Namie, Fukushima: Part 2

This is the border of the restricted area. We weren’t allowed to enter any further. It felt a bit eerie seeing all the abandoned homes and buildings. This was an empty town with no cars, no bicycles, no people, and nothing open. Being a cold, winter day added to the effect. Other than the single guard who never greeted or even faced us, we never saw another person in this here.

The measurements I took fluctuated between 0.16 and 0.22, same as Tokyo.

This is the group I was with. 13 of us from 9 different countries—quite a diverse mix. By the end of the tour I think we all felt closer. I hope we can meet up and go back again in a year or two as a mini-reunion.

Another town we visited in Fukushima is called Namie (Nah-mee-eh), which is also the name of the train station the red arrow is pointing to below. The grey box next to it is a section of train-line that is still under construction. Once completed later this year, you’ll be able to take a train directly from Tokyo to Namie.

When the big earthquake struck in 2011 and the radiation levels rose in Fukushima, the town of Namie was forced to evacuate it’s population of over 20,000 people. In 2017, the evacuation order was lifted, but only about 1000 people returned making it one of Fukushima’s so-called ghost towns.

This is Namie Elementary School. On the day of the earthquake, the children had to go home wearing their indoor shoes. The next morning, the town was forced to evacuate so the children couldn’t go back to the school to get their outdoor shoes. The shoes you can see in the shoe-boxes are the shoes of the children who were evacuated. The school has never reopened and remains locked and closed.

The majority of the town is simply abandoned apartments, buildings, and restaurants. Most of Namie looks like this.

Abandoned apartments like this are a fairly common sight.

But in one part of town, they’re starting to rebuild. There’s a new shopping center, a couple of new restaurants, and a few other new places. This is where the people who have returned can come together as a community. We met and talked with a number of people here and I found them to have a great sense of hope. They were also very friendly and seemed excited to see us visiting.

It is a little weird having this mini oasis of new developments surrounded by broken down, abandoned buildings, but it’s a start. This new area not only gave people a place to go to feel good about, but also gave them hope for the future. I had lunch at Cosmos and highly recommend the omelet-rice and melon ice-cream float!