On the third anniversary
of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami,
a woman cries during a
march on the Japanese Diet. About 12,000
people marched to
demand that Japan abandon its nuclear program.
'Screams' of Fukushima Must Not Be Ignored Like Those of Okinawa (ChunichiShimbun, Japan)
"Isolated from the mainland and under U.S. occupation, Okinawans had their human rights trampled on and had to endure poverty and lives marred by being forced to live next to military bases. ... The emotional scars of Okinawa overlap with the pain of Fukushima. ... The
government has averted its gaze from the problem of low dose radiation
exposure. It has relaxed its criteria on acceptable radiation exposure in an
attempt to encourage local authorities near the nuclear plant to make an early
return. Every time the evacuation areas have been redefined, TEPCO has discontinued compensation payouts to residents.
It certainly looks like a superficial recovery effort - and a premature rush to
rebuild."
The
three years since the Great
East Japan Earthquake have shown how difficult it is for a community
to recover when it is burdened with a nuclear accident. As a nation, we must
walk side by side with the people affected and continue to support their
struggle.
Like
a silent time bomb, the effects of WWII have settled in peoples' hearts and
remain there 70 years later.
Psychiatrist
Dr. RyojiAritsuka now works
at the Nagomi Mental Health Clinic in Soma City,
Fukushima. In 2010, as head of the Psychosomatic Internal Medicine Department
at Okinawa Kyodo Hospital, he encountered in quick succession some peculiar cases of
insomnia. His patients described symptoms that he hadn't seen in his long
medical career.
70 year old war
scars
After
trawling through reams of foreign medical journals, Dr. Aritsuka
discovered that the cases were identical to the posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] experienced by survivors of Auschwitz. When he questioned
his patients, they all told him that they had survived the Battle of Okinawa during the
Pacific War.
In
the fierce land battle involving civilians, one in four Okinawan
residents were killed. The memories deeply scarred the survivors.
In 2012, acting on his findings,
Dr. Aritsuka, in collaboration with Ms. Fujiko
Toyama, a former professor at the Okinawa Prefectural College of Nursing and a
specialist with over 20 years experience tackling post war PTSD,
conducted a study of 400 elderly survivors of the Battle of Okinawa. The
results were that over 40 percent had severe mental trauma with the potential
of triggering PTSD.
In
treating cases of elderly patients with insomnia, Dr. Aritsuka
had become curious about the effects of the war. The patients had run through hails
of bullets and shells, lost family members, and even seen residents being
killed by Japanese soldiers. After years lying dormant, seemingly innocent
catalysts like job resignations or deaths in the family reawakened these painful
memories.
Some
repeatedly woke up panicked in the middle of the night. One patient said the
stench of dead bodies came back to him.
In
a study of mental illness conducted 20 years after the war, the rate of schizophrenia
in Okinawa was higher than on the mainland.
The
emotional scars suffered during the war are undeniable. Isolated from the
mainland and under U.S. occupation, Okinawans had their human rights trampled
on and had to endure poverty and lives marred by being forced to live alongside military
bases. Dr. Aritsuka is of the opinion that these
harsh experiences triggered the onset of mental illness.
The
emotional scars of Okinawa overlap with the pain of Fukushima, which was so damaged
by the nuclear accident. The importance of psychological care after such an
disaster was learned after the Kobe and Niigata
earthquakes. Last spring, due to his experience in Okinawa, Dr. Aritsuka was invited to head a mental health clinic opened
by volunteers after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Nagomi Mental Health Clinic accepts 50 new
patients per month, and has examined between 500 and 600 patients in total so
far, of which 10 percent exhibit signs of delayed onset PTSD.
A
man who was swept up by the tsunami as he was driving now has flashbacks of an
overturned fire engine and people buried in the mud. He becomes irritable due
to lack of sleep and yells at his wife.
A
mother who fled Fukushima with her son fears she was exposed to radiation and
suffers sudden panic attacks.
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
The
medical consequences are not limited to PTSD. There
is a surge of people who have become depressive or alcohol dependent after prolonged
stays in temporary housing. The stress of living with strangers has taken its
toll. Many evacuees feel they have suddenly become unimportant and have
impulsive thoughts like, “I may as well be dead.”
Even
now, three years after the disaster, 270,000 people remain in evacuation
centers. In Fukushima, home to 140,000 of those people, circumstances are particularly
dire because the prospects for recovery from radioactive contamination remain
unclear, as does life in general.
We
must also remember that in Fukushima, 1,671 people died of earthquake-related
causes after the fact. That is more that the 1,603 deaths that took place
during the disaster.
These
deaths occurred when conditions worsened because treatment was delayed as a
result of evacuees living out of suitcases and moving from place to place. Cases
of suicide are also prevalent. Fukushima is sending signals that sound a lot like
a scream.
Remember
Fukushima
The
government has averted its gaze from the problem of low dose radiation
exposure. It has relaxed its criteria on acceptable radiation exposure from 1 millisievert to 20 milliseiverts
in an attempt to encourage local authorities near the nuclear plant to make an
early return. Every time the evacuation areas have been redefined, TEPCO
has discontinued compensation payouts to residents. It certainly looks like a
superficial recovery effort - and a premature rush to rebuild.
Despite
the irrationalities they encounter from the government and TEPCO,
and no matter how difficult it is to regenerate their community, the people of Fukushima
are trying to survive.
After
the Pacific War, mainland Japan forgot the suffering experienced by Okinawa as
a consequence of being burdened with military bases. This time, we need to hear
the screams coming from Fukushima, and never forget to share its pain.
