Author had bouts of nosebleeds, plagued by unusual fatigue after Fukushima plant visits — Group of newspaper journalists “confess to suffering similar symptoms” — Official unbearably sick since 3/11, many residents are too they just don’t say it openly — Worker: “This is like going to war”
ENENews.com
May 5th, 2014
AP, Mar. 26, 2014: First off, no one who works at Tepco’s wrecked nuclear plant calls it Fukushima “Dai-ichi,” comic book artist Kazuto Tatsuta says in his book about his time on the job. […] Workers say they will lose their jobs if they talk to reporters and their bosses find out. That makes Tatsuta’s manga, “1F: The Labor Diary Of Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant,” a rare look at the nuclear complex […] there are no flushing toilets. In one telling scene, an elderly worker says: “This is like going to war.” […]
Asahi Shimbun, Apr. 26, 2014: “Though we cannot currently see an end, the situation at the plant is making progress little by little. As a worker, I want to continue to be part of the process until workers like me are no longer necessary,” [Tatsuta] added.
Japan Times, Apr. 30, 2014 (emphasis added): […] Visiting the stricken plant two years after the 2011 nuclear catastrophe, a group of characters [in the popular manga series “Oishinbo” published Monday], all newspaper journalists, are momentarily exposed to hourly radiation levels of 1,680 microsieverts. After their tour, which takes them near the plant’s six reactors, lead character Shiro Yamaoka begins to complain of “extreme exhaustion” as well as sudden nosebleeds that span days. His colleagues confess to suffering similar symptoms. Later, when they meet a character named Katsutaka Idogawa — based on a real-life former mayor of the town of Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture — they learn that he too has suffered repeated nosebleed attacks and felt “unbearably sick” since the accident. “Many Fukushima residents have been afflicted by the same symptoms. It’s just they don’t say it openly,” Idogawa tells them. […] When contacted by The Japan Times, [Shogakukan] weekly’s managing editor said […] the episode drew on “meticulous reportage” conducted by manga author Tetsu Kariya and his team in Fukushima. Nothing the Idogawa character said deviated from the opinion of the real-life mayor, the editor insisted. Kariya himself once told the media that he had suffered several bouts of nosebleeds and been plagued by unusual fatigue following his visits to the plant. […]
