Pope urges fresh help for Fukushima victims on Japan trip

Pope Francis called yesterday for renewed efforts to help victims of Japan’s 2011 “triple disaster” of earthquake, tsunami and the Fukushima meltdown, noting “concern” in the country over the continued use of nuclear power. On the penultimate day of his long-cherished trip, Francis had an emotional encounter with survivors of that fateful day on March 11, 2011, when a 9.1-magnitude earthquake followed by a 17-metre (56-foot) high tsunami devastated much of northeastern Japan and killed nearly 16,000 people.

He embraced Matuski Kamoshita, a 17-year-old boy who told him he had been bullied so badly after evacuation that he “wanted to die” and that his father became mentally and physically ill after the disaster. The 82-year-old pontiff paid tribute to those who rushed to the assistance of the victims “with outpourings of prayers and material and financial aid”.

“We should not let this action be lost with the passage of time or disappear after the initial shock; rather, we should continue and sustain it,” Francis said. T h e wave s we p t awa y everything before it, washing away people, buildings and farms, but also damaging cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, sparking the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Nearly half a million people fled their homes in the first days after the quake and even today, roughly 50,000 remain in temporary housing.

The pope heard harrowing testimony from survivors of that day, such as Toshiko Kato, who headed a Catholic kindergarten and lost her home in the tsunami. “I remember that when I stood in the rubble where my home had been, I was thankful for being given life, for being alive and for just being able to appreciate it,” she told the pope. The head of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics noted that some of the survivors feel “forgotten” and face ongoing issues of contaminated land and the long-term effects of radiation.

He stopped short of intervening in the debate over nuclear power in Japan, merely noting that bishops in the country have called for atomic plants to be shelved. “In turn, this involves, as my brother bishops in Japan have emphasised, concern about the continuing use of nuclear power; for this reason, they have called for the abolition of nuclear power plants.”