Regarding the Oct. 27 front-page article "Cesium still high in Fukushima fish," I can't express my anger, disappointment and sadness in words. How could the government — the series of Liberal Democratic Party administrations, and all the electric power companies of this country — have ever pushed on with the nuclear industry to this point?
The article begins with the most scary sentence: "Radioactive cesium levels in most kinds of fish caught off the coast of Fukushima haven't declined in the year since the nuclear disaster started, a signal that the sea floor or leakage from the damaged reactors is continuing to contaminate the waters — possibly threatening fisheries for decades, a researcher says."
I believe nothing is more abominable, more dangerous, than nuclear power plants. I remember some commentators and scholars saying in The Japan Times that nuclear energy is safe and hasn't killed a single person, while coal mines have killed so many people. But we know that some workers died as a result of exposure to high levels of radioactivity while working at the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima.
So many people in Fukushima had to leave their homes and farms that their ancestors had left to them. The vegetables and rice they had raised couldn't be sold. The dairymen couldn't sell their milk. The fish they catch are contaminated with high radioactive cesium levels. And what about the contaminated water leaking from the reactors? It must be seeping into the ground water.
Nuclear energy can never coexist with humanity.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.