{"id":6748,"date":"2018-05-07T16:49:32","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T07:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/?p=6748"},"modified":"2018-05-14T13:26:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-14T04:26:20","slug":"7-years-since-the-great-east-japan-earthquake-in-fukushima-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/archive\/6748","title":{"rendered":"7 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake in Fukushima part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven years has passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and there remains some\u00a0places in Fukushima prefecture where the time has stopped ever since then. Student\u00a0members of Habitat Japan Campus chapters visited Tomioka and Minami soma, two of the\u00a0areas in Fukushima where the evacuation orders were lifted by April 1 st 2017. The students\u00a0from 10 campus chapters in Kanto region, who took over this volunteer activity from elder\u00a0students, stayed there for three-day volunteer activities from March 1 to 3 .\u00a0<\/p>\n

The students first visited Tomioka in Fukushima prefecture. The town\u2019s population was\u00a015,960 before the earthquake but only 458, or less than 3% of the pre-earthquake\u00a0population, are back to the town after the evacuation order was lifted. As they headed to\u00a0the center of the town, they saw many flexible container bags full of radioactive wastes from\u00a0decontamination process piled up near the JR Tomioka station which resumed service last\u00a0October. Debris processing was also still underway near the station. After seeing such\u00a0reality of the affected area, they arrived the town center, where public housing for affected\u00a0people were built. Construction of new buildings for elementary and junior high schools\u00a0which are targeted to open in April 2018 were also in progress. On the other hand, some\u00a0places remained in the same state as the day of the earthquake. The students interviewed\u00a0residents as they walked through the town.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An elderly man said \u201cWhile I was in the shelter, I was always determined to come back to\u00a0Tomioka if the evacuation order was lifted so I came back in May after the order was lifted\u00a0in last April. But no one else in my neighborhood is back nor I can enjoy gardening. I wish if\u00a0I could return to pre-earthquake Tomioka,\u201d reflecting back on the town where he used to\u00a0enjoy beautiful cherry blossoms. Another resident commented \u201cthis town used to rely on the\u00a0nuclear power station but now we have to find a way to live without it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is only one supermarket in the town. No chain restaurants, no karaoke. Convenience\u00a0stores close at 6pm. The residents live inconvenient life in the town with no hospital, no\u00a0clinic, no dentist and no barber. However, local people are making self-supporting efforts to\u00a0revive the town despite such situation, believing that collective efforts of residents are\u00a0essential. A resident asked the students to tell others about the town saying, \u201cpeople\u00a0outside our town may think that Tomioka is an uninhabitable place. But I want them to\u00a0remember that there are people who returned to the town with a determination to make\u00a0efforts and reconstruct Tomioka.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The student took part in a volunteer activity next day in Odaka district, Minamisoma city in\u00a0Fukushima. The evacuation order to the district was lifted in July 12 th 2016. About 20% or\u00a02,460 out of 12,824 residents who had lived there have returned as of January 31 st 2018.\u00a0The students helped cutting down unnecessary trees in a bamboo grove near Odaka shrine\u00a0which was left untouched for more than five years. The locals decided to cut down the\u00a0bamboos so that neighbors can feel safe in restarting their lives back in where they used to\u00a0live. They put safety boots and leather gloves to cut down bamboos with a handsaw. This\u00a0activity is handed over from and volunteers who come to help from all over the country and\u00a0coincidentally, this particular bamboo grove cutting activity was handed over to a group of\u00a0volunteers from another campus chapter next day.<\/p>\n

The relay of volunteer activities carried out by will to support affected area is still in\u00a0progress in various parts of Tohoku region after seven years from the earthquake. We will\u00a0introduce voices of the students who took part in this volunteer activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seven years has passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and there remains some\u00a0places in Fukushima prefec […]","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,46,47,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activity-reports","category-youth","category-japan","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}