Japan tsunami anniversary: The man and his menagerie left behind in Fukushima

“The next day, I heard the explosion at the plant,” he said. “I
didn’t need anyone to tell me what had happened because the ‘boom’ was huge.”

Living with his mother and father and a couple of locals in the house, they
heard more explosions. Finally, they decided to head south. “I knocked
on the door of my aunt’s house in Iwaki, but she wouldn’t let any of us in
because she said we were contaminated.

“So we went to a nearby shelter, but they wouldn’t let us stay there
either, so we went home,” he says. In April, Mr Matsumura’s mother was
taken ill so the rest of the family went to stay with relatives outside the
original 18-mile recommended exclusion zone.

“We couldn’t take the animals with us, so I stayed behind,” he says.

Initially, he was caring for about 60 pet dogs and 100 cats abandoned by their
owners. There were also hundreds of ducks and geese on local farms that
needed help, as well as cattle still locked in their pens. But Mr Matsumura
was not able to get to all of them in time.

Many animals that were household pets have formed packs, leaving him with
seven dogs – and their 14 puppies. Mr Matsumura’s ark also has 60 cats, a
half-boar-half-pig and the ostrich, the sole survivor of 30 birds on a farm.

The police that patrol the no-go zone called the ostrich Boss and it took Mr
Matsumura a whole afternoon to coax the bird the five miles to his house
after he found her foraging for food.

“I don’t get bored,” he says. “I am used to it, and anyway,
there are lots of animals here so I’m never really alone.”

Mr Matsumura drives his white pickup across a desolate landscape, looking for
other animals to help. The only sounds are birds and the wind in the
telephone wires. Cattle have learnt where he leaves feed and are waiting for
him.

“The police tell me that I should leave, but that would mean there is no
one to take care of these creatures,” he said. He had a medical check
at Tokyo University in October, which showed elevated ceasium 134 and 137,
but Mr Matsumura says that was because he was eating vegetables he found
growing in the village. He does not do that any more.

But Mr Matsumura’s bigger fear is that the town where his family has lived for
five generations will whither away. The government has said it might take 40
years to clean the area of radiation. “Tomioka will turn into a ghost
town,” he says. “The young people will not want to come back.”

He has appealed to the authorities to do more, and they have told him it is “under
consideration”. “I told them to speed their consideration as we
will all be dead before they reached a decision.

“I also asked them to give me food for the animals, but they wouldn’t
even do that,” he said. “I’m on my own.”

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes