The Yomiuri Shimbun
Verbal abuse and other forms of harassment have added to the psychological burden of evacuees from areas around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, as rumors continue to stoke radiation fears.
Experts called the rumors groundless and urged the public to behave calmly.
In one case, a primary school boy from Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, who had transferred to a school in Chiba Prefecture was asked by a teacher at the new school, "Are you going to keep it secret that you come from Fukushima Prefecture?"
The boy's mother, who had accompanied her son to the school, did not understand what the teacher meant, and said there was no need to do so. The boy then took a seat in front of the teacher's desk but no one sat next to him.
A primary school girl, who evacuated from Minami-Soma to Gunma Prefecture, is refusing to go to school after her new classmates at a Gunma school would not go near her and made nasty remarks behind her back.
Funabashi city's board of education in Chiba Prefecture reportedly was informed of a case in which local children in a park said that radiation would be passed onto them by boys from Minami-Soma.
The education board has issued a notice to local primary and middle schools, calling on them to encourage children to think of the feelings of evacuees.
A transportation company in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, has been asked by its clients not to use trucks with Iwaki license plates because of radiation leaks at the nuclear plant.
The company has been forced to rent trucks in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture and transship goods.
"If our clients ask us not to come into their areas with Iwaki license plates we have no choice but to comply," the 61-year-old company president said. "It's so unreasonable."
A Saitama Prefecture-based company that has a factory in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, asked employees to use Saitama Prefecture license plates after an employee driving a car with Fukushima plates was turned away from gas stations in the Tokyo metropolitan area and elsewhere.
The Tsukuba municipal government in Ibaraki Prefecture reportedly asked people moving from Fukushima Prefecture to submit official documents that show they had undergone radiation screenings. After this came to light, the city government dropped the requirement and the city's mayor apologized.
After the Kawasaki municipal government expressed its intention to accept waste materials from Fukushima Prefecture generated in the aftermath of last month's earthquake and tsunami, it received nearly 5,000 complaints from local residents fearing the waste would be contaminated with radioactive substances.
Tamotsu Nomura, a senior official of the Radiation Effects Association, said: "[These] harmful rumors are totally groundless from a scientific viewpoint. The situation in which not only children but also adults are overreacting is unusual."
(Apr. 22, 2011)
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