Ghost Towns of Fukushima

Nearly a year after the quake and tsunami that unleashed the Fukushima nuclear disaster, evacuated residents tell how their lives have changed.

Published

over 1 year ago

Categories

World, Asia/Pacific, East Asia, Science, Climate & Environment

Topics

Environment, Green

Places

Japan

Tags

exclusion zone, nuclear meltdown, nuclear plant, nuclear energy, nuclear power, okuma, japanese nuclear crisis, japanese tsunami, japanese earthquake, japanese disasters

Transcript

The 11, 000 residents of Okuma town fled their homes almost a year ago because of the nuclear disaster triggered by Japan's giant quake and tsunami.Miyoko Takeda is one of them.This is her third trip back to check on her home and collect some of the belongings they left behind.The house is intact but Takeda says her life certainly is not.SOUNDBITE: 74-year-old evacuee Miyoko Takeda saying (Japanese):"It's as if I have depression. I can't sleep, I can't eat. I've lost eight kilogrammes and when I went to the doctor I threw up everything I took. Now I can't sleep without medication."Others used the few precious hours inside the exclusion zone of what they once called home to visit family graves and repair others damaged by the quake.It's the first time residents returning to Okuma have been allowed to this graveyard.SOUNDBITE: Minoru Fukuo, evacuee, saying (Japanese):"We just prayed that we will come back soon and clean up the grave properly. We've just asked them to wait until then."Throughout Fukushima prefecture nearly 80, 000 have been evacuated from their homes.The evacuees live in accommodation ranging from apartments to hastily-constructed temporary shelters.Tomiko Ikinobu and her four children have one of those specially-built temporary homes.Unemployed since the disaster, she says uncertainty is a constant cloud over their lives.SOUNDBITE: Tomiko Ikinobu, evacuee, saying (Japanese):"If it's a normal disaster you recover from it and you go forward a bit every day but this time you don't. All that's left is uncertainty. I just don't know when I can go back."The government says it could take up to 40 years to fully decommission the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.About 2, 400 square kilometres of land around the site, an area the size of Luxembourg, may need to be decontaminated.The day Fukushima's evacuees can return home without a radiation counter may be a very long way off yetPaul Chapman, Reuters