Four and a half years after being told to leave their homes, residents of the town of Naraha in Fukushima prefecture in Japan have been told that radiation levels are now low enough for them to permanently return to their homes.
The evacuation order was issued on March 12, 2011, a day after the Great East Japan Earthquake, a devastating 9.0-magnitude quake that manufactured a tidal wave event – called a tsunami – that knocked out power at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing meltdowns and explosions due to the build up of hydrogen in some of the buildings.
The devastation included a major radiation leak in the area, causing the evacuation of 100,000 people from 10 municipalities.
Naraha was first declared a safe zone, where residents could return during daylight hours. As of 5 September, residents were allowed to return on a permanent basis.
Media reports indicated that former residents are not rushing to their hometown, where years of neglect are visible in the form of rusting cars and infrastructure, uncut fields, abandoned homes and wild boars that roam the streets. One field in the town is the storage site for hundreds of industrial bags containing clothes and other items that have absorbed low-levels of radiation.
Media reports say most of those returning are elderly. Many are keeping their children out of the area, where authorities are providing personal dosimeters for residents to check radiation levels. Schools are not expected to open for two years.
Reports say about 100 households have returned out of 2,600 that once occupied the town. In a survey 53 percent of former residents say they have no plans to return or are undecided.
Most ironically, the town that was once a company town where many residents worked at the nearby nuclear power plants, is likely to become a company town again, the home to workers who are involved in dismantling the plant that were vital to the area's economic security.
The government plans to open a $700 million robotics training center, where mock ups of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi NPP will be used for simulations, so workers can train on how to dismantle the plant that once gave them power and jobs.
There is a second nuclear power plant in the region. The town is 20 kilmoteters (12.5 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, but is also the home of the Fukushima Daini plant that was also hit hard by the tsunami. The major hurdles for returning the Daini plant back to service, however, are political and emotional. There is strong opposition locally to having the plant restored to a productive life.