In the fourth winter since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, many of the displaced residents are still in limbo.
Entrance to the no-go zone. Sign reads: "areas difficult to return to." Photo by Alexis Dudden
Entrance to the no-go zone. Sign reads: “areas difficult to return to.” Photo by Alexis Dudden
“No, nothing. I have nothing planned for New Year’s. Nothing at all. No one is coming.” A shy, round-faced woman spat these words like darts into the protective mask she wore. Moments earlier she had been laughing happily together with several other former residents of the small town of Tomioka as they reminisced about a friend they all knew. She quickly became raw, however, when asked about the coming holidays.
Tomioka counted 15,839 residents before the March 11, 2011 nightmare of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear explosion began. All but one person has left — Matsumura Naoto, the now well-known rice farmer who refuses to abandon his family’s fifth-generation farm.
READ MORE:http://fpif.org/fourth-winter-fukushima/