nuclear-news

Brief memorial visit to Okuma’s irradiated zone

Wearing full-body protective gear and white face masks because of the continued risk of radiation exposure, the families bowed their heads in silence

Villagers hold memorial in nuke plant’s shadow,  The Modesto Bee, By ERIC TALMADGE – Jul. 24, 2011, OKUMA, Japan — Under tight government supervision, dozens of villagers from a town where the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is located ventured deep into an irradiated no-man’s land Sunday to hold a belated memorial for friends and relatives killed by Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.

“There is nothing left but debris and empty streets,” said Norio Kimura, a villager who lost his father, wife and a daughter in the disaster.

…..Wearing full-body protective gear and white face masks because of the continued risk of radiation exposure, the families bowed their heads in silence before a shattered public hall as a Buddhist priest chanted sutras and burned incense for the dead. Their village, Okuma, is where four of the crippled nuclear plant’s six reactors are located.

The priest also wore a radiation suit underneath his purple robes.

The residents were brought in on government-chartered buses, allowed to stay less than one hour and then screened for radioactive contamination.

….Okuma had several thousand residents before the March 11 tsunami, but it has been completely evacuated because of the ongoing crisis at the plant, which has suffered meltdowns, explosions and fires. Though other villages farther away from the plant have held memorials, this is the first time that Okuma residents have been allowed into the 12-mile (20-kilometer) evacuation zone to do so…..

http://www.modbee.com/2011/07/24/1788022/japan-villagers-hold-memorial.html

July 24, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, Religion and ethics