Kato gets bombarded with calls from farmers who want to return to abandoned farms: “I tell them, ‘I’m sorry about your animals, but your life is more important. Please don’t go.’ ”
Still more distressing, he said, was news that Tepco workers scrambling to repair the plant had been exposed to dangerously radioactive water while in the basement of a turbine building.
Watch how the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant unfolded.
“I thought, what the hell is Tepco doing?” he said. “It is obvious the water there is contaminated.”
Japan’s nuclear regulator on Friday reprimanded Tepco for sending workers into danger without dosimeters, a device used to measure radiation exposure.
Rumors among evacuees
Filled with anxious, uprooted people, Tamura’s gymnasium swirls with rumors of both doom and possible salvation, careering between despair at reports of a spike in radiation and hope stirred by whispers of a secret American powder that can purge contamination. Many, including Maruzoi, the previously fearless construction worker, now want to play it safe and are planning to move to a new shelter further inland in Aizuwakamatsu.
Tepco “betrayed us. They said everything was safe, but look at this mess,” said Jiro Tochikubo, another former Okuma resident. “Of course the tsunami was higher than we all expected, but why did Tepco always say everything was definitely okay?” After the tsunami, he added, Tepco insisted that radiation definitely wasn’t leaking.
“Tokyo Electric should stop using the word ‘definitely,’ ” he said.
Like everyone here, he thinks the company must pay compensation but isn’t optimistic; Tepco, burdened with huge debts even before the tsunami, now looks doomed unless the government steps in. Its credit rating has plunged; its shares have lost more than 80 percent of their value.
But not everyone is cursing. Some still remember, wistfully, how Tepco brought jobs and investment to Okuma.
“There is no point getting angry,” said Kai Michiharu, who works for a waste disposal subcontractor hired by Tepco. He was finishing his shift near the unit 4 reactor when the earthquake hit. He rushed to his employer’s office on higher ground.
The experience, he said, was “terrifying,” but he still hopes Tepco will one day reopen at least part of Fukushima Daiichi, so he can go back to work. He got paid in full for March and will get 60 percent of his nearly $3,000 salary for April, but he’s not sure what will happen after that.
A few days ago, Michiharu got a call from his boss asking if he would be willing to work at Tepco’s nuclear plant in the future. He’s not keen on going back now, but “if I can’t find any other work,” he said, “then I’ll return.”
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