Meltdown
debragalant | March 13, 2011
Can things get any worse for Japan? Yes, it seems, they can. Though news stories are not definitive at this hour (12:40 a.m. on Sunday March 13), it appears that meltdowns are underway at two nuclear power plants devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. This photograph, by Kim Kyung-Hoon of Reuters, is particularly distressing. In it, a small child with a worried expression holds his or her arms high while a worker decked head-to-toe in protective garbs checks for radiation. Achingly, it brought back memories of watching the “The Door,” a haunting 2010 Oscar-nominated short film about a village that was evacuated after the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown.
“That day we didn’t just lose a town,” the main character says in voiceover as we see him bury his beautiful daughter Lena. “We lost our whole world.”
I pray that the children of Koriyama fare better than the ones in Chernobyl. Watch the movie, just 17 minutes long, in the jump.




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