取り急ぎのご報告大熊町で犬猫と暮らしていた、川越さんのお話。

2012年04月25日

Mrs. Kawagoshi – A cat owner

I lived in Okuma-cho, 4km away from the crippled nuclear power plant, when the great earthquake happened. My family had a miniature Dachshund and 16 cats in the house.
 
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March 11, 2011. I was on my way from Iwaki with my husband, when our youngest daughter called me from home. She was shouting on the other side of the phone. As I asked her, “What’s going on?” and barely heard the word “earthquake,” my husband who was driving also yelled, “Earthquake!!” The road swelled in front of our eyes and cracks were growing. From my phone, I could hear the sound of furniture falling down and dishes breaking, as well as my daughter’s cries. We held onto the phone and waited for the quake to stop. It was a long, long time. Thinking how terrible it was, we got home in two hours, where usually it took only 40 minutes. When we got home, our oldest son and the daughter were standing outside. My daughter was holding a carry case full of cats in one hand and our dog Cheese in the other hand, looking like she would start crying. That night, we went to the refugees’ shelter taking only Cheese with us, and my husband and I slept in the car with the dog.

Next morning. We saw many police vehicles driving toward the power plant. Many buses from Ibaraki Transportation Company came into the refugees’ shelter. When we went home wondering what was going on, the local firefighting team told us that the town was instructed to evacuate. We were told to hurry to the town office, so we collected 3-day worth clothes, towels and blankets. When I said, “Let’s go!” my daughter asked, “What about the cats?” I had to really think. If we took them to the evacuation shelter, they would have to be in the small carry case or in the car and would have a hard time even using toilet. It would be better to have them stay home if we could come home in a few days. That was my thought at that moment. For the time being, we left about one-week worth cat food and bathtub water in some pots, because water supply was dead, and left home saying to the cats, “We will come back soon.” Following the long line of cars, we finally arrived a shelter in a town about 30km away from the nuclear power plant, when we heard the news of the reactor explosion. I felt like I was thrown in the total darkness…I was so worried about our cats that we left at home and my daughter working as a caretaker at the hospital. She could not evacuate because there were many patients who they could not remove from the hospital.

In the morning of the 13th. A friend of mine emailed me and said, “Run away from Fukushima! It’s so dangerous there!!” My cousin was telling me to come to his place in Hokkaido. What should I do? My daughter was still left at work near the plant, my cats were left in my house, my son and the other daughter were right in front of me… every one of them was indispensible treasure for me. I had to protect them all. The next day, my daughter called me from her work. “The Self Defense Force is not coming here for rescue any more because the plant seems to explode again. We are deserted and forgotten. Mom, please take everyone with you and run away from here!” I got upset and said, “We can’t run away leaving you behind! I’ll go pick you up!” Although I said that in despair, the road to the town had been blocked by the police. If I went to Hokkaido, it would be difficult to come back for my daughter and cats. We thought Aizu would be closer from home and yet 100km away from the plant, and went to take refuge there. The next day, the Shizuoka Prefectural Police rescued my daughter and she joined us in Aizu.

Day after day, time passed at the shelter. News on the radio and TV convinced me that we had no hope to go back to the hometown. We left only one week worth of cat food. Most of our 16 cats had never gone outside of the house. Ten days after we left home, we started to give up hoping for survival of the cats, when we heard from my oldest son’s company that their factory in Saitama was ready to accept us there. Do we have to give up on our cats? But we have to think about safety of my own children too. I could not help thinking, even after we had decided to go to Saitama, that I wanted to rescue our cats, though we could not enter the town, so what I could do.

Two days before we were to leave for Saitama. The other son who was with us at the shelter said he was going back to Okuma. “I might be able to go through the police line if I don’t say that I’m going to Okuma. I’ll take the chance!” I said I would go with him too. I had no second thought. We were so determined. When we parked the car in front of our house, someone yelled, “There’s a cat!” Indeed, there was one behind the storage in front of our door. “That’s Touch!” “Hey, Touch!” We climbed off the car, yelling his name, but Touch ran away. We were wearing Tyvek coveralls, with only eyes showing from the protection suits. The cat was surprised to see our strange looking. But he was alive! We entered the house, calling the names of each cat. But none of them showed up. It was a complete silence. As we nervously entered the living room, we saw four dead kittens that were one month old when we left them. Oh, I’m sorry….I’m sorry… I felt numbness in my whole body. There was shed fur and someone’s blood etc. showing that cats fought each other. My legs trembled from indescribable regret that I left our cats behind. We could not stay there for a long time, so we collected our valuables, opened up cat food bags and filled pots and bowls with bottled water that we brought, crying. We left home, turning back again and again.

How are the cats doing? Were they able to eat the cat food we left in the house? Why could I leave them behind? Everyday, even after we came to Saitama, I shed my tears thinking about them. We came to know that there were organizations that rescued left-behind pets, so we searched for our cats in their webpages and shelters, but we could not find any of ours. We made a list of our cats, and sent it to the prefectural office and rescue volunteer groups, as well as displaying it on our front door. But we got no information.

In September, we entered the exclusion zone with the temporary permission and looked for our cats around the house, then we saw Milk. But she ran away the moment we tried to approach her. My son living in Aizu often went to the town and dropped by our house to supply cat food there. However, the town will be completely blocked soon, then we can’t deliver food any more. I felt so helpless, but my tears had dried up. If only I had taken them with us when my daughter had put the cats in the carry case! I made a terrible mistake that I could never mend. Why did I leave them behind? I could only blame myself.

What could I do? I was so desperate that I called TEPCO for answers. “Please save my cats that are like my own children.” But their reply was, “Please write the claim in the ‘other’ section in your compensation claim application form.” I thought I heard it wrong, and asked again, but got the same answer. “Please claim them in the ‘other’ section in your compensation claim application form.” I got boiled up and said, “So, how much are you going to pay for the lives of my cats? Can you pay me as much as I would be satisfied? I won’t be satisfied even if you pay me 100 million yen per cat!” The person on the phone had no word to talk back. “I’m not asking for money. You TEPCO people go rescue our pets that are still there.” Now the person only repeated business-like apologies. My husband, who were seeing me cry everyday, finally called TEPCO too. “Save our cats.” The person on the phone said, “I understand your feelings because I have a cat too.” My husband said, “Well, then, don’t feed your cat for months. Do you really understand our feelings?” The other end of the telephone line fell silent.

When the entire family almost gave up, my husband’s phone rang. It was from one of the volunteer rescue people. She saw our list of cats and set a cat trap in our house, then found a cat looking like our Pan trapped. I immediately called my son who happened to be visiting Iwaki and had him meet her. My heart beat so hard. My son called me soon. “It’s Pan for sure!” and I could hear Pan’s familiar meowing along with my son’s voice. My family got so cheerful and excited. We saw Pan for the first time in seven months, and he looked surprisingly plump. We understood that Pan survived, well fed by the volunteer people. The reunion with Pan was the first light of hope shining into our home after the great earthquake. Soon after that, the volunteer group rescued Forte and Otto. Another animal protection group rescued Milk. However, we could not keep them in our shelter home in an apartment. We asked the town office for advice, but they said, “First of all, their rescue operations are illegal. Ask the volunteer people if they could keep your cats or find foster families.” We asked the prefectural office, but they also rejected saying, “We can save pets that are still in the exclusion area, but we cannot keep ones that have been taken out of the area by volunteers or pet owners.” I begged and said, “Governments of the country, prefecture or town don’t do anything to help us. Only people who are sincere and kind to us are volunteers. But such individuals cannot take care of all the suffering pets in the area. Please help!” But I got no answer from them either.

Day-trips to our houses in the area by car became permitted and we visited our house in our car. We could see that some cats lived around our house and that volunteer people were leaving cat food once in a while too. We felt relieved a little, though we could not see our cats in sight, and looked around the house for our cats, when we saw something like a dead cat near there. I felt uneasy. I approached it nervously, and found out it was our Mike-chan …she was eight months old when we had to leave home and she had never gone outside. Mike had grown and become a little plump. Maybe she was run over by a car. She looked hurting and the blood was still fresh. The accident must have been just a little while ago. Only if I had come half a day earlier… tears ran down my cheeks. My husband moved her body to the edge of the road, so that no more car would run it over. It was best we could do at the time. “I’m so sorry, it must have hurt so much. It must have been so scary. You didn’t know how scary cars were because you had never seen one before. After all, you survived this long, though you did not know how to survive without being fed in the house.” I can never forget her dead face for the rest of my life.

The new year came and in February. We visited home for the third time by official permission. It felt strange. We did not see a dog or a cat on our way there. It didn’t seem that the cats were coming in the house. Have they moved, thinking their family was not coming home any more? Have they all died? We even have no way of knowing such things.

Out of our sixteen cats, four were rescued, we found five dead bodies, but there are still seven cats somewhere. Even just for one week, we want to stay home in Okuma and wait for our cats. We want to see our cats before our town is completely blocked out. This is my family’s wish.

At the end of my speech, I would like to sincerely express my thanks to the volunteer groups who are trying to help those deserted pets for more than a year. Your kindness is helping us stay hopeful. 

Also, I greatly appreciate that you set up this ceremony for the animals that sadly lost their lives. Thank you very much.




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取り急ぎのご報告大熊町で犬猫と暮らしていた、川越さんのお話。