誰かが言わなきゃならない

1. Who is willing to spend his/her own money?!

Donations and compensation money are being provided soon. The people of the Big Palette look forward to receiving them. Workers of medium and small local firms, shopkeepers,part-time workers, they lost all income sources in March and April, and even longer unless a job can be found here. Some of double-income couples have lost both sources. Some people might have dipped into their savings. Nobody here is willing to use their own money.
Some are in a difficulty for the redemption of the house loan, for instance the big firm employees or aged pensioners. Nobody is certain what compensation money will be paid, and what future life waits ahead for them. Everybody wants to cut their daily expenditures. We are not happy with simple meals repeated with bread or omusubi, but that does not mean anybody of us dine out on their own money.
A kind of discrimination feeling also exists among the people here. Those who could go to a hotel or ryokan for stay get US$50 daily and enjoy their life. On
the contrary, we here … Certainly we have to pay for food and utilities, but the life here is not what we were willing to live. I don’t want to spend even a penny of my own.

2. Free legal advice

The Fukushima Bar Association operates an ad-hoc office in the Big Palette for free legal advice. Not many visitors, though. The consultants have not much to do, so it seems. According to them, consultations are mostly concerned with compensation. The biggest interest is what will be compensated, especially
whether the houses and the land in Tomioka-cho would be compensated.
- Will TEPCO or the government buy the house and the land?
- Are we compensated for the loss? Their price is far down after the accident.
We lose a lot even if we want to sell them and move to other settlement.
- Even if we decide to return, their values to succeed by children drops. Is it compensated?
- We can’t live in our newly built house. Our financial and mental burden is compensated?
- What about the mental fears against radiation and the stresses of evacuation life?
But these are what the lawyers cannot give specific and clear advice. One difficulty will be how the value reduction can be assessed based on what?
A lawyer pointed that the amount of damage cannot be fixed until all issues can be made clear. If so, it will take years before we can submit our request of compensation. A current concern is that some money is automatically debited from the bank account.
The lawyer’s advice was: Leave zero in the account, because the payment of disaster victims is authorized to delay.3. Schedule follow-up chart, please
TEPCO issued yesterday a blue print of accident termination schedules. Now we can have an image of time horizon for future.
The important thing from now is to follow the development and record the progress on the chart. By doing so, everybody can grasp the current situation and take necessary actions to meet the schedule. An example is a meal issue of the Big Palette. No significant improvement is being done in our one-month evacuation life. If the improvement plan is shown on a chart and followed
constantly, it would be done sooner or later before long. This helps us foreseeing the improvement and calming down our frustration.