Sakae Kato, the heroic cat rescuer of Fukushima

A decade ago, Sakae Kato stayed behind to rescue cats abandoned by neighbors who fled the radiation clouds belching from the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant.

He decided not to join his family leaving Fukushima after it was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

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Over the last 12 years, he has buried 23 cats in his garden and nowadays he looks after 41 cats who live on his property.

Kato also leaves food for feral cats in a storage shed he heats with a paraffin stove.

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With no running water, he has to fill bottles from a nearby mountain spring and drive to use public toilets but nothing stops him from loving his cats and taking good care of them.

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“I want to make sure I am here to take care of the last one,” the Japanese resident said from his home in the contaminated quarantine zone.

“I’m not leaving them behind” he said. “After the last one dies then I don’t mind if I have to die too.”

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The 57-year-old, a small construction business owner in his former life, says his decision to stay as 160,000 other people evacuated the area was spurred in part by the shock of finding dead pets in abandoned houses he helped demolish.

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The cats also gave him a reason to stay on land that has been owned by his family for three generations.

“I don’t want to leave, I like living in these mountains,” he said standing in front of his house, which he is allowed to visit but, technically, not allowed to sleep in.

“I’m surprised it’s still standing,” the now 69-year-old farmer said.

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