FOOTSCRAY resident and trader Noriko Tabei joined about 500 fellow Japanese-Australians on Sunday to rally for an end to uranium mining.
Members of Melbourne-based organisation Japanese for Peace gathered to remember lives lost in the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 last year.
They were also protesting against the nuclear disaster that occurred as the tsunami struck the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Fires and explosions rocked the plant, and, after cooling systems failed, reactors were swamped with seawater to prevent full meltdown. Decommissioning the plant could take decades and a 20-kilometre radius exclusion zone remains around it.
Ms Tabei was first told on March 11 last year that there had been an earthquake in Japan, but she brushed it off as another minor rumbling.
“I was in Canberra … we have earthquakes all the time, but people started calling me and asking if my family was OK,” she said.
“The next day I started to realise how many people had lost their lives, even though at that stage no one really knew the exact number.”
Ms Tabei’s sister and brother-in-law lived in the hard-hit Iwate Prefecture, and her brother-in-law lost close relatives.
Ms Tabei said the disaster had changed the way Japanese people felt about nuclear power.
She said that concern extended to Australia’s supply of uranium, and Sunday’s rally doubled as a protest against its mining and export.
