NUCLEAR COWS, Fukushima
After the tsunami came the meltdown. Fukushima 1 spewed its contaminated guts. The wind blew the mother-load north-east across the pristine mountains and fertile plains. The sleepy towns yawned as the cancerous neutrinos penetrated everything, skin, bone, brick and rock. The people evacuated. The livestock perished in their pens waiting to be fed. The government called for a cull. Yoshizawa defied them. He promised his beloved herd some dignity; to live and die naturally. Thus, the kamikaze rancher was born in dutiful despair.
The urge for life moves the cattle on, it moves us too. We build again, remake our lives. It’s the curse of hope inside us all. But, so many communities are still at risk. The power stations are being turned back on as the demons growl in the bowels of the earth, waiting to hurl the hot rocks this way and that, to shake the plates.
How can we forget the catastrophic errors of the past? The bright neon lights of Shibuya were powered by the Fukushima reactors, the same reactors that buried this ranch in an invisible, deadly snow. If the story remains untold, the seeds of a safer future will be like cattle corpses buried deep in the frozen, irradiated earth – an impotent, unknown relic
If you are interested, you can find out more from articles written by locals, here. Or visit the Ranch of Hope website.