NAMIE, Fukushima Prefecture -- A hand-written notice on the first floor of the abandoned town hall said, "Aid Station." There was a kerosene stove with five chairs gathered around it. A bundle of disposable chopsticks and a cup with three cigarette butts had been left on a long table.
NAMIE, Fukushima Prefecture -- A hand-written notice on the first floor of the abandoned town hall said, "Aid Station." There was a kerosene stove with five chairs gathered around it. A bundle of disposable chopsticks and a cup with three cigarette butts had been left on a long table.
They have been there since March 12, the day after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami devastated Namie and triggered the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, only nine kilometers down the coastline, that forced the evacuation of many in the town.
Everywhere you looked there were remnants of an abandoned normality, side-by-side with distressing evidence of the horrific destruction wreaked on the town.
An empty bottle of energy drink stood on the desk of a town hall employee. A crumpled fragment of a map of the town, on which red markings had been made, was left on a stack of documents.
Near the entrance to the aid station memos dating from March 12 had been posted. One said: "1,039 missing."
Few people have been allowed to travel to Namie since a 20-km zone around the Fukushima plant was declared a no-entry area under the disaster countermeasures basic law. With the permission of Namie's mayor, the Asahi Shimbun was allowed to send a reporter on Sept. 2 to accompany town officials monitoring radiation levels in the town under the special law governing nuclear disaster.
The once-thriving community of 21,000 people has been turned into a green ghost town.
The yard of Kiyohashi Elementary school, about 1.5 km to the east of the town hall, was like a pasture, with lush grass growing taller than knee height. Seven cattle, with their ears tagged, hid and then thundered through the yard and disappeared into a wood when disturbed.
Across the several kilometers between the school and the coastline, high grass, between 1 and 2 meters tall, swayed. At first, it looked like it must have once been open ground used for rice or vegetable fields, but the white foundations of a home, glimpsed through the thick grass, betrayed the reality--the whole area was once filled with homes.
What looked like a hill was actually a mountain of debris. At least 10 fishing boats were still stranded far inland.
Ukedo district, home to most of the town's 184 casualties, was left liver-colored after the disaster struck. It is now a green pasture.