TOKYO, Japan: Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida joined a ceremony this week marking the reopening of sections of Tomioka, a Japanese city simply southwest of the Fukushima nuclear energy plant, which was destroyed in 2011.
Evacuation orders have been lifted in small sections of the city, simply southwest of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant, in time for the cherry blossom season.
While strolling alongside a avenue often known as “the cherry blossoms tunnel,” former residents and guests of Tomioka celebrated the city’s reopening.
In an interview with NHK tv, Koichi Ono, 75, who was visiting the neighborhood the place he lived his whole life earlier than being pressured to evacuate, stated, “After 12 years, I can finally return to my life here.”
At the ceremony, Kishida pledged to proceed working to reopen all no-go zones, stating, “The lifting of the evacuation is by no means a final goal, but the start of the recovery.”
More than 160,000 residents needed to evacuate from throughout Fukushima, together with about 30,000 who’re nonetheless unable to return residence, after the 2011 tsunami that precipitated the catastrophe.
Tomioka is one in every of 12 close by cities absolutely or partially designated as no-go zones.
“The living environment and many other things still need to be sorted out,” famous Tomioka Mayor Ikuo Yamamoto.
In the newly reopened Yonomori and Osuge districts of Tomioka, simply over 50 of about 2,500 registered residents have reportedly returned or expressed their intentions to return sooner or later.
Since massive areas of Tomioka reopened in 2017, just some 10 p.c of the city’s pre-disaster inhabitants of 16,000 have returned.
Last week, the evacuation order was lifted in a number of sections of one other hard-hit city, Namie, northwest of the plant, with the reopened space accounting for under about 20 p.c of the city.
At an evacuation-lifting ceremony, Namie Mayor Eiko Yoshida stated, “I have mixed feelings, because there are many residents who still cannot return or have no idea when they can return.”