15 Years On: Ex-Teacher Shares Stories of Children Affected by Disaster

Futaba, Fukushima Pref., March 11 (Jiji Press)–Jun Izumita, a former elementary school teacher, recounts stories about the children who lost their lives in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, as well as those who endured hardships in the aftermath of the ensuing nuclear accident. Now 66, Izumita serves as a storyteller at the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in the town of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The museum welcomes more than 80,000 visitors each year. Izumita retired from teaching in 2020, the same year the memorial museum opened. Motivated by memories of the children who died in the disaster, he began working there as a storyteller. “I wanted to keep sharing their stories,” he says. Each of his sessions begins with 10 seconds of silent prayer. “If you would, please close your eyes with me and pray for the souls of the children who wanted to live but could not,” he tells participants. His presentation addresses a weighty subject, yet he moves through it with energy, displaying photographs and mementos as he speaks. “Imagine it: The shaking is so intense that you can’t stay on your feet unless you cling to a pillar,” he says. Even the children in the audience remain engaged, according to Izumita. Izumita also speaks about his former students who were forced to leave their hometowns after the nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and endure a prolonged period of group evacuation. Futaba, where the museum is located, is one of the municipalities that hosts the plant. He shares stories of elementary school children who evacuated from Futaba to Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo. One struggled to adjust to the new environment, freezing and crying at sudden loud noises. Another was unable to make new friends and eventually stopped attending school. Last year, Izumita began offering storytelling sessions in English for overseas group visitors, including those on study tours. At present, he is the only person at the museum serving in that role. Although he had never considered himself particularly skilled in foreign languages, he became interested when he learned that the number of international visitors to the museum was rising. He then applied for an English storytelling course organized by the Fukushima prefectural government. He had also grown frustrated by the limitations of relying on an interpreter, which often restricted how much could be conveyed within a fixed amount of time. At times, he wonders whether his message is truly getting across. Still, he senses that it is reaching people when visitors tell him things like: “I was moved. May I give you a hug?” “I realized that maybe I’m helping in some way. My heart raced a little, though,” Izumita says with a laugh. To better serve overseas visitors, who sometimes account for 10 pct of the museum’s monthly attendance, the prefectural government launched an English storytelling course in fiscal 2024 and began training staff. However, about 80 pct of the museum’s storytellers are 60 or older, and few are willing to take on the challenge of learning a new language. As a result, there is still no other English-language storyteller to follow in Izumita’s footsteps. Even now, there are some experiences he cannot bring himself to share, as he has yet to fully come to terms with his feelings. “I believe the most effective way to communicate is to speak about what was truly horrific, but I still can’t do that,” says Izumita, who continues his quiet struggle to confront the memories of the disaster. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]