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Asahi: Multiple hospitals refuse to treat man who evacuated elderly from highly radioactive area — “Physical condition gradually deteriorated” — Maxed out radiation detector

Published: March 13th, 2012 at 5:08 pm ET
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Title: Hometowns are distant memories for Fukushima evacuees
Source: AJW by The Asahi Shimbun
Author: Compiled from reports by Naoko Kawamura and Takayuki Kihara
Date: March 13, 2012

[... 58 year old Midori] Eda, who has been using a wheelchair for more than a decade, and her mother, Chizuko Kuwahara, who recently underwent surgery for breast cancer, now live in Tokyo, far from their home in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, near the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Like so many others, their evacuation and ordeal began on March 12 last year, after a hydrogen explosion occurred at the No. 1 reactor building of the plant.

A year after the explosion, the evacuees continue to struggle in their unfamiliar surroundings, some gripped with fear [?] that they were exposed to high doses of radiation in the early stages of the crisis. [...]

Fear or Reality?

Norio Kanno, 53, from Namie, was helping patients leave Futaba Kosei Hospital, where Kuwahara had been staying, when the first hydrogen explosion occurred.

On March 11, his house was washed away by the tsunami. The next day, he carried his 89-year-old blind mother from an evacuation center to Futaba Kosei Hospital [...]

Two days later, people wearing yellow protective clothing closed off the facility and measured the radiation levels of all the people there.

The radiation from Kanno’s shoes sent the hand on the measuring equipment to the maximum figure. He was instructed to abandon his shoes.

The person measured the radiation level of Kanno’s body, and said, “No problem.”

However, Kanno remembered that in the dust whipped up by the helicopters, he had walked between the school building and the playground four or five times without wearing a mask.

As his concerns grew about his exposure to radiation, his physical condition gradually deteriorated and he had difficulties sleeping.

His acquaintance tried to encourage him by saying, “You have no problems because you were not exposed to radiation.”

However, Kanno believes he must have inhaled radioactive materials in the school playground.

He asked hospitals in and out of Fukushima Prefecture for medical checkups. However, his requests were rejected.

Read the report here

Published: March 13th, 2012 at 5:08 pm ET
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31 comments

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March 13th, 2012 | Category: Coverups?, Outside Tokyo
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31 comments to Asahi: Multiple hospitals refuse to treat man who evacuated elderly from highly radioactive area — “Physical condition gradually deteriorated” — Maxed out radiation detector

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