How cities hosting the Fukushima power plant are recovering after the 2011 nuclear disasterExBulletin

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How to reopen the nuclear no-go zone? This is the question Japan has been trying to answer since 2011, when an earthquake triggered a massive tsunami that swept through the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. It was one of the worst nuclear disasters ever. Since then, the Japanese government has poured billions of dollars into clean-up and recovery operations. The gates that prevented people from returning home began descending. But for many, returning is not so simple.

NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf went to Fukushima to see what recovery would be like after nearly a decade. We’ll hear her stories throughout the week. Today, the story of the two cities hosting the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Kat Lonsdorf, Beilin: On a cold night earlier this spring, the gate to the last completely closed town in Fukushima Prefecture opened …

(Synchronized sound with metal entanglement)

Lundorff: … back off …

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Japanese speaking).

Lundorff: … for good. This is Futaba, a city that was once home to more than 7,000 people – at least until the disaster, when the winds carried columns of radioactive material for miles. Whole cities have been suddenly abandoned for years. Since then, Futaba has been stuck in a terrifyingly tragic frame.

I will advance in Futaba City – ‘because it’s officially open – to what looks like a very attractive little city street – little buildings and shops. Of course, nobody lives here, so we are walking down an abandoned street in town.

Everything looks almost the same as it did on the day of the earthquake. Broken glass strewn on the sidewalks. The entrance to the temple fell on the street. Goods are strewn from shelves on the floor, covered in dust and dirt.

Masato Suzuki is the only police officer assigned to Futaba.

Masato Suzuki: (Speaking Japanese).

Lundorff: “Nobody can live here yet,” he says. “There is no electricity, no water, and no infrastructure.”

Masato: (Speaking Japanese).

Lundorff: He says his biggest fear now is the wild boars roaming the streets. Only these few blocks of downtown Futaba are open, a tiny fraction of the city. The rest is still locked behind the gates, and considered too unsafe for the public. Futaba, which used to be so vibrant, now looks mostly like this.

(Simultaneous sound as weed collide)

Lundorff: The tall grasses that made their way through each crack, whispering in the wind.

(Simultaneous sound as weed collide)

Lundorff: The Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, is built over two towns – Futaba in the north and Akuma in the south. Parts of Okuma reopened last year, and in many ways, that city is doing better.

(Sound synchronized with building ambiance)

Lundorff: There’s a lot of construction going on here – a lovely new town hall and a planned community with dozens of identical one-story homes that line the newly paved roads. And people live here too …

Kazuko Endo: (Laughter)

Lundorff: … like Kazuko Endo, who is gardening outside a new home. She lived in Okuma before the disaster but not here.

Kazuko: (Japanese speaking).

Lundorff: “These were rice fields,” she says. Her old house is still behind the gates, moldy.

Kazuko: (Through interpreter) Everything is different now. It is a different city, even if it has the same name.

Lundorf: Okuma used to have a population of over 11,000. Now there are less than 200.

Kazuko: (Through an interpreter) There are only old people here, I think they are among them (Laughter). What young family would you like to live here? Any school, hospital, or grocery store is miles away.

Lundorff: But it is not just the lack of amenities that has kept people from returning. Concern about radiation continues in this part of Fukushima. Radiation monitors are located in parks and outside train stations and flash along highways.

Radiation levels have generally decreased since the accident, due to human cleaning and the natural decomposition of radioactive particles. But there are still a lot of hotspots, places where radiation levels are alarmingly high. The Japanese government insists that the re-opened areas are safe. But confidence in the government declined after the disaster. Not many people are willing to take the risk.

Masato Saki: (Speaking Japanese).

Lundorff: Instead, many of those who returned have returned to their final days, such as 98-year-old Masato Saki. Saki grew up here, and he remembers using candles and lanterns as a child.

Masato: (Through interpreter) Nuclear energy has made life more comfortable.

LONSDORF: There were light bulbs and appliances.

Masato: (Through an interpreter) But I’m not sure it’s worth it.

Lundorff: He takes out a big roll of paper and opens it on his kitchen table.

Masato: (Speaking Japanese).

Lundorf: It is a family tree. Saki is now spending his time trying to track down the nearly 200 members of his family, scattered after the disaster. His construction company helped build several reactors in Daiichi. He nodded sadly for his role in building the same thing that forced everyone to flee.

Masato: (Via interpreter) This city needed nuclear power. We lived with it and benefited from it. But now, look at the city. We will never be like us

Lundorf: Refers to the old city center of Okuma, two miles behind a gate. It is deserted and strewn with weeds, rusty shutters that ring with every breeze.

(Synchronized sound with metal entanglement)

Lundorff: These two cities, Okuma and Futaba, got a lot of nuclear energy. When Daiichi was built here in the 1970s, they shared a fortune in subsidies and tax revenues.

Daniel B. Aldrich: This was their lifeline.

Lonsdorf: Daniel B. Aldrich is a professor at Northeastern University. Examine the huge economic gains made by Japan’s host cities for nuclear energy.

Aldrich: They have built new roads. They built new bridges. They built aging homes. I don’t remember – the community – someone bought a brick of gold and put it in the local government offices for people to see. This is the amount of money that has been coming in. People didn’t even know what to do with this money.

Lundorff: The incentives should have been tempting for energy-hungry Japan to rise as an economic power. Lots of cities occurred. Over time, Japan built 54 nuclear reactors across the country. But the money earmarked for the communities was short-lived. And nobody probably knows it better than 71-year-old Katsutaka Edogawa.

KATSUTAKA IDOGAWA: (speaks Japanese).

Lundorf: He was Futaba mayor during the disaster. Now he’s retired and hundreds of miles away. He turned the top floor of an old camera shop into an office, where he spends every day carefully documenting what happened to his city.

Katsutaka: (Through an interpreter) People really thought that without nuclear power Futaba could not survive. And I thought this was very dangerous.

Lundorff: At the time of the accident, Edogawa says, all that wealth is out.

Katsutaka: (Speaking Japanese).

Lundorff: He pulled out a big dossier and turned the page to show that when he became mayor in 2004, Futaba was on the verge of bankruptcy. Cut his salary in half and half again. The town had just agreed to host two more reactors to get more money and more aid. They were built in Daiichi when the disaster struck.

Katsutaka: (Via interpreter) Futaba was addicted to nuclear money. But what are the consequences? We did not achieve prosperity.

Lundorff: Now Edogawa is working day and night. His wife left him. His eldest children are gone. Every day he thinks about his hometown. He says that sometimes he can close his eyes and still feel the first warm summer breeze there.

Katsutaka: (Through interpreter) I miss everything. If you start talking about what I’m missing, it will take a long time.

Lundorf: Edogawa points to an old Futaba photo from before 2011. The streets are clean. There are no weeds. There is a big city welcome sign that says …

Katsutaka: (Speaking Japanese).

Lundorff: … “Nuclear power for a bright future.” That mark was removed quietly after the disaster. He looks at the picture and sighs.

Katsutaka: (Via interpreter) You took this life for granted. I lost everything.

Lundorff: “I feel very sorry,” he says.

Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Fukushima, Japan.

CHANG: Kat Lonsdorf is the colleague of Above the Fray at NPR. Tomorrow it will take us inside Daiichi to look at the effects of the disaster on energy in Japan.

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