Fukushima Plant Worker: 'Please Stop Attacking Us'

My coworkers are putting their lives on the line, she says
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 17, 2011 1:15 PM CDT
Michiko Otsuki on Japan Nuclear Crisis: Leave Tokyo Electric Power Co. Alone
This photo taken yesterday by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. shows the top part of the badly damaged No. 4 unit of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okumamachi.   (AP Photo/Tokyo Electric Power Co.)

Michiko Otsuki is sick of people ripping on Tokyo Electric Power Co. Otsuki is one of the workers who evacuated from the Fukushima nuclear plant on Monday, and afterward she took to her blog to give the people she left behind there a voice. “People have been flaming Tepco,” she wrote, according to a translation from the Straits Times. “But the staff of Tepco have refused to flee, and continue to work even at the peril of their own lives. Please stop attacking us.”

Otsuki describes crew’s tireless efforts following the tsunami, and says she’d like to return to help. She predicted that she’d be “abused and hurt” for writing the post, and apologized to the people living around the reactor. “There are people working to protect all of you,” she said. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people doing so; according to the LA Times, aid workers are afraid to approach the reactor, leaving residents there isolated. As for Otsuki, her “abused and hurt” prophesy came true; by today, she’d taken down the post. (More Michiko Otsuki stories.)

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