Protesters demand end to nuclear power

Thousands of people rallied in a Tokyo park Saturday, demanding an end to atomic power and vowing never to give up the fight, despite two years of little change after the nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan.

Gathering two days ahead of the second anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that sent the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant into multiple meltdowns, demonstrators said they would never forget the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl, and expressed alarm over the government’s eagerness to restart reactors.

“I can’t see what lies ahead. It looks hopeless, but if I give up now, it’s over,” said Akihiro Nakata, a 47-year-old owner of a construction company, who had a drum slung around his shoulder. “I’d rather die moving forward.”

Only two of Japan’s 50 working nuclear reactors have been put back online since the disaster, partly because of continuous protests like Saturday’s, the first time such demonstrations have popped up in this nation since the 1960s movement against the Vietnam War.

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