“The simplest thing and the easiest thing is to quit,” Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Sugatold theWall St Journalon Wednesday. “But the government’s job is to tackle challenges.”
“If you compare our number of infections to countries abroad,we have fewer by a whole order of magnitude,” he said. “We’ve got vaccinations advancing,we’re taking tough steps to prevent infections,and so my judgment is we’re in the right place and we’re ready to go.”
If anyone knows the value of determination it is the area surrounding Fukushima in this north-east corner of the main Japanese island of Honshu. The effects of the 39-metre wave that wiped out schools,homes and families in 2011 are still visible on the communities that dot the Tohoku coast,four hours north of Tokyo.
From 470,000 residents evacuated then,41,000 still have not returned,but slowly the rice fields and schools are filling back up around wherethe earth first shook triggering the tsunami.
Slowly,major manufacturers are returning to the area. In 2017,it eclipsed its pre-tsunami GDP for the first time as new industries including tourism and wineries sprung up.
But while some regions are finding their feet,others are struggling. The exclusion zone around the Fukushima power plant,80 kilometres east of the Azuma stadium,remains in place a decade after the tsunami triggered a meltdown in its No.1 nuclear plant. Futaba,a town close to the reactor had lobbied to be included in the Olympic relay to show the reality of its situation but was bypassed because it remains under an evacuation order.
When Japan won the rights to the Games in 2013,it wanted to pitch the Fukushima recovery to the world. It could never have imagined a pandemic would come along nine years later,flip that recovery on its head and give it a whole new meaning.
The mayor of nearby Minamisanriku,Jin Sato,toldThe Sydney Morning Heraldand The Ageahead of the Games that with no spectators many of the areas that surround Fukushima were not going to benefit economically. “But it will boost the mood among the Japanese people,” he said.
On the ground outside the Olympic spectacle now being beamed to locked down homes around the globe,it is difficult to reconcile with that optimism in a country where two-thirds of those polled said they don’t want the Games.
At Fukushima station on Wednesday the daily countdown to the Opening Ceremony ticked down to two,but few were there to see it in a city largely uninterested or unable to get involved in the Olympic experience. There was scarcely a passenger on the bullet train from Tokyo. In pre-pandemic times,in this softball powerhouse,it would have been filled with fans dressed in blazing red.
Japanese softball captain Eri Yamada said she was proud to open the Games and hoped that support at home – even if it restricted to people’s loungerooms – would grow.
“I’m very happy and I think this is a very good start for all of the Japanese teams,” she said.
She should be. Four-one up at the bottom of the fourth innings,Japan never looked like it was going to give up the lead. It raced to an 8-1 thrashing of the Australian team by the fifth. The game was called off under the mercy rule.
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It was a big win for a country that needs one.
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