"Fear doesn't go away easily": The slow return to life in Fukushima

Namie (Japan)At the entrance to the Fukushima headquarters, an unusual sign welcomes visitors: a digital sensor indicating the radiation level in microsieverts per hour. The figure displayed, 0.105 μSv/h, is similar to the radiation dose that can be received by eating a banana every hour. Beyond Tomioka, where beforenuclear accident after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, there were once farmland; now there is a vast expanse of vacant land interrupted only by a few fields filled with solar panels and eerily empty roads.

Upon entering Futaba from the highway exit heading towards Namie, you can see several houses that appear to be inhabited and streets and roads with unusually neglected shoulders. Before reaching Namie, an unavoidable stop: the ruins of the local elementary school, a silent witness to the devastating tsunami and subsequent nuclear release. The school district, with a free multilingual guidance system, reopened the space not only as a place of memory but to highlight the swift and efficient response of the school officials, who acted diligently to safeguard the students, transporting them to a safe place before the deadly wave devastated the school, located just over 10 minutes away.

The radio reports that the dismantling of the second welded reservoir at the Fukushima nuclear plant has begun, after the removal of the first tank of contaminated water, just as the fourteenth anniversary of the disaster is being commemorated.

Since the 2011 accident, approximately 1.3 million tons of water – a mixture of groundwater, seawater, and rainwater – have been stored at the plant, along with water used to cool the reactors. The water was filtered to remove radioactive materials, but has remained stored in more than a thousand reservoirs. Since autumn 2023, it has been evacuated intermittently., from the plant to one kilometer from the coast, through an underwater pipeline. This accumulation of treated water remains one of the major challenges remaining in the plant's cleanup and decommissioning process.

After the mass exodus

Before the catastrophe, Namie was a dynamic tourist town of just over 20,000 inhabitants, but today it only has 15% of the original population, with areas where not a soul lives. Dominated by another radiation sensor, the train station plaza—the nerve center and human hive of every Japanese neighborhood and city—remains practically deserted. Only one train has passed, with a single passenger boarding, but no one has gotten off. A long time later, we meet Aya Nasukawa, a housewife and mother of two, who explains to ARA that she was born in this city but left with her family after the nuclear accident. Recently, she decided to return, now with her husband and two young children, to try to start over in an environment still marked by the mass exodus.

"When we decided to return a little over a year ago, our friends told us we were crazy... but it's where I grew up, where I have my memories, and I want my children to have a place where they feel rooted," she confesses. She admits that what tipped the balance was a good job offer her husband received, although the most important element for her is the emotional one. "Yes, there are people who will never return, but there are also many who want to fight to bring this town back to life."

Opened just over four years ago, the Michi no Eki market, a short walk from the train station, seems to be the center of Namie's social life, with shops, a supermarket, and a small restaurant. Local varieties of fish from local fishermen are the most prominent items in the supermarket. Hiroshi Tanaka, a 74-year-old retired fisherman, claims that the fish is the safest in Japan because of the strict controls it must undergo. "It's a shame because the controls are very strict, and our fish is certainly safer than those from other places... But the fear doesn't go away easily," he laments, referring to the fact that in other places in Japan his fish is automatically rejected.

Tanaka explains to ARA that he had lived his entire life tied to the sea, but when the tsunami devastated his house, he had to leave. Three years ago, now widowed, he decided to return to the place where he was born: "I didn't want to buy a new boat, but some friends have tried fishing again, even though there are very strict quotas now." Kenji Saito, another customer who buys fish, is a young engineer from Tokyo who has been part of a team tasked with soil decontamination in the area for the past five years. "We eat fish regularly at home, and there haven't been any problems; on the contrary, it's delicious," he explains.

This young engineer, who is not yet thirty, admits to having vague memories of the day of the disaster because he was a teenager and had no connection to the area, but he came with the desire to contribute to the recovery. "The work isn't easy, and there's still a lot to do, but every time I see a new business opening or a house being renovated, I feel it's worth it." Furthermore, Saito believes that outsiders often think everything here is abandoned, "but the reality is that there are many people living here and working every day to make this place fully habitable again."