It was fear for the health of his two-month-old baby Marlon that made Christian Skott flee his home in Sendai amid conflicting reports of radiation danger from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.
“That was our main concern – whether there was any radiation in the food, in the water,” Skott said in an interview from Yamaguchi. He and his family are staying with relatives there after being bused to Tokyo by the Canadian government, and then heading another four hours south on a bullet train.
“We had to wait in long lines for food so if there was any exposure to us, we didn’t want to put our daughter in danger.
“Yamaguchi is much, much safer. We are very far south here and of course no exports of food from those areas [near the power plant] are coming down here.”
Skott, who is from Richmond and graduated from Steveston high school, has been teaching English in Japan, where he lives with his wife Miyuki and their daughter.
Even so far from Fukushima, the couple are taking no chances. Skott said he drinks tap water there, but his wife, who is breastfeeding, drinks only bottled water.
Skott said it was worrying to hear conflicting reports about the risk from the power plant.
“I know there is a large level of frustration.” He said he understands the government doesn’t want people to panic, but the pace of information is slow.
“People have a little bit of distrust for the government,” he said. “They don’t trust them, they are frustrated with the slow time and the gap in receiving information.”
People are hoarding items, exacerbating difficulties for people in the stricken area, according to Skott.
“What people are most frustrated now about is there is no gasoline,” he said. “And in Tokyo people are hoarding a lot of things that could be a great relief to the people who really need it.
“A lot of people want to go and look for family members but they have no gasoline to do that.”
Skott is on unpaid leave from the school where he teaches, although the school is operating at a limited capacity.
“They are still trying to contact hundreds of students,” he said.
Skott fears the first student he taught when he started working in Japan at a school north of Sendai is among the victims of the earthquake and tsunami.
“She is a lovely lady,” he said. “We haven’t been able to find her and both of the shops she had there are gone.”
Another Canadian, Geoff Shakespeare, is in Tokyo with his wife and three-year-old daughter, where some items are in short supply.
“I know they are telling them not to drink tap water,” said Geoff’s father John Shakespeare. “Fresh veggies are getting iffy, spinach is definitely out.
“They are saying milk is getting kind of dicey. There is a shortage of it and then they are worried about irradiation. Milk is one of the first things to be affected.”
The family wants to leave Tokyo to come back to Vancouver but they are awaiting a visa for Geoff’s wife that she applied for last November.
Skott said he hopes people in Vancouver will continue to support Japanese relief efforts, including a Vancouver Japan Relief Walk of Hope being held April 3. For details, search on Facebook for Vancouver Japan Relief Walk of Hope.
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