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Tuesday 12 April 2011

Waiting for No One (Inside the Exclusion Zone)


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Dogs wander around the town of Minamisoma, inside the deserted evacuation zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex in northeastern Japan, Thursday, April 7, 2011
: photo by Hiro Komae / AP





  • Trusting, for a while, that they will come back
  • and then after a while no longer remembering
  • that they were ever here.




15 comments:

Unknown said...

TV News

in evacuated towns
abandoned dogs
roam radiated streets

~ Pagan

TC said...

and cats too, looking out of windows

from houses

no one will ever again enter

as they slowly starve to death

TC said...

Third picture from top -- one sad hungry cat on a plum-colored cushion, immured.

Anonymous said...

This is just maudlin newspaper tripe, there's no reason these animals have to be there on their own. Why don't these people taking the pictures just take the animals away with them? Never believe anything you see in the Daily Mail.

Anonymous said...

The dogs all have the same markings, do you think they're all siblings?

TC said...

It's not just the Daily Mail. That cat on the plum cushion has been variously photographed, and the pictures are making the rounds. The dogs photographed by David Guttenfelder do indeed look alike. It's my understanding that these pictures, taken by photographers who were allowed into the zone when the military squads were going through to look for bodies, are the "real thing", i.e. the owners fled when told to go and left the animals behind, and the problems of trying to find possible surviving humans have outweighed the problem of the abandoned animals.

This is happening around here right now, where the owners of some foreclosed homes have been abandoning their animals.

Neither realtors in the one case nor photographers in the other are "tasked" with rescuing animals, though there has been evidence that some do try.

TC said...

As to whether the animal pictures are being staged, manipulated, exploited, etc., I suppose skepticism should always be allowed its minute.

In the next minute though, it does sink in that, yes, the animals are getting the short end of the stick. Something could be done for them, and some people are doing their best, but by and large it is futile and ineffectual, the animals are simply "collateral victims" of a tragedy created by the far-reaching genius of human scientists.

Anonymous said...

All that's true, but I think the photographers had a moral duty to help the animals if no one else was doing so.

Most animals in the world are going to be subjected to horrible cruelty and or neglect until humans give other creatures the rights that they give themselves (sorry to make a speech).

Julia said...

Awful truth. Terrible sad.

TC said...

The awful sadness is undeniable. And I do agree with you, Artur. I do believe the terrible veracity of the meaning of those photos, to the extent that I find it hard to imagine how one could take pictures of those animals, get paid for it, and not at least be carrying enough food and water to assuage, if not the crying needs of the animals, at least that part of one's conscience that reminds one that one is also an animal oneself. Hopefully. Before one walks away.

Though when one is having to check one's portable geiger counter every few minutes, perhaps another form of consciousness overpowers one's conscience, and one becomes something less... human all too human, or whatever the platitude was.

TC said...

Apologies are in order, first for saying David Guttenfelder took the dog photo (it was Hiro Komae, David Guttenfelder took the lower shot of the empty street in Minamisoma).

Second, for leaving a litter of confusing links to wire service photos, which I've now taken down, assuming that anybody who wants to look at those wire service pictures can easily enough track them down without the dubious assistance of someone who would make a good poster person for the theory that demented elders ought to be silently harvested in the night, and made into animal food.

Third, for shooting my mouth off in the direction of my foot before I had really thought-through the complexities of the situation confronting any photographer working among the creatures forsaken to linger in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Having hunted about a bit in the penumbral realms beyond the wire services and news agencies, I've now discovered some reports on what may be the actual state of things with those abandoned animals of the Exclusion Zone, and with the good souls who would attempt to somehow assist them.

At least somebody cares and somebody is trying.

Ed Baker said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TC said...

Ed,

I don't know from morality, I can't break 130 pounds after a large salad and the mere mention of

horse meat, cow meat, chicken meat, pig meat
... dog meat, monkey brains, cat entrails...body builder

in the same train of thought (if that's what it was)...

. . .

Lord, next time around, not among these people!

Marie W said...

Well, your title says it all, Tom. Finding oneself inside the exclusion. Yes, this was so sad, and it still is.

TC said...

Sorry to have brought back unpleasant memories, Marie.

There were more pictures with the post. I took them down. Too cruel to look upon the abandoned and betrayed creatures.

Trusting humans so often turns out to be a terrible mistake.