The column series “Fukushima Kihyo” written by Ryoko Ando, Chairperson of the NPO, Fukushima Dialogue, is published in the Asahi Shimbun.
In the column dated March 6, she mentioned a community record book titled “To the Children One Hundred Years from Now”, which was created by the residents of Akougi district in Tsushima, Namie Town, Fukushima Prefecture — an area where the evacuation order has not yet been lifted. (The original text is in Japanese.)
Wishing to share this with as many evacuees as possible, we have made the article available for free on our website for a limited time of one month (until April 10).
We would appreciate it if you could help spread the word to others who might be interested.
That place is “almost heaven.” So goes the lyric of the beloved American country song, Take Me Home, Country Roads, which sings of the state of West Virginia, located in the eastern United States. Crisscrossed by the Appalachian Mountains, the state is known for its abundant nature and scenic mountain landscapes. In the southern region lies a coal mining area, developed from the mid-19th century onward. Yet, the beauty of the landscape is also a reflection of the land’s difficulty for development, and apart from the brief period when the coal industry flourished, the area has remained economically disadvantaged, a low-income region.
It was in a corner of this coal mining area, part of the vast Appalachian coalfield, that one of the most infamous disasters in American history — a flood caused not by nature, but by human hands — occurred in 1972. Upstream of a cluster of settlements along a narrow mountain valley river, there stood a massive dam, built from coal mining waste to hold back wastewater. When heavy rains caused the dam to collapse, a raging torrent swept down the valley, engulfing the settlements below. The ferocious flood took the lives of 125 people, destroyed most of the homes along the valley, and left 4,000 of the area’s 5,000 residents homeless. Most of the people who lived there depended on coal mining for their livelihoods.
A year after the disaster, sociologist Kai Erikson visited the site and documented, through numerous testimonies, the state of the residents — people reduced to mere shells of their former selves. This disaster is remembered not only for its sheer scale, but also because of Erikson’s book, Everything in Its Path, which left a lasting impact. In his work, Erikson went beyond the economic, human, and physical damage, or even the question of corporate negligence. Instead, he illuminated, through vast collections of data and personal accounts, what this catastrophe meant to the people who had lived there.
The book is largely composed of accounts of the disaster and its aftermath, told in the residents’ own words. But the first half of the book is dedicated to a long historical and regional analysis of Appalachia — a place left behind by the development of America. He describes the lives of the early settlers, who could be called either rugged pioneers or crude frontiersmen, the battles they fought to survive in a harsh environment, and the fragile harmony they built with nature. He recounts the unique human relationships forged in small, close-knit communities, and the dramatic — even violent — transformations brought about when capitalists, driven by the lure of underground wealth, came to develop the coal mines. After this tumultuous history, the residents believed they had finally achieved something resembling stable, if not affluent, lives. And then the disaster struck, sweeping away everything they had built.
If one were to list everything they lost, the catalogue would be endless — relationships with neighbors who had known their family histories for generations, homes they had built and maintained with their own hands, and a connection to the land so intimate they knew every inch of it like an extension of their own bodies. In Buffalo Creek, no one had to explain who they were. The people, the land, the climate, and the passage of time — all of it had seeped into their very being. When they lost all that, they simultaneously lost the very foundation that supported their sense of self. (It is worth noting that the psychologist who coined the concept of “identity,” Erik Erikson, was Kai Erikson’s father.)
The residents of Buffalo Creek eventually won a lawsuit against the mining company, in which Erikson also played a supporting role. But many of them left the area for good. It is easy to imagine that for not a few of them, the struggle to reclaim their identity became a long and arduous journey.
Last year, I received a hefty book, over 800 pages long. It was a record compiled by the residents of Akougi, a hamlet in Tsushima, Namie Town, Fukushima Prefecture — a place where evacuation orders have yet to be lifted since the nuclear disaster. The book, titled To Our Descendants One Hundred Years from Now, was produced by the people themselves. As I turned the weighty pages, my mind drifted back to Buffalo Creek. This book, like Erikson’s, begins by tracing the history of the region. It goes on to describe its geography, industries, customs, natural environment, local organizations, and cultural traditions. Each household that once lived there is introduced, with photos depicting the scenery around their homes in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The final section contains radiation measurement reports for all 88 households, recorded monthly over the ten years following the nuclear disaster. The radiation graphs, gradually declining over time, seem to symbolize the severed flow of time itself. A place where human life was once the main character is now governed by cold, impersonal numbers.
Beneath the title, inside the front cover, is a short message:
“Where did we come from? Where are we going?”
The words resonate with the chorus of the song mentioned at the beginning:
“Take me home, to the place I belong.”
Indeed, everything was once there.
Whether the cause is natural disaster or human-made calamity, when we suddenly lose the life we have known, we also lose a part of ourselves. And so, we are cast out onto an endless journey in search of what might fill that void — a long, long road toward finding once again the place where we belong, all the while carrying the question: Who am I?
Published on Thursday 6 March, 2025 Asahi-Shinbun