SOS from Mayor of Minami Soma City, next to the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, Japan
事故が発生した福島原発に隣接している相馬市の市長からの救援を求める声
Message from the Mayor of Minami-Soma City; filmed on March 24, 2011. The mayor himself talks of how the city lacks supplies and how there are no means to deliver the supplies to the citizens evacuating at home.
南相馬市長からのメッセージ（2011年3月24日撮影）。南相馬市では物資が不足していること、届いた物資を自宅退避している住民へ宅配する手段がないことなどについて、市長自ら切々と語ってます。
＊＊＊＊＊
This is Katsunobu Sakurai, the mayor of Minami-soma city.
The 3.11 earthquake and Tsunami, and series of developing accidents at Fukushima First Nuclear Power Plant has severely damaged our city.
I would like to thank all of those who have offered help, including overseas media.
However there are still substantial lack of supplies in this area, wich is 20-30km from the plant, for the government has set the measure to stay indoors.
And with the scarce information we can gather from the government or TEPCO, we are left isolated.
The people of Minami-soma city concluded and are practicing voluntary evacuation, and city administration is providing the support for this move.
The number of remaining citizen at the moment however is as much as 20.000.
We take full responsibility for livelihood support for these people. I regret to say, inspite of our effort, that we are facing the difficulty of even distributing necessary goods.
Please support us. The protection measure to stay indoors issued by the government restricted our logistics.
We ask for your help, volunteers, we need help to transport supplies, but we must depend on volunteers who could act at their own risk, because of the measures to remain indoors issued by the government.
Most media too, almost all, is gathering infomation over the phone. If they do not step in this area and get the direct infomation, they could never get or tell what really is the situaion with these people.
We would urge them to come here and witness what is developing here.
Since the measure to remain indoors has been taken, all the stores and supermarkets are shut down, the banks are closed, the people are literally drying up as if they are under starvation tactics.
And petrol is not enough, it is getting harder for us to evacuate. We would like to ask for gas and petroleum-based fuel as well.
We counted 14days from the earthquake, basic requisite materials are running short in the homes of remaining citizen.
But we do not have enough petrol to reach them. We ask for volunteers who could bring in the petrol.
Local officials are now fighting the threat of radiation, they have been working to protect the citizen in such a strain and exhaustion.
Some of them lost their family in the earthquake disaster, and some lost their houses. They are the backbones of the lives of the citizens.
I am hoping that the volunteers could share the burdens they are handling. Please give your support to get over this extream difficulty together.
MInami-soma city is in the district that holds 1,000 years of great Samurai tradition, namely Soma-Nomaoi-Festival.
It was totally beyond imagination, that the tsunami reached 20 meters high. It has washed the whole area of 20-by-2.5km land. All residences in that area was totally devastated.
Yet we could hardly get our hands on searching the missing. We have counted 253 bodies dead and 1,260 are missing, and now we are facing the nuclear power plant accident.
People in 10km reach from the nuclear plant evacuated, and in 20km reach evacuation is done, and here in 30km reach people are told to stay in the house.
Many people here are left without transportation. They can hardly get any supplies delivered to their homes.
We regret to say this, but we have to ask volunteers to act at their own risk.
What it means is that our outdoor activity is restricted under the government’s measure to stay indoors.
Fortunately in Minami-soma city is marking the relatively low level of radiation, considering it is only 25km away from the plant, 1.5 to 3.0 micro Sievert/hour at the moment.
While in some areas, more distant from the plant than here, the radiation detected is 3 times more or even 10 times.
The level of radioavtive materials in tap water is shifting at low level and it is far from “polluted”.
Before the contamination expands further, please give us your hand to help these people.
I, and local officials are here to protect lives of the citizen. Please help us through.
Furthermore, about 50,000 people have already evacuated from the city to all over the country. We have very little access to these people at the moment.
We must provide support to these people as well but for the time being we depend upn officials at local governments.
In fact we do not have the track of how many citizens evacuated where, it could be more than hundred places.
Please help to encourage them and keep them informed that we are unified, and doing all that is possible to help our citizen and to the reconstruction of the city.
I would like to ask medias of over the world for support, as well as reporting the earthquake and Tsunami disaster, that we are fighting against the invisible threat of radiation and contamination.
Here is my sincere request to you, from all over the world, I beg you as the mayor of Minami-soma city, to help us.
Helping each other is what makes us human being. I would like to ask for your continuous support. Thank you.
＊＊＊＊＊＊ 南相馬市公式ホームページより
http://www.city.minamisoma.lg.jp/shinsai2/message.jsp
市長からのメッセージ （最終更新日：平成23年3月29日）
南相馬市民の皆さんへ
3 月11 日に起こった大地震と大津波によって、南相馬市は海岸沿いに暮らしている市民をはじめとして多くの市民が犠牲になりました。
約1800 世帯が破壊され、今日現在、301 人が亡くなり、1180 人ほどが行方不明のままです。家族を亡 くしても捜索もままならない不幸な状況が続いています。
その直接の原因は、地震、津波でありますが、それに追い打ちをかけたのが福島第一原子力発電所の事故と風評被害であり、そのために市民はチリジリバラバラになってしまいました。
事故後、国からは、原発から20ｋｍ圏外への退避指示（小高区と原町区の太田、大甕地区の一部）、20ｋｍから30ｋｍ圏内の市民（原町区と鹿島区の一部）は屋内退避の指示が出されました。（鹿島区の30ｋｍ圏外も事実上同じ扱いです）
南相馬市を離れて避難されている市民の皆さんも、自宅に残っている市民の皆さんもそれぞれ大変な苦痛を強いられる結果になりました。
私は、南相馬市長として、東京電力、国、県に対し南相馬市民の命と暮らしを守ることを全責任で行ってもらうために全力で取り組んでまいります。
マスコミ等を通じてこの窮状を全国に訴え伝え、国に方針の転換と生活再建に向けた対策をさせるべく奮闘しています。
皆さんの苦痛なときが一刻も早く解消できるよう頑張ってまいりますので、今しばらくのご辛抱をお願いいたします。
市民の皆さんのご健康を祈っています。
追伸
今後とも市内の情報を発信して参ります。よろしくお願いいたします。
平成23年3月29日（火）
