Thank you for your patience while we retrieve your images.


More than eight years after and earthquake, tsunami and one of the most severe nuclear accidents in history, the Japanese prefecture prefecture of Fukushima is trying to get slowly back to normal life where possible. Government officials claim that most areas are safe to return, that radiation levels are equivalent to major world cities and that fresh vegetables and fish are fine to eat. However, the authorities' main problem is to rebuild trust among the local population after being accused of so many coverups and denials about the exact magnitude of the disaster, during and in the aftermath of the nuclear meltdown and explosion. Whereas the earthquake and following tsunami in March 2011 killed 16,000 people. The subsequent nuclear reactor explosion sent radioactive dust over a wide area around the Daichi nuclear power plant, causing more than 160,000 people to abandon and evacuate their homes across 10% of the Fukushima prefecture. All live, agriculture, fishing and social economical activity ceased in those territories, and many towns and villages became ghost towns in no-go areas. Shortly after the disaster, a massive decontamination effort was started and is presently still under way. It is estimated that several hundreds years will be needed to decommission and decontaminate the Daichi nuclear power plant site itself. Since the disaster most evacuees have gone back to their homes, except for an area of about 3% of the prefecture which remains officially off limits in surrounding forests and towns nearest to the nuclear plant. Okuma and Namie/Futaba, two towns with respectively 11,500 and 21,000 pre-disaster population, and where the nuclear plant is located, have in 2018/2019 been re-opened for people to return living. Only a fraction of the pre-disaster population has returned, few hundreds in Okuma and less than 1,000 in Namie. Workers continue relentlessly to remove and replace contaminated topsoil and other radioactive waste from decommissioned houses and buildings, so that evacuees can return and rebuild their lives. Will they return after having left the area almost 10 years ago is very doubtful, and with almost no economical activity it is impossible for the younger generation to find work. A traffic agent indicating when heavy trucks loaded with construction waste enter the road. Most buildings have been declared unsafe for living and are being brought down. The potentially contaminated building materials are being packed and driven outside the town. Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, October 2019