It's an artificially drawn line that makes the difference between being able to stay at home and having to live as an evacuee from the no-entry zone around the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
It's an artificially drawn line that makes the difference between being able to stay at home and having to live as an evacuee from the no-entry zone around the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Today, that no-entry zone is an area of deserted towns and villages, but communities just outside the 20-kilometer radius are still alive as many of the residents have decided to stay despite concerns about radiation.
Depending on which side you stand on from the imaginary line, a totally different picture emerges.
This reporter recently traveled around the perimeter of the zone and found people in these communities leading radically changed lives while struggling to deal with a wide range of feelings, from anxiety to resignation.
The neighing of horses that were heard from time to time didn't fit in well with the surreal view in front of me. In a nearby parking lot were dozens of people clad in white radiation protective suits.
It was, however, just another day in the Bajikoen equestrian park in Minamisoma, a city in Fukushima Prefecture. The facility is used as a base for evacuees from the no-entry zone who make temporary visits to their vacant homes.
A man who had come out of the zone in a light truck carrying a load of winter clothes said his home was located just dozens of meters inside the legal evacuation zone.
So, because of those few meters, he is having to live as an evacuee.
"My property is now thickly covered with weeds, and my house is filled with cobwebs," says the man, Tamio Nishi, a 75-year-old rice farmer who is now living in a temporary house for an evacuee built in the northern part of the city. "If my house were located slightly to the north of its current location, it wouldn't be like what it is now."
Some 6 kilometers to the east of Bajikoen, a large bus was parked as if to block the national road, Route 6. A handful of police officers, all wearing masks, were standing near the bus. They blew whistles to stop cars at this checkpoint on the border of the no-entry zone.
About 500 meters to the north of the checkpoint is the Omika municipal elementary school. Although it is close to the evacuation zone, the school was reopened in mid-October after the area's designation as an emergency evacuation preparation zone was lifted in late September. The decision to restart classes at the school after some seven months of closure was made in response to the fact that levels of radiation at the site were low.
Yoshikazu Kimura, a 63-year-old construction worker, is now back at his home near the school. In May, he returned from Miyagi Prefecture, where he had been staying as an evacuee, in order to start working again.
He has spent 110,000 yen ($1,450) to buy a dosimeter for his two grandchildren living in his home, a 1-year-old and a baby under 12 months of age.
"There are so many uncertainties, and young people with children are still worried," says Kimura. "I don't think many people will come back just because the school has been reopened."
Radiation levels differ widely from location to location even on the same perimeter of the 20-km no-entry zone. When I entered an area with high levels of radiation, the reading on the dosimeter hanging from my neck rose by 1 microsievert in just 10 minutes. I felt my heart beating heavily.
The city of Minami-Soma is located at the northern end of the legal evacuation zone, and at the other end of the zone, across from the crippled plant, is the town of Naraha. Near the checkpoint on Route 6 in the town is J-Village, a soccer training facility, which has been used by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, as a base of operations to bring the nuclear crisis under control.
The grounds of the facility are covered with prefabricated houses, which are hastily built dormitories to accommodate up to 1,600 workers. Currently, some 1,000 people are staying in the dormitories.
A 44-year-old man working for a construction company in Naraha complained bitterly about the emergency dorms.
"If workers in protection suits walk around here, people who have fled Naraha and (the neighboring town of) Hirono will be scared and won't come back," the man says.
The man enters the evacuation zone almost every day to do work such as temporary repairs of houses. He takes care to avoid areas with high levels of radiation.
"But I shouldn't be too cautious if I want to do my job all right," he says.
Morning and evening every day, the latest data about radiation levels in the town are announced through the community broadcasting system. A typical announcement goes like this: "At 3 p.m., 0.41 microsievert of radiation was detected near the town hall."
East Japan Railway Co.'s train services on the Joban Line that connect Naraha with Tokyo resumed in October. But the average daily passenger traffic is now around 100, down from 672 before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The owner of a ramen shop that reopened in mid-June in the town is pessimistic about the outlook for his business.
"The number of workers at the nuclear power plant is bound to decrease," says the owner. "My business will be in serious trouble unless families with children return to the town."
In the village of Kawauchi, which is adjacent to both Naraha and Hirono, houses are scattered around basins surrounded by mountains. There are many rice paddies and vegetable fields that have been left and are overgrown with weeds.
I found an old man basking in the sun on the veranda of his home. The 75-year-old man, who lives alone, returned to his home in Kawauchi in July from the city of Iwaki, where he had been staying as an evacuee.
"I couldn't abandon our (family) tomb," the man says.
The man, who worked at a nuclear power plant when he was young, now lives on a pension. He says he knows the dangers of nuclear power generation.
Still, he puts the washing out to dry and keeps his house's windows open.
"Initially, I was scared, but now I've got used to it," he says. "But I wonder what young people (who have fled the town) intend to do. There aren't many jobs around here, and they can no longer work at the nuclear power plant. I don't think they will return."
People living in towns and villages close to the perimeter of the no-entry zone are trying to come to terms with the new reality while grappling with a variety of emotions, from anxiety and anger to hopelessness and a sense of growing accustomed to the dangers of radiation.
At the end of my two-day trip to the area, the reading on my dosimeter was 10 microsieverts.