Fukushima evacuees face subsidy woes
Print Edition
NEARLY six years after Noriko Matsumoto and her children fled Japan’s Fukushima region, fearing for their health after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, they confront a new potential hardship — the slashing of vital housing subsidies.
Matsumoto is among nearly 27,000 Japanese who left areas not designated as mandatory evacuation zones, spooked by high levels of radiation after nuclear meltdowns unleashed by a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
Now, as the Fukushima local government prepares to slash unconditional housing assistance on March 31, many face the painful choice of returning to areas they still fear are unsafe, or reconciling to financial hardship, especially families scattered across different sites in Japan, such as Matsumoto’s.
“Because both the national and the local governments say we evacuated ‘selfishly,’ we’re being abandoned — they say it’s our own responsibility,” Matsumoto, 55, told a news conference, her voice trembling.
At the time of the magnitude-9 quake, Matsumoto lived with her husband and two daughters in Koriyama city, about 55 kilometers west of the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. Authorities declared a no-go zone around the plant, but Koriyama was outside its 30km radius.
When her younger daughter, then 12, began suffering nosebleeds and diarrhea, Matsumoto took the children and moved to Kanagawa prefecture.
Her husband, who runs a restaurant, stayed behind to ensure they could pay bills and the mortgage on their home. But high travel costs mean they only meet every one or two months. “People like us, who have evacuated voluntarily to escape radiation, have been judged as if we selfishly evacuated for personal reasons,” she said.
What she called her “only lifeline” is a housing subsidy the Fukushima prefectural government pays to voluntary evacuees, who numbered 26,601 by October 2016. The payment is typically 90,000 yen (US$795) for a household of two or more in Matsumoto’s area.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 娌狪CP璇侊細娌狪CP澶05050403鍙-1
- |
- 浜掕仈缃戞柊闂讳俊鎭湇鍔¤鍙瘉锛31120180004
- |
- 缃戠粶瑙嗗惉璁稿彲璇侊細0909346
- |
- 骞挎挱鐢佃鑺傜洰鍒朵綔璁稿彲璇侊細娌瓧绗354鍙
- |
- 澧炲肩數淇′笟鍔＄粡钀ヨ鍙瘉锛氭勃B2-20120012
Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
