have children of their own? It hurts so much to know they can\u2019t protect our children.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cThey say Fukushima Prefecture is safe, and that\u2019s why nobody\u2019s working to evacuate children, move them elsewhere. We\u2019re not even allowed to discuss this.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThe former mayor found it ironic that when discussing the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled for 2020, Prime Minister Abe frequently mentions the Japanese word,\u00a0\u201comotenashi,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0which literally means that you should \u201ctreat people with an open heart.\u201d<\/p>\nIn Idogawa\u2019s opinion, the same treatment does not apply equally to the people most intimately connected with Fukushima: the workers involved in the cleanup operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir equipment was getting worse; preparation was getting worse. So people had to think about their safety first. That\u2019s why those who understood the real danger of radiation began to quit. Now we have unprofessional people working there.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Reuters](\"http:\/\/rt.com\/files\/news\/25\/8e\/c0\/00\/2.jpg\")
Reuters \/ Chris Meyers<\/div>\n
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They don\u2019t really understand what they\u2019re doing. That\u2019s the kind of people who use the wrong pump, who make mistakes like that.<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m really ashamed for my country, but I have to speak the truth for the sake of keeping our planet clean in the future.<\/em><\/p>\nIdogawa then made some parallels with one of the most tragic events in the history of Japan: the use of atomic bombs on the industrial cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe authorities lied to everyone (about the effects of the atomic bombings)…They hid the truth. That\u2019s the situation we are living in. It\u2019s not just Fukushima. Japan has some dark history. This is a sort of a sacrifice to the past.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nWhen pressed on the details of a United Nations report that says there have been no radiation-related deaths or acute diseases observed among the workers and general public, Idogawa dismisses it as\u201ccompletely false,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0before providing some of his own experiences at the height of the crisis.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I was mayor, I knew many people who died from heart attacks, and then there were many people in Fukushima who died suddenly, even among young people. It\u2019s a real shame that the authorities hide the truth from the whole world, from the UN. We need to admit that actually many people are dying. We are not allowed to say that but TEPCO employees also are dying. But they keep mum about it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nWhen asked to provide solid figures on the actual number of people who died under such circumstances, Idogawa refrained, saying\u00a0\u201cit\u2019s not just one or two people. We\u2019re talking about ten to twenty people who died this way.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nAsked about other options that Japan has for providing energy sources to its 126 million people, he responded that despite having many rivers, the government neglects to promote hydro energy.<\/p>\n
Why? Because it\u2019s not\u00a0\u201cprofitable for big companies!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nIdogawa goes on to provide a blueprint for fulfilling Japan\u2019s energy needs that sounds surprisingly simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can provide electricity for a large number of people even with limited investment, without taxes. Just use gravity, and we may have so much energy that there\u2019ll be no need for nuclear plants anymore.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nPremonitions of disaster<\/h2>\n
Even before the massive failure at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, the day northeastern Japan was hit by an earthquake-triggered tsunami that caused the meltdown of three of the plant’s six nuclear reactors, Idogawa knew the facility was dangerous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked them about potential accidents at a nuclear power plant, pretending I didn\u2019t know anything about it, and it turned out they were unable to answer many of my questions,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he said.\u00a0\u201cFrankly, that\u2019s when it first crossed my mind that their management didn\u2019t have a contingency plan. It was then that I realized the facility could be dangerous.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThe former mayor, who happened to be in a nearby town on the day the tsunami struck, recalled driving back to Futaba upon news of the earthquake. Only later did he discover how close he came to losing his life in the approaching tsunami.
\n\u201cI managed to get there before the bigger tsunami came. It was only later that I realized that I escaped the water… I got lucky. The tsunami came after I drove off that road and up the mountains.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Members](\"http:\/\/rt.com\/files\/news\/25\/8e\/c0\/00\/3.jpg\")
Members of the media and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) employees wearing protective suits and masks walk toward the No. 1 reactor building at the tsunami-crippled TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture March 10, 2014.(Reuters \/ Toru Hanai)<\/div>\n
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Questions regarding the nuclear power plant dominated his thoughts on the 30-minute drive home.\u00a0\u201cI just kept thinking, \u2018If it\u2019s that strong, what will happen to the power plant? What if the reactor is damaged? What if the water leaks? What will the city do? What am I to do as mayor?\u2019”<\/em><\/p>\nOnce in his office, Idogawa looked out the window and was confronted by what he described as\u00a0\u201ca terrifying sight.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cUsually you couldn\u2019t see the sea from there, but that time I could see it just 300-500m away,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he said.<\/p>\nIt was at that point that the mayor realized that the nuclear power plant had probably suffered some sort of damage. After spending the night watching news reports on television, the only source of information since even mobile phones were not working, Idogawa announced an emergency evacuation early the next morning. Not all of the residents, however, heard the emergency broadcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cLater, I learned that not all Futaba residents heard my announcement. I feel guilty about that\u2026I found out that the Fukushima prefecture hadn\u2019t given me all the information in a timely fashion. And now the government isn\u2019t taking any steps to ensure people\u2019s safety from radiation, and isn\u2019t monitoring the implementation of evacuation procedures.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nBeyond nuclear energy<\/h2>\n
Katsutaka Idogawa believes a transformation to a cleaner, safer form of energy source for Japan would require a willingness to change the country\u2019s laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many laws in Japan, perhaps too many. There are laws about rivers and the ways they\u2019re used. We could change laws regarding agricultural water use and start using rivers to produce electricity. Changing just this law alone will allow us to produce a lot of energy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nAll of this could be accomplished\u00a0\u201cwithout contaminating our planet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nHowever, such bold proposals do not\u00a0\u201cappeal to big companies, because you don\u2019t need big investments, you don\u2019t need to build big power plants. It\u2019s not that profitable for investors, for capitalists.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nBut for the former mayor of a devastated Japanese town, lost to nuclear radiation, Idogawa senses a sea change forming in public opinion.<\/p>\n
The Japanese people are beginning to \u201crealize that we need to avert nuclear disasters, so 60-70 percent of the population is in favor of using natural energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took us a long time, but one day we\u2019ll follow the example of Europe, of Germany.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rt.com\/news\/tokyo-radiation-fukushima-children-836\/ Fukushima radiation killing our children, govt hides truth – former mayor Published time: April 21, 2014 14:03 Students walk near a geiger counter, measuring a radiation level of 0.12 microsievert per hour, at Omika Elementary School, located about 21 km (13 miles) from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, in Minamisoma, Fukushima prefecture.(Reuters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propectin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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