Welcome to Naraha, a ghost town in Fukushima’s shadow where dolls have replaced the people

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Dolls are positioned at the entrance to a cafe in Naraha

At first glance, the Japanese town of Naraha appears normal, if a little quiet.

There are a handful of residents dotted about the place – a few in the post office, and some others in the bank – though several are oddly still.

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A doll is positioned by the ATM inside the post office in Naraha Town, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan

There are some youngsters loitering around too, but the older residents say they don’t mind as they never cause any trouble.

In fact, they say, it is nice to have some new faces around a town still struggling to come to terms with the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which brought the community to its knees.

Even if they are only dummies.

The life-sized mannequins are the work of a group of elderly women who have taken it upon themselves to “repopulate” their town, after most of its inhabitants fled during the March 2011 disaster, which took place just 12 miles away.

These days most of Naraha former residents are scattered across the country.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/26/welcome-naraha-ghost-town-fukushimas-shadowwhere-dolls-have/

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