Mommy please don't let me die.

I live just 110 km from the crippled nuclear power station in Japan.

Last summer, I decided to visit the town of Minamisoma, which is about 24 km from the nuclear plant – half the town is a no-go zone.

I left my house early, driving through the paddy fields where the farmers were harvesting the rice – a telltale sign that the unbearable summer heat would soon flee and a much more pleasant autumn would take its place.

I drove through villages that had been evacuated.  The once fertile farmland was now 

lined with blue sacks, filled with radioactive topsoil that had been removed in the naive hope of decontaminating the area.

I visited the house of one of the town politicians.  He had evacuated his wife and two daughters to another prefecture and was living alone.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“We are living in a nuclear nightmare,” he replied.

“What is the government doing about it?”

He looked at me a long moment and then shrugged. “Not much ... it’s still spewing out 10,000,000Bq of radiation every hour, everyday.  Best we go indoors."

Later he took me to the house of an old couple.  They had prepared a beautiful lunch – fish, rice, salad and fruit.  I thought it rude to ask where it came from – so I didn’t.

After lunch I had a chance to ask a few questions.

“Do you feel the government and Power Company are compensating you adequately?”

“No at all!" the wife snapped.

“Calm down!” her husband said.

“What do you mean?" she said, glaring at him.  “People have a right to know what's really happening!"

A tense silence followed.

“She’s right,' her husband sighed at last.  “We've been abandoned.”

“Worse than that,' his wife added.  "We're being treated like damn guinea pigs!”

“Why don’t you leave?” I asked.

"We've got nowhere to go.  We've lived here all our lives.  We're farmers.  The land is our lifeblood."

“Has the decontamination work been effective?” I asked.

“No!  They take off the topsoil and the wind blows in more.  I've not had a good night’s sleep since the accident.  The power station is just over the hill.  It could release 30 times more radiation than Chernobyl.”

She slid the door open and a hot breeze blew in.

“The Number Four reactor building is badly damaged," she said, pointing in the direction.  "It’s leaning to the side.  Engineers say it will collapse if there is another 6.5 quake.  And then the spent fuel pool will drain and catch fire.”

I felt a sense of panic.  “Are you kidding?”

“No,"

“What are they doing about it?”

“Not much,” her husband said.  "They lie continuously - try to tell us no one has died.  People are dying of leukaemia, heart disease and lung cancer.  60 % of the kids have lumps in their thyroids. I'll show you."

We went to a  neighbour's house.

A couple, in their mid-thirties, bowed politely and ushered me into a small bedroom where their teenage daughter sat next to a bed stroking her younger sister’s bald head.

“Cancer,” said the mother.

I moved closer and saw a frail body – no more than skeleton covered by skin.  Next to her bed was a pencil sketch of hills and flowers – a spring scene I guessed – at the top was written, Mommy Don’t Let Me Die.

“She’s sleeping,” said her sister.

We went back to the living room and sat there.

“I will never get married!” the sister blurted.  “No one will marry a girl from Fukushima!”

No one spoke.

“Even if I get married, I would never have a baby.  I would never put a child through what has happened to my sister.  Why doesn’t anyone do something about it?"

I left Minamisoma at sunset.  The sky was awash with the warm glow of dusk.  The hills were a vibrant green.  The countryside was so beautiful – but toxic with an invisible poison.

I’m back in Australia now – and you know what?

I feel guilty! I feel like I've abandoned the kids of Fukushima.

But yesterday my Christmases wish came true - I received an email saying that the girl who'd had cancer is recovering and is expected to fully recover.

I'm going back in March to see if there is anything I can do.  As an individual, I can't do much.  But individual contributions add up and I'll work on the principle that every little bit helps.

And now I am back in Japan! March 6th. 2014