The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbun
Decade after disaster, pair of U.K. teachers remain dedicated to Futaba ‘hometown’
IWAKI, Fukushima — Anthony Ballard and Philip Jellyman were living in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, when the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake occurred, leading to an accident at the nearby Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and triggering the evacuation of the British men and other townspeople to outside the prefecture.
A decade after the disaster, none of Futaba’s former residents are able to live there.
The two men are currently back in Fukushima Prefecture, working at temporary Futaba schools in Iwaki, yet hoping to someday see the town’s beautiful scenery on a daily basis again.
Ballard, 56, moved to Futaba in 2008 and Jellyman, 39, arrived in 2009. They are assistant language teachers (ALT) who teach English to local children.
“What I like about Futaba is the strong bonds among the people,” Ballard said, recalling life both before and after the disaster. “I also liked to look at the beautiful sea. I used to go down to the sea almost every day.”
The quake struck on March 11, 2011. A local school was used as an evacuation center that night, and Ballard and Jellyman helped prep the site for people taking refuge there. On the morning of March 12, the pair evacuated from the town in Ballard’s car.
Outside Japan, the media reported on the seriousness of the nuclear accident on a daily basis, and many foreigners in the disaster-stricken area decided to return to their home countries.
But Jellyman chose to stay in Japan.
“A friend of mine who was also coping with the accident told me, ‘Please look after the children if anything happens to me,’” Jellyman said. “I was a teacher in Futaba and I wanted to protect my kids,” he said about his decision to remain.
After several gut-wrenching days, Ballard decided to fly to England temporarily at the behest of his distraught family, but soon returned to Japan.
“There are people in Futaba who are as important to me as my family,” he said.
In April 2011, Futaba moved its administrative functions to Kazo, Saitama Prefecture. The people of Futaba lived in shelters at a former high school building in Kazo and elsewhere over the next three years.
Ballard and Jellyman lived in the former high school and then moved to a nearby dormitory. In addition to their teaching work, they helped walk the children to and from school. When new temporary buildings for elementary and junior high schools and a kindergarten opened in Iwaki in 2014, they worked in both Saitama and Iwaki, alternating between the two places until they moved to Iwaki full-time.
“Many people were in a difficult situation. Families were split up,” Ballard said. “We could stay or go back to the U.K., but we chose to stay because Futaba had become our home. We felt loyal to the town, and we wanted to stay with them and go back to live in Futaba. The townspeople had no choice. They couldn’t go back to their homes in Futaba.”
Since 2011, they have been photographing Futaba’s scenery when they are temporarily allowed into the restricted area, taking pictures of such subjects as abandoned bicycles at a school, the weed-filled Futaba Rose Garden in need of tending and a girl in protective gear
practicing the piano in her desolate home.
They have held photo exhibitions in places including Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture, to inform people about Futaba’s current state.
The Futaba city government plans to start an exchange program with the two cities in eastern England where Ballard and Jellyman hail from, as soon as the coronvirus is contained.
“These two men are indispensable to our town,” Futaba Mayor Shiro Izawa said. “I want to convey the situation in Futaba to the people of Britain through exchanges.”
The evacuation order was partially lifted for a few parts of Futaba in March last year, and some businesses reopened. The town is scheduled to be given the green light for residents to move back the spring of 2022.
“I don’t know how many people will actually return, but if the town is ready to live in I want to build my own house there,” Jellyman said. (April 5)