le compte-rendu de l'article World presse

Sujet du devoir

Sinister silence in town that once celebrated life
Il faut faire le compte-rendu de l'article
cest un article americaine

Où j'en suis dans mon devoir

It used to be one of the liveliest places for cherry blossom parties but, after the Fukushima disaster, everyone has fled, RICHARD LLOYDPARRYwrites.

In any normal April – and normality seems like a lifetime ago – the cherry blossom avenue in Tomioka was one of the noisiest places in northern Japan.
‘‘It was so lively here during the festival,’’ Kazuyuki Takita said. ‘‘You could hardly get a car down here, there were that many people on the streets.’’
The roadside stalls sold fried noodles and octopus patties, and people sat out late at night drinking. The annual flowering of the cherry blossom is to Japan what Easter is to the Christian West, a celebration of the coming of spring and the brief victory of life over death. This year there is no festival and no crowds, and death has the upper hand.
The cherry trees are in bloom, forming a magnificent pink tunnel above the road – but the stalls and the merrymakers have gone. Crows caw in the trees, an abandoned dog darts across the road, and a helicopter can be heard in the direction of the Fukushima power station six kilometres away. For this is Japan’s evacuation zone, and this year the tens of thousands of visitors have dwindled to one – Takita, 32, a man so fanatical about the beauty of the cherry blossom that he is prepared to view them alone in a nuclear no-go area.
‘‘It’s the transience of the cherry blossoms, that’s what appeals to Japanese,’’ he said. ‘‘Of course, I’m concerned about the radiation, but I really did want to see them.’’
This was his last chance. This week, the Japanese Government announced that after turning a blind eye for a month and a half, it would begin to enforce the 20km evacuation zone around the Fukushima plant.
Starting at midnight last night, those who violate the ban are liable to be punished with a fine of up to 100,000 yen (NZ$1520) and 30 days in detention.
Residents will be allowed in under police escort, in protective suits and masks, and for no more than two hours at a time, although the inner 3km area will be completely off limits.
‘‘The state of the power station continues to be unstable,’’ government spokesman Yukio Edano said. ‘‘For residents, all I can say is I ask for their understanding so that no legal action will be taken against them.’’
It is difficult to understand why the government is doing this now. By its own account, the emissions of radiation are dwindling and even close to the plant levels are low. A team of three from The Times spent four hours in the 20km zone this week and, on being checked for radiation on the way out, our levels were well within safe limits.
Edano spoke of the need to protect property – although there have been no reports of significant looting. Perhaps the new policy has most to do with the embarrassment that the evacuation zone represents to the government: a direct challenge to its sovereignty, an area so unpredictable and out of control that it cannot even guarantee the safety of the water and the air.
A checkpoint marks the entry to the 20km zone but, until last night the police there took names and car registration numbers, but did not prevent anyone from entering. A trickle of vehicles passes through all day and their occupants fall into two categories.
The first are the men in white, who nip by in buses and minivans. Even inside their vehicles they wear the distinctive white suits and masks with filters, and go about a variety of tasks within the zone.
More interesting are the second kind of visitors, former residents of the evacuated area, 70,000 of whom abandoned it within a few days of the tsunami and explosions and the partial meltdown of the plant’s reactors. Until this week’s order, small groups could be seen passing through here – unhappy and anxious about the invisible poison in the air.
Miki Watanabe (not her real name), a former employee of the sister plant of Fukushima, returned with her mother-in-law to her home in Tomioka to retrieve valuables. They were dressed in plastic overalls, goggles and rubber gloves. They fled the day after the disaster, taking almost nothing with them; since then the family has been split between several evacuation centres, and the stress is taking its toll.
‘‘We always thought that the plant was built on strong soil, so that even if there was an earthquake, it wouldn’t matter,’’ Mrs Watanabe, 35, said. ‘‘Now people of my age don’t ever want to come back. But my mother-in-law is determined.’’
Once or twice an hour people like them can be glimpsed passing by in cars loaded with mattresses and suitcases. There have been stories of old people left behind, unassisted and unmissed, but with the eccentric exception of the blossom enthusiast Takita’s presence, everywhere is utterly deserted. Doors stand ajar, laundry hangs on washing lines and shoes lie in porches where they have been discarded in a hurry. A train stands on the tracks beside a ruined town where its passengers abandoned it.
Never has complete peace and quiet seemed so sinister. If there are ghosts they are not only of people who drowned but of animals. About 3000 cows, 30,000 pigs and 600,000 chickens have been abandoned in the zone, many of which have died of thirst or starvation. Farmers have pleaded to be allowed to destroy the creatures humanely.
‘‘I know each of these cows right down to their facial details and individual characteristics,’’ one 73-year-old farmer told a Japanese newspaper. ‘‘I don’t want to see them suffer.’’
Such requests have been refused on safety grounds.
The evacuation has caused an abundance of suffering. The most heartbreaking sight is that of scores of abandoned dogs, which patter around the towns forming loose and hungry packs. Their stillsleek coats show that these are not tough strays but pets, unsuited to the lonely arts of survival. In front of one house one dog barks a warning as we pass by. Tricycles lie abandoned behind him, the playthings of children who must have lived here. Who knows when, if ever, he will see them again.