OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture--A whiteboard at Ono Station on the JR Joban Line still carries the notice written by the stationmaster at the start of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant: "Train operation will be suspended for a while. March 12."
OKUMA, Fukushima Prefecture--A whiteboard at Ono Station on the JR Joban Line still carries the notice written by the stationmaster at the start of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant: "Train operation will be suspended for a while. March 12."
Eight months later, the trains are still not running.
Throughout the 3-kilometer exclusion zone around the plant and nearby evacuated facilities, opened to the media for the first time on Nov. 16, evidence of the panicked hours following the breakdown at the plant has been left untouched.
About 50 beds and 10 wheelchairs used by doctors and nurses during the evacuation lay abandoned outside the entrance to Futaba Hospital, a mental health facility in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, about 4 km from the reactors.
At the initial emergency response center for the disaster response team, about 5 km from the plant, a blue plastic sheet laid by officials in the days after the disaster to protect the floor from radioactive contamination was still in the entrance.
Chairs and uncollected garbage bags littered the hall, and a radiation meter to measure the exposure of staff remained in the entrance.
The facility in Okuma was staffed by about 80 people on March 14, including central and prefectural government officials, Self-Defense Forces members and staff of the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. With communications down and radiation levels reaching 1,000 microsieverts per hour, the crisis response headquarters was moved on March 15 to the Fukushima prefectural government office, about 60 km from the plant.
Radiation at the abandoned center on Nov. 16 was about 15 microsieverts per hour.
There is also evidence of physical damage throughout the exclusion zone. Roof tiles and glass fragments were scattered on the sidewalk near a shopping mall to the east of the emergency center, and a roof of a house about 30 km from the center had collapsed.
(This article was written by Noriyoshi Otsuki and Takuro Chiba.)