Fukushima students attend NY ceremony for 2011 disaster

March 5, 2018

New York- Students from Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, attended a memorial service held in New York on Sunday for the victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear accident.

Satsuki Sekine, 16, a second-grader from Futaba Future High School, delivered a speech on behalf of the school's students who took part in the ceremony. "I hope I can make people smile," she said in the speech, speaking in Japanese.

The ceremony in a church was organized ahead of the seventh anniversary of the March 11 disaster, which devastated the Pacific coastal areas, including in Fukushima.

Sekine, from Iwaki in Fukushima, evacuated from the town of Tomioka in the same prefecture in the wake of the triple meltdown accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s <9501> Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, which was crippled by the disaster.

She said that after moving out of Fukushima, she was "severely bullied" due to misunderstanding about radioactive contamination and even thought of committing suicide.

But she managed to endure the hardship, encouraged by her own dream of putting smiles on everyone's face, Sekine went on.

"I was able to grow up" through the experiences of getting bullied and participating in the theatrical club of the high school, Sekine said. "I became able to confront not only my own difficulties but those of society."

After the speech, she got a big round of applause from the audience.

At Sunday's event, some 440 people offered silent prayers for the disaster victims, according to organizers. Jiji Press