Japan Press Weekly

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2011 August 3 - 16 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Fukushima farmers and fishers demand compensation

About 3,000 farmers and fishers from Fukushima converged on Tokyo on August 12 and urged TEPCO to swiftly make compensation payments for radiation contamination, standing in protest in front of the utility’s headquarters.

The main office of TEPCO is located in the Ginza district, where they marched in demonstration. The marchers were holding banners and placards that read “Give us back our nature-rich Fukushima!” or “Give us back our ocean, our lives!”

Carrying a placard reading, “Restore the devastated dairy farming land!”, a 60-year-old farmer said that now he has to spend 300,000 yen a month to buy imported hay to feed his cows since the contamination of local straw was revealed.

“We haven’t been able to fish even once since the nuclear accident,” said a wife of a fisher in Iwaki City.

Prior to the demonstration, the participants held a rally at Hibiya Amphitheater calling on the government and TEPCO to provide immediate compensation for their suffering.