Former residents, via Google’s Street View, can now virtually visit areas in Fukushima Prefecture that were devastated by the nuclear disaster.
Former residents, via Google’s Street View, can now virtually visit areas in Fukushima Prefecture that were devastated by the nuclear disaster.
Google Japan Inc. released the images, which give viewers a 360-degree perspective, on Sept. 4.
The areas include eight municipalities in the Hamadori district of eastern Fukushima, most of which lie within zones that were evacuatd due to the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The front gate of the Fukushima facility stretching from the towns of Okuma and Futaba is also visible in the images.
Google Japan said it had received many requests from disaster victims, who have been forced to evacuate outside the areas, to show the current state of their hometowns.
With the help of local governments, the areas in the eight municipalities were photographed from April to August for the first time since the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that triggered the nuclear accident, according to the company.
It also updated images of areas in 17 municipalities in coastal areas of Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures, which were originally taken between July 2011 and January 2012, to new ones photographed around the same time as those in Fukushima Prefecture.