Toshinori Shishido, a Japanese literature teacher of 25 years, had warned his students two months ago to wear surgical masks and keep their skin covered with long-sleeved shirts. His advice went unheeded, not because of the weather but because his school told him not to alarm students. Shishido quit this week.
“I want to get away from this situation where I’m not even allowed to alert children about radiation exposure,” said Shishido, a 48-year-old teacher who taught at Fukushima Nishi High School. “Now I’m free to talk about the risks.”
After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku region in Japan’s northeast, the central government evacuated as many as 470,000 residents, including 160,000 because of radiation risks from the crippled Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. More than 2 million residents including 271,000 children remain in Fukushima, Japan’s third-biggest prefecture by size.
The government is closely monitoring radiation levels, said Yoshiaki Ishida, an official at the Ministry of Education.
“We don’t think we are at a stage to tell Fukushima people to evacuate at this moment,” Ishida said.
Radiation can damage human cells and DNA, with prolonged exposure causing leukemia and other forms of cancer, according to the World Nuclear Association. Children are more susceptible as their cells grow at a faster rate.
“It’s all invisible.
The trees are still trees, people are shopping, the birds are singing and dogs are walking in the street,” said Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster’s school of biomedical sciences, who visited Fukushima prefecture last week to provide information on health risks.
“When you bring out the (Geiger) machines, you can see everything is sparkling and everyone is being bitten by invisible snakes that will eventually kill them.”
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