3.10 - a manager who watched the dragon thought never exist -

(oil painting on wood panel, collage. 117×91cm × 3 pieces. 2016)

 

“” When the construction group of TEPCO asked the experts of the construction academic meeting,

they spoked that the estimated tsunami height was more than 10 meters in Fukushima.

What was your impression hearing that at first ?”

Mr. Yoshida “ that was ‘Wow.’ When I joined the company, the largest tsunami was said to be the Chilean tsunami.

It’s about three meters height.

10 meters sounded pretty strange to me.

‘ 10 meter? Is this true?’”

(source : Japanese news paper Sankei- shinbun. From Extract of” Yoshida’s Record No,9” )

 

On July 9, 2013, Masao Yoshida died.

He was the head of the Fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant at the time of the 3.11 disaster,

58 years old.

It is said that the cause of death was esophageal cancer.

Many sentences were written about him.

Interviews were also opened to the public by the government accident bureau.

Fragmental movie recording of him also have been on broadcast,

and the amount of information about him has become huge.

Among such vast amounts of information,

what emerges commonly is that he thought to die.

After nuclear reactors had entered into critical situation and finally exploded repeatedly,

he thought to commit Harakiri suicide.

As I looked into him,

I could see in him that the 3.11 earthquake and the tsunami were something as “ something which will never come truly .”

(reactor design of BWR Marl-1 by GE : same type of reactor No.1 of Fukushima)

 

Huge earthquake and tsunami that hit the Tohoku coast.

In 1986,

Koji Minoura , a geology professor at Tohoku University,

conducted a 1.5 meter boring survey on a fallow field in Sendai Plain.

As he look watched strata pulled out in 1.5 meters height of cylindrical shape,

there was a layer of sea sand mixed with them.

As the survey unfolded into inland areas,

the sandy layer became thinner as it get far from the sea.

According to the survey,

the layer was identified the layer of the Jougan tsunami in 869.

Article about the survey in 1991 appeared in the science journal THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY.

 

Tsunami Sediment.

Among the dug-up layers,

there were sandy layers besides those of Jougan Tsunami.

By the age measurement watching old records of the tsunami previously described in the old folk tales,

biography and ancient literature in this survey,

it was found that the age errors were within five years.

In 2004,

the Niigata Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake,

which measured the maximum seismic intensity of seven, occurred.

In response to this,

the nuclear power industry found the need to re-evaluate the risks of earthquakes and tsunamis at each power plants.

In this trend,

the earthquake and tsunami response division was established in TEPCO.

Yoshida Masaro was inaugurated as the first manager.

About six months later,

in July,

the Niigata Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake, which recorded a seismic intensity of six or more,

occurred again.

At the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant of TEPCO a fire broke out and all of the reactors went into an emergency automatic shutdown.

TEPCO’s income and expenditure statement by 2010,

states that the suspension of operations at this time had deteriorated to the next year.

 

When I moved my eyes to other power plants,

the Tohoku Electric Power Company’s Onagawa nuclear power plant had been taking new measures against tsunami at this time.

The height of tsunami they estimated was based on the results of Minoura’s study.

But

TEPCO did not take any action to deal with the problem.

This attitude was also questioned by national experts,

and in 2000 Masaro Yoshida received a salary reduction of 5 percent per month.

I introduced his perception at that time.

From 2010 the following year,

Yoshida was inaugurated as the chief of the Fukushima daiichi,

also experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear accident on March 11, 2011.

 

It surprised me that only 1.5 meter excavation shows stratum of 869 years.

The ground is deeper.

If you dig up more,

you’ll find many unnamed traces.

Even when human being had not yet appeared,

the earth was already there,

and although it was quite different rhythm from human life,

the ground moved quite often,

and the waves came on the land.

The plant which exploded at first in Fukushima disaster was the oldest reactor No.1.

It built in 1966, stared to make electricity in 1971.

This was about 15 years ago when professor Minoura conducted survey.

It means that description about Tsunami existed in just only in old folk tales.

In this folk tale a monster who got killed finally by people tells only a young girl about Tsunami will come

because just only this girl treated the monster kindly.

 

What was built in Fukushima was nuclear power plant,

it generates electricity by using chain reaction of uranium.

Uranium,

the radioactive material that had used to be contained in the atomic bomb

which felt to Hiroshima and vanished so many people.

 

 

It seems like a dragon exists at the bottom of the earth in this country.

The dragon moves very slowly as if it did not exist from a human perspective,

but sometimes wakes up and turns over.

This dragon lived in a deep place from ancient times.

I feel like Mr. Yoshida was the man who watched the power of this dragon that he had thought something fantasy.

But it forced him to think Harakiri suicide.

This was 3.11.

 

As of 2018,

if there is the spirit of Mr. Yoshida,

as some nuclear power plants has started it’s re-operating in various parts of Japan,

he may tell about this dragon, Tsunami and huge earthquake to other living plant managers as he used to be.

Though he couldn’t say it while he was alive.

 

By the way,

I learned something after I painted this dragon.

In Japan,

there used to be a custom of drawing dragon when big earthquake occurred.

In this painting the dragon was drawn in a circle,

and old style map of the Japanese island painted inside of the circled dragon.

Like a calender,

what people should pay attention in each 12 months were written,

for example in December for fire we shall pay attention to in winter.

And also a Japanese short poetry was added to the more prominent part.

 

If it shakes

Never be moved Core stone

Unless god of Kashima

Vanished away

Each of Kashima and Katori shrines have core stone named Kaname-ishi,

which was believed to penetrate through the ground and penetrate a huge dragon-like existence’s head and tale not to move.

This dragon sometimes moves and shakes the ground.

This poetry was also written on a piece of paper and hung at the entrance to protect people against the earthquake.

The oldest one of this dragon paint called Tatsu-e : the Dragon Picture,

is of 1100’s of the Kamakura period.

And other is from the 1600’s.

Without knowing I had painted dragon as huge earth quake.

The act of painting sometimes involves this kind of discovery.

 

(Tatsu-e : dragon paintings was Japanese habitual expression when big earth quake happened.

left 1198, center 1624, right 1854)

( text : Akira Tsuboi )