Takashi Morizumi

Takashi Morizumi, fotoreporter degli effetti del nucleare (14 ottobre)

Documenting fallout of the nuclear age
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/1014cu14.htm

Foto molto impressionanti da Semipalatinsk:
http://www.kensin.or.jp/~wm/morizumi/semipalatinsk/semi-index.html]

Foto molto impressionanti dalle miniere di uranio in India:
http://www.kensin.or.jp/~wm/morizumi/jadogoda/jadogoda.html

Rapporto dall'Iraq: pomodori all'uranio impoverito:
http://www.jca.apc.org/DUCJ/tomato-e.html

Kakuya Ishida Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

The repeated testing of nuclear weapons around the world has caused just as much misery as accidents at nuclear power plants, and the effects are passed down generation to generation. "I have visited nuclear test facilities around the world many times, but Semipalatinsk is the worst ever," said Takashi Morizumi, a 49-year-old Japanese photographer who has published two photo collections documenting villagers living near the facility in Kazakhstan.

"It seemed to be a village totally controlled by despair when I first visited in 1994," he recalled.

The 18,500-square-kilometer Semipalatinsk facility, roughly the size of Shikoku, was closed after Kazakhstan gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But there were 467 tests conducted there between 1949 and 1991, and Morizumi has dedicated himself to documenting the results.

"My theme as a professional photographer is to pursue what has been brought about as a result of repeated nuclear tests around the world," Morizumi said. His first subjects were residents on Rongelap Island, one of the Marshall Islands in the west Pacific where the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests over 12 years, beginning in 1946. Semipalatinsk is his second target, and he has returned almost every year since 1994.

Morizumi explained that 42 male villagers were ordered to observe the first test in 1949, "of whom 40 died of cancer and leukemia. The only survivor suffers from skin cancer and liver disease." Of the approximately 1.2 million people exposed to radiation during the nuclear tests, nearly 300,000 still suffer from the aftereffects.

"The ratio of stillbirths and deformations has become higher in the areas," Morizumi said. "I saw among the villagers hydrocephalic children and mentally handicapped children who could not speak. The aftereffects have already extended to the third generation.

"I'll never forget one 12-year-old boy I saw in a village about 50 kilometers from the facility. His eyes were swollen completely shut, and he had a distorted head."

Morizumi said he does not alter his subjects in any way before photographing them. "I believe this is the best way to convey the seriousness of the facts."

When he visited an institution for handicapped children in Semipalatinsk and inquired about taking photos, the director of the institution said: "Please, by all means; take photos of these children and tell the world the tragedy of nuclear tests."

Morizumi finds it difficult to accept official statements that scientists have found no direct evidence linking such conditions to nuclear tests. "To be sure, it's difficult to prove that each case is related to radioactive exposure," he said. "But it is obvious that the ratio of deformities and abnormalities is far higher than that of other areas."

Compounding problems in the former Soviet Union was that affected people were not allowed to discuss a connection between their diseases and the nuclear tests, and doctors often gave them misleading information about their symptoms. "In addition to physical pain, they suffered the psychological indignity of having to be silent for the sake of military confidentiality," Morizumi said.

Due to Kazakhstan's lingering economic problems, the country does not have the resources to investigate the residual radioactivity or its effects. And even if the government could fund the studies, it would still be difficult since Russian authorities took away all data pertaining to tests in the area when the facility closed.

There has been a growing interest in Japan in supporting the Kazakh people. Tokyo hosted an international conference cosponsored by the Japanese government and the U.N. Development Program last year to give technical and financial support to Kazakhstan, and Japan pledged 1 million dollars in aid for that purpose.

The Hiroshima-Semipalatinsk Project, a Hiroshima-based nongovernmental organization, was launched in 1994 in hopes of promoting cross-cultural relationships between the two countries. The organization provides cars and medical equipment to medical institutions in Kazakhstan.

"Because of the poverty, they cannot receive sufficient treatment and medicine," said Suemitsu Shimozaki, 53, a representative of the organization.

"Nuclear energy is one of the great discoveries in this century," Morizumi said, reflecting on a technology that Japan relies on for much of its electricity. "However, Semipalatinsk is a good example of its inherent dangers."