your ex-girlfriend still paints tear jerking poetry keep. nora. we post only what really matters at r.t. to your facebook you street. welcome to. the shevardnadze over three years after the tragic earthquake and tsunami that show japan there is still no peace for the victims. less in the wake of the tester fenian have no hope of ever returning hope how do you cope with a catastrophe of this scale well i guess today is the former mayor of the town of fatah which co-hosts just stricken nuclear plant mr cuts to talk up.

on march eleventh two thousand and eleven earthquake and tsunami. causing one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. despite relief efforts radioactive material from the crippled fukushima plant continues to flow into the surrounding. once populated cities in the area. ghost town. we would never be safe to come back. does the government still remember the victims of the crisis. this budget about the bit about mr ito saying for being with us today now your turn to food tom was heavily dependent on cash coming from the nuclear reactors yourself approved building of more reactors now did you believe back then that something could go wrong. so that's doing it yes i suspected it might never expected an

accident of such proportions in the. us sadly for that you knew right away that the government and tackle the plant operator would lie about the consequences of the accident at fukushima when exactly does you lose trust in this story was it when the accident happened or was it after the accident judging by the reaction of the got sort of this does happen when i first met the management of the four wish him a power plant so i asked him about the possibilities of a nuclear accident pretending that i didn't know anything about it and it turned out they were unable to answer many of my questions frankly that's when it first crossed my mind that their management didn't have a contingency plan to mr it was then i realized the facility could be dangerous what they missed. but mr is a goner i would like to go back in time march eleventh two thousand and eleven the

day of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit japan where were you that day what do you remember. i wasn't in food but that day that i wasn't in town nearby on official business there or you missed the so called and that's when the earthquake hit missed them. what exactly did you see around you then. as for the aftermath of the earthquake there were no destroyed buildings or other wreckage but i saw all that on my way back to the water as soon as it happened i jumped into my car and drove home but i managed to get there before the bigots and i became and i mean it was only later that i realized that i escaped sort of the massive wave that you must. look i understand that one a catastrophe of this scale happens it is very difficult to control your emotions it is difficult to get hold of yourself and it's really hard to know what exactly to do. what were your first actions. on or just

the earthquake was very strong i just kept thinking if it's that strong what will happen to the power plant according to one of the reactor is damaged what if there's a leak what will the city do you know what am i to do as mayor market is a pain it's the. value i mean i can only imagine how much were you felt at that moment but still do you remember what did you do right after the disaster hit the presidential. hi it took me twenty to thirty minutes to get back to my office and. there was a traffic jam so i chose an alternative route along the coast of a moment i wasn't thinking about anything except the fact that i had to get back as soon as possible i heard tsunami warning on my car radio political tsunami waves in the area had never been higher than sixty centimeters before i thought that even if

it's big the wave will be about six meters at most i had no idea the road i was on could be washed away by the tsunami lucky that's a number came after i drove off that road i got to my office and. and started checking for knowledge i chipped every floor and then a fourth one i looked out the window usually you couldn't see the ocean from there you know but at that point it was just three to five hundred metres away it was a truly terrifying sight i had always thought swirling in my head what should i do how do i evacuate people where do we run how do we save ourselves with it and i realized that the power plant would be damaged and didn't know what to do if i was serious. about looking back i think i didn't deal with the crisis well enough i think i did not ask myself enough questions on what that would be most as i understand it you gave orders to evacuate the city right away.

yes i didn't sleep at all that night i was watching television since it was the only source of information and i kept thinking what should we do about the radiation from fukushima and how should i inform and evacuate people comment on that mobile phones didn't work because there was no signal so radio was the only way to get any information across those on the morning of march twelve i announced an emergency evacuation i thought that radiation would not reach the mountains and we would be safe that if we left the city i told people to head to a town just fifty kilometers away to go with us and there's just one road that goes there and it was packed with cars later i learned that not or for the other residents heard my announcement i feel incredibly guilty about that on this back then mr i believe that residents will be safe and it is much further away from the bland government recommended evacuation zone of ten to twenty kilometers so later i found out that the focus. as with

a lot of information and say that this another government isn't taking any steps to ensure people safety from radiation and it isn't even monitoring the implementation of evacuation procedures. to us so fast enough but he decided to evacuate people from fatah as far as possible without consulting anybody so you completely assumed responsibility. this our city always had an emergency plan in case of a fire or an accident at the plant every year we had special drills in case there's a fire at a plant i think it's the central government and the focus shima briffa care authorities now bear the brunt of responsibility for what happened and as for thomas mayor and it was my responsibility to take care of the people of my city i had no time to get any advice i tried talking to professor authorities but there was absolutely chaos because it was impossible to hold

a meeting with an organ donor here so i chose to act on my own and i decided to start with evacuating people as far from radiation as possible missed. your town has moved to a new location to the neighboring city of. is it safe there and do you see this as a new start for these people. what they. consider i'd like to show you a table with radiation levels around chernobyl really levels around fukushima are four times higher than in chernobyl your so i think it's too early for people to come back to focus. to us here you can see radiation levels in our region. this is the epicenter of the earthquake and we already is fifty to one hundred kilometers even two hundred kilometers in fact. is at the very

center of this. the city of. moved is also located in fukushima prefecture. it is by no means safe no matter what the government says exposing people to the current level of radiation in fukushima is a violation of human rights. it's terrible what he must. mean you know what you know is that evacuation advisories are started to lift it for some citizen if the kashima area that you are saying that the government is allowing this despite the danger of ready ation. which. the fukushima prefecture has launched to come home campaigns interest in many cases evacuees are forced to return here's a map of. where the areas hit by radiation highlighted in yellow and you can see that the color covers almost the entire map to get any contamination decreased

a little oil contamination remains high and there are still about two million people living in the perfect are going to key who have all sorts of medical issues the authorities claim is has nothing to do with the radiation fallout from fukushima but i demanded that the authorities substantiate their claim in writing they ignored my request. there are some terrible things going on in fukushima i remember being touched to the core by the plight of the victims of turn obl i could barely hold back tears whenever i heard any reports about that terrible tragedy and now when a similar tragedy happened in fukushima there's no one to help us who must not forget the lessons of chernobyl so we must protect our children must get them i talked to local authorities in different places and for who she was no one would listen to me they believe what the government says while in reality relation is still there and it is killing our children. they are dying of heart conditions

leukaemia fire oil complications and lots of kids are extremely exhausted after school others are simply unable to eat less is those that want the authorities are still hiding the truth from us and i don't know why they have children of their own . heard so much to know that they can't protect our children. that the new company but i understand many children who have been evacuated are now living in if they question the district again new schools have a thing for their children and you're saying that they're facing radiation there is anything may be done to help the children affected by the nuclear fallout. both the central government and the graphics are authorities say there is no radiation they're not doing anything to do it he must be and they're not going to do anything they say. is safe and that's why nobody is working to evacuate

children move them elsewhere so we're not even allowed to discuss this with us and you instilled in us. but you didn't go especially right when you started out thank you get up while we were going to take a short break now will be back soon with mr ito gavel former mayor all the talent that's home to this stricken focus my reactors to discuss how the government's handled the situation at war there has to be done to contain the disaster stay with us.

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and we're back with got so doc out you go ga a former mayor of japan's town no food tabo witness of the fukushima nuclear disaster this margin is the sort of the us thanks again for being with us so after this tragedy the government wanted to build nuclear waste storage facilities on the territory of food would you if you were very much against that but now as i understand this facilities are going to be built after all do you fear that that will prevent residents from ever returning to their town. to the media reported as if the decision has been a really need much about the message but that's not true. the problem lies with the decision making process that's why i keep saying no this won't fly with the central

government makes all the decisions on its own it acts as an. in our country decisions can be made commit without taking people's opinion into consideration but that the government ignores this and just does everything in the way they see fit that didn't discuss this matter is up to landowners can either unless they agree nothing can happen that's how things work in japan and even though there's been much speculation nobody has talked to landowners yet you know when they did so media reports are suggesting that the final decision has been made but that's that's our premature in reality nothing has been decided that. it is not clear at this point what will happen. we know right now is that there will be repositories built and the land will be nationalized what we. really asian is a big problem today but even this problem hasn't been solved yet not without consulting with us with the people that is. your announced that people will be

relegated for thirty years but they failed to keep this promise as well you know it's all very unreasonable unpopular decisions were made without us that's why i've been saying all this time it's no secret that this is not an option it was this. that you know in the beginning of the program you have touched upon the inability of tepco to manage the situation on the nuclear plant they have been struggling to contain this situation for over three years now. why are they failing what where are they going wrong. this and they told us the way tepco works the problem is within structure source to know when the people working at the head office i mean privileged conditions but those working in the field are having a hard time so it was even before the accident that's how this company operates.

when the accident happened tepco couldn't give us or even its own employees the names of the people responsible for the accident they that they couldn't do that because there aren't any real professionals there sort it's got the economic eyes and even before the accident that i would sometimes go to their office as mayor ask them a lot of questions how do you train your staff is everything alright is there any chance that your old equipment may fail and in response i got only nice words but they didn't take any practical steps on the hardly ever did anything give us tepco things too high of itself delegating almost everything to something tractors and that's why when something happens there is nobody to be held accountable in addition the company is not on top of the situation on the ground even today who received a report saying that they made a mistake and used the wrong pump and as a result contaminated water ended up where it shouldn't have ended up the most this

is the kind of news we're still getting good at that as for the restoration of the city i was gravely concerned about the future of my hometown the future of. what he most likely is that one of there is information nowadays that chapin's homeless are among those recruited to take part in the made in our day a viable workforce in this case it is because there is a lack of qualified workers or because those people are considered sort of disposable and that isn't even true is this information even true. high. unfortunately is true so if you use workers on a one of basis you don't have to watch out for radiation you don't need to care about their health you must respect people you care about them. when talking about to tokyo olympics in two thousand and twenty prime minister likes to talk about japanese hospitality and he uses this japanese word almost an icy which literally

means that you should treat people with an open heart but in reality that isn't happening of a more well prime minister noda was busy promoting himself authorities began to care less about people who worked. on what innocent their equipment was getting worse preparation was getting worse so people had to think about their safety first focusing that's why those who understood the real danger of radiation began to quit . now we have unprofessional people working there. they don't really understand what they're doing so most. people who would use the wrong pump for example who make mistakes like that so you put i'm particularly concerned about their leaders seems to me their team leaders aren't real professionals they don't know what they're doing. and that i am really ashamed for my country. but i have to speak the truth for the sake of keeping our planet clean in the future. the fact

that the government was covering up their real scale of the disaster for so long has anything to do was for additional japanese fear of losing face. they simply wanted to avoid responsibility to night i mean this or. that but you know i understand that but why keep this quiet for so long why didn't they tell the world how bad it really was why is that. there were some sad chapters in the history of japan this get them all the same thing happened with hiroshima and nagasaki moyse so that the authorities lied to everyone they said it was safe they had the truth that's the situation we're living in it's not just for. japan has a lot of dark history what's happening now is a sort of a sacrifice to the past not the cause i think but talking about focus sima at the united nations report on the radiation fallout from focus e m a says no radiation

related deaths or a kid's diseases have been observed their workers and the general public exposed so it's not that dangerous after all or is there not enough information available to make proper assessments what do you think they do. feel this report is completely false the report was made by a representative of japan. representing japan he lied to the whole world from the un podium. when i was mayor i knew many people who died from heart attacks and then there were also many people in fukushima who died suddenly even young people. is a real shame that the authorities are hiding the truth from the whole world so we need to admit that many people are actually dying not going to we're not allowed to say that but even tepco employees there are also dying but everyone is keeping mum

about it. you already have been asked in the us of casualties yesterday i don't have the numbers with me today so we only need an approximate estimate just to understand the scale of the tragedy you're talking about. responsibility to give specific numbers is hard for me because i haven't studied this matter personally study but it's not just one or two people you were talking about ten to twenty people who died this way of this. well you said that despite everything because she alleges aster japan is planning to build more nuclear reactors eventually satisfying at least half of its energy needs with nuclear energy obviously you are against that but japan's really has no other choice in terms of energy does it. the most and then yes it has japan's archipelago it has plenty of rivers. but hydro energy is not used at all and why then because it's not as profitable for

big companies not actually we 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 will be no need for nuclear plants anymore given that we also need to change our laws there are many laws in japan perhaps too many. there are laws about rivers and the ways they're used we could change laws regarding our cultural water use and start using rivers to produce electricity changing just this law alone will allow us to produce a lot of energy. we can solve the problem by using natural energy without contaminating our planet but those does not appeal to be companies because in that case you won't need big investments you don't need to build big power plants it's not that profitable for investors for capitalists or with both of them on

a deposit but people in japan's are beginning to realize that we need to avert nuclear disasters so sixty to seventy percent of the population are in favor of using natural energy because it's so goes a long time but one day we'll follow the example of europe of germany. have you personally felt the consequences of the catastrophe has your health in affect it. yes i know you're tired quicker is getting harder to speak. i often get colds i cannot i sides gotten worse i have a cataract in night my stomach hurts. my skin is very dry. my muscles are weak in different parts of my body or that these are all the consequences of the catastrophe so that i must have a bulk of our year receiving any aid as somebody who's been affected by the

catastrophe of c. or look at no i'm not getting any treatment right now ima actually. there is no place i can go for help and it's you so not sky no living in. the nearest hospital refused to take me in. some just eating healthy. hopefully it'll fix me up with us. but you sure as i'm well first of all thank you so much for this interview thank you for this insight thank you for sharing your memories with us i really hope you do get better i hope all of the japanese people who have suffered the consequences get better and i hope that japan eventually overcomes this catastrophe and life will go on as usual thank you very much for your time and your honesty. for talking to. former mayor of japanese town of

cop but that was hit by the focus sheila nuclear disaster we're talking about the cost of the catastrophe and how safe it is for people to return to the question but district right now that's it for this edition of sophie will see you next time. punishment for an uncommitted crying i was never one to believe in a chief people still today that if you don't know why. i still don't know why genetic improvement through forced sterilization the basis for nazi ideology

don't stop but just. go to the point of death. for years rarely discussed. till. really rather not talk about that right. what a wonderful moment in life. ali face i think i'm getting. a pleasure to have you with us here on our team today i roll the sushi.

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