Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Faces of Workers at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant

Kazuma Obara is a 26-year-old photo-jouralist who went inside Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in August last year. His work has been featured in foreign media including UK's Guardian.

He's holding an exhibition in Osaka right now, on the one-year anniversary of the nuclear accident.

In the video clip below from "Super News Anchor" on March 12, 2012 by Kansai TV, Obara goes to Kawauchi-mura (past 4:50) to speaks with people at a small construction company whose employees are currently working at the plant, laying pipes for the contaminated water. The construction company is located in Kawauchi-mura, within the 30-kilometer radius from the plant. Part of the village is within the 20 kilometer no-entry zone, but that designation will be lifted as early as April.

They say they are doing it for money to feed their families, as all public works have dried up. It doesn't matter. As Obara says, without these people working at Fuku I, whether they do it for money or whether they have to do it to repay the debt, even the semblance of normal life in much of Japan wouldn't be possible.

There are teen-age workers at the plant.

The video is in Japanese, but I post here so that you can look at the faces of Fuku-I workers.

The title of the video says, "Somebody has to do it... True faces of Fukushima I Nuke Plant workers".


Obara's website is here.

Screen shots from the video:





"Why didn't I come here sooner?" he regrets.

11 comments:

enoughalready45 said...

Off Topic, Just curious what does the name "EXSKF" mean or represent?

Chibaguy said...

Thank you for the video! I have no idea why these people need to write reports while in such an environment though. I think this is a just do it situation even now.

Anonymous said...

God help you, dear japanese people

Atomfritz said...

Even at the room where the Tepco workers slept in their Tyvek suits the camera showed a lot of radiation pixels...
Thanks to all people like Ultraman and the photographer who show the world the truth of what going on in Fukusima!

doitujin said...

how Obara was saying that the children born this year and those in school now are going to work there later, too, really gave me the creeps.....
is this the new way of the japanese to get rid of their delinquent youth, or what, i wonder... the pictures clearly show it's the bousouzoku or yankii school dropout type of teenagers (well, who didn't know anyway, but they've a right to exist, too, what are they doing there.....)
it's so sad... what will japan be like in 20~40 years?

Anonymous said...

The Japanese people need to grow a backbone and stand up for themselves. We can all be keyboard warriors till were blue in the face...but that wont change a thing. You cant fight MONEY.

Anonymous said...

A lot of the Kamakazi pilots were teenagers, too. What would the evil leaders of the Nuclear industry and the government do if everyone refused to work for them?

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@doitsujin, he was merely stating the fact that 3000 to 4000 people, probably more, will be needed at Fuku-I for the next 40 years at least, trying to decommission the plant. So, some of the children born this year may be working at the plant 40 years from now.

If Japan wants to decommission all the nuke plants all at once, as some Japanese do, there are simply not enough radiation workers to do it.

Pat Kittle said...

Much respect and good will to the Japanese people.

doitujin said...

@arevamirpal::laprimavera

yes, of course not everybody... but still, from how they don't measure their own exposure levels properly and thinking of the high radiation limit, all the hot spots at the plant and the young age of many of the workers... it's just feeling like a huge, immoral crime to me.

as it's one year already, i'm wondering, aren't there any news at all of people showing some early symptoms of diseases or health problems among the (former) tepco and subcontractor workers? especially in the beginning, the levels very really high at some places and equipment and controls were scarce. when ordinary citizens already show nosebleeding, fatigue etc. and the blogger numayu's problems could actually be related to radioactivity, then what about all the workers who went through there during the last year... frustrating. there could be many of those with maybe even major symptoms, too... really strange.
as usual, i hope there won't be so many severe diseases later.

Uranium Film Festival said...

A good exhibition. May in the next years we can bring it to Rio de Janeiro.
International Uranium Film Festival
June 28 to July 14, 2012, Movietheatre of Museum of Modern Art (MAM)
Norbert G. Suchanek
www.uraniumfilmfestival.org
info@uraniumfilmfestival

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