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‘There’s No Town Left’: Fukushima’s Eerie Landscapes

The disaster that ripped through northern Japan in March 2011 killed more than 19,000 people and prompted a global reckoning with the dangers of nuclear power. It also gave the name Fukushima an international notoriety on par with Chernobyl’s.

March 10, 2021 / 22:25 IST
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The disaster that ripped through northern Japan in March 2011 killed more than 19,000 people and prompted a global reckoning with the dangers of nuclear power.

After an earthquake and tsunami pummeled a nuclear plant about 12 miles from their home, Tomoko Kobayashi and her husband joined the evacuation and left their Dalmatian behind, expecting they would return home in a few days.

It ended up being five years. Even now — a decade after those deadly natural disasters on March 11, 2011, set off a catastrophic nuclear meltdown — the Japanese government has not fully reopened villages and towns within the original 12-mile evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. And even if it did, many former residents have no plans to return.

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Some of those who did return figured that coming home was worth the residual radiation risk. Others, like Kobayashi, 68, had businesses to restart.

“We had reasons to come back and the means to do so,” said Kobayashi, who manages a guesthouse. “It made sense — to an extent.”