When authorities began to evacuate residents from the surrounding area after a radiation leak at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, Sakae Kato decided to stay. Not for the sake of his property, but because of the animals, which no one wanted after the people left.
Residents of the town panicked, leaving behind all their possessions - and their pets, who were just as badly affected by radiation. One of those who refused to leave the "exclusion zone" despite the risk to their lives was the pensioner Sakae Kato. The former construction business owner turned his home into a cat shelter. "I stayed here to take care of everyone to the last. After that, I can die in peace - whether it's the next day or the next hour."
In 10 years, the man buried 23 cats in his garden. Most of the graves were dug up by wild boars - the abandoned territory is full of them. Sakae keeps 41 other cats (among them two pets with feline viral leukemia) and a dog, Pochi, in the house and a neighboring vacant building. But he also tries to take care of street cats suffering from hunger, cold and disease. He leaves food and water for them in an abandoned warehouse where he has installed a paraffin oven.
The Japanese man spends about $7,000 a month to keep the animals - a dog, cats and wild boars that swarm outside his house at dawn. He calls the pigs pests and scolds them for destroying his neighbors' homes, but he cannot leave them without food.
There is no running water in the town - all supplie runs there stopped ten years ago. The man gets water for himself and his animals from a mountain stream.
Sakae stayed in Fukushima for various reasons. After the accident, he helped clear away the rubble in homes that had been abandoned and often found the bodies of pets. Realizing how difficult it would be for them in an alienated area without food, water or any help, he could not leave them to their fate. Besides, it was hard for him to leave his native land, the beloved mountains where three generations of his family had lived. The cats gave him a reason to stay.
Source: goodhouse.com
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