誰かが言わなきゃならない

1. Our evacuation camp Big Palette

Early in the morning of March 12, the instruction for evacuation reached the community residents in Tomioka-cho. The first rendezvous point was our next village Kawauchi-mura,from where we moved to the first evacuation camp in a school gymnasium in Tamura-city. A few days later on March 16 we further moved to the Big Palette (an international exhibition center) in Koriyama-city, about 100km to the west from Fukushima Daiichi.

About 2,000 residents from Tomioka-cho and its neighbour community Kawauchi-mura are stay at the Big Palette, including the town staff (mayors and the staff). Some town residents (limited) evacuated to three other camps.
The Big Palette is fairly big but is full of refugees with no further space to accommodate more. Some refugees took an option and left us to stay temporarily at nearby hotels (up to three months), but some other refugees came back to us from their temporary residence at their relatives or friends. The Big Palette is still constantly full (as of early April).

2. Living space

Most of the whole floor space of the three-storied Big Palette is occupied by the refugees, who build their own living space on the blankets distributed and cardboard walls around them to isolate themselves from their neighbors. The ground and the second floors have rooms and are kept fairly warm, but the terrace portion of the first floor is a one glass-walled and tented space. It is shivering during the night there.
Physically weak people are allowed to
occupy warmer spaces.The individual spaces are taken on the first-come first-served basis. Pathways trough the living space is limited to minimum. At some places it is even hard to walk through. Everybody is bundled together on the floor.
To ensure some warm air and privacy, some families build their “houses” with cardboard walls and a ceiling around their space. You can image it if you think of a cardboard house of street dwellers (homeless people). Most elderly
people cannot build such houses and they live almost in an open environment.
It was so cold at the first night; we could not stay in the building and decided to stay in our
own car outside with heaters on. (March 17)

3. Baths

There were no baths at the first evacuation camp in Kawauchi-mura: no baths for the first three days of evacuation. At the Big Palette, outdoor tent baths were built by the National Self-Defense Force for men and women on the premises
and we could take bath every day from the next day of our arrival. We could also opt to visit a public bath in nearby Onsen hotels by bus. The bath tents are guarded by the
Defense Force members. The baths are lamped but not bright enough. Many refugees use the baths and the water is not clean all the time. Some flotage (scurf or something)is on the water surface. Lucky people take clean baths when they visit personal friends or relatives.

4. Meals

Three meals are provided each day. We stand in a long line to get one an hour before served: One rice ball (Omusubi) or one sweet bun per each. A bottle of water is offered together from time to time. At the beginning, a lunch box of disposable styrofoam was served containing steamed rice and some fried
food, but not any longer, and recently nothing but a rice ball or a sweet bun. Very occasionally, an apple is added and a sweet for children. Today, a piece of
cucumber is distributed, with an instruction to wash before eating. No ressing, no salts. An embarrassment propagated among the refugees.
In the first evacuation camp at a gymnasium in Kawauchi-mura, one cup noodle was sometimes the only meal for two people and even further we were told to reuse the cup after cleaning.
Even one month in evacuation, meals are more or less the same with no consideration of balanced nutrition: very little protein. Out-of-date products of sweet buns were not rare in recent days. Upon our protests, we got today sweet buns for use-by date In response to our omplaints, volunteer distributors surprised us by saying, “You are treated better. There are many other people at other evacuation camps in inferior conditions”
Many neighbor refugees are quietly taking their meals distributed. They seem to have forgotten any expectations. Since long-lasting meal conditions like this will cause health problems, I submitted an opinion to the town emergency headquarters and requested them to launch a system of improving mal-nutrition as in the school catering under nutritionist control.
I also requested in writing the Prefectural Headquarters for urgent improvement, but in vain.There are a couple of local restaurants and supermarkets with plenty of foods in Koriyama-city. Some refugees get foods there, if they have money and a car.

5. Shopping for daily needs

The Big Palette is located along the trunk road Highway 4, a fairly busy street with car shops, DIY centers, housing exhibits, home electric appliance shops and others. In ten minutes, we can drive to Koriyama-city, where the busiest shopping mall in Fukushima Prefecture is. Many shops were closed immediately after the quake. Even at the open supermarkets, the commodities were very limited. Elderly people and those with no cars could not visit the shops even across the Highway 4. Several taxis are standing at the Big Palette, but no clients. No sales in the Big Palette. Local newspapers are placed at the
receptionist for free. Nothing distributed is priced.