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The first stop on Saturday 14 May, was the city of Fukushima, with 220.000 inhabitants, situated about 60 km to the west of the atomic power station seriously damaged following the tsunami. In the city radioactivity is very high (1,6 sievert) and the people who are trying to restrict their movements as much as possible when they are forced to leave their homes always wear a mask.
On Sunday 15 May, Fr Yamanouchi went to Shiogama – about 100 km from Fukushima – where he said Mass and met the Salesian Brother Francis Fukagawa, sent by the Japanese Provincial Fr Aldo Cipriani, with the task of collaborating with the diocese of Sendai coordinating and supporting the volunteers who have been coming from all over the country to help the people.
In the evening Fr Yamanouchi joined in the visit of Cardinal Robert Sarah, President of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, sent to Japan by the Pope to bring his affection and close support to the people. Accompanied also by the Nuncio Apostolic in Japan Archbishop Alberto Bottari and the Bishop of the diocese of Sendai, Bishop Martino Hiraga Tetsuo, various priests and lay people Cardinal Sarah went to some of the areas of the diocese most affected by the earthquake on 11 March, he prayed in the church in Shionomaki and comforted a group of Christians who welcomed him. He then went to see hundreds of homeless refugees staying in the high school next to the church.
Concluding his journey Fr Yamanouchi also visited the city of Ishinomaki, which like all the others on the coast is like a ghost town, full or rubble and a bad smell. The soldiers, about 100,000 of them in the area, are working tirelessly and already after two months there are marked signs of progress.
“Whoever visits places like this changes his own view of life and man’s place in the cosmos,” Fr Yamanouchi concludes.
Published 18/05/2011
