nuclear-news

Sakurayama Kyoko, NHK World Correspondent  16 Nov 20, At an elementary school in Futaba Town, Fukushima Prefecture, children’s bags and notebooks still lie scattered where they were left after the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011. The evacuation order for part of the town was lifted in March this year, but no one has returned to live there.

Nishizaki Ryusuke, 21 and a former student at the Futaba Minami Elementary School, visited it last month for the first time since the accident. It is located just three kilometers from the nuclear plant. The sight of everything frozen in time brought back vivid memories.

Ties severed

Nishizaki, then a fifth-grader, was in his homeroom when the earthquake that precipitated the crisis struck. He fled with only the clothes he was wearing. Since that day, he has been living as an evacuee, moving with his family from one place to another within Fukushima Prefecture and in neighboring Niigata. His ties with his home and neighbors have been severed.

“ I had no doubt that I would spend my life in the town,” says Nishizaki. “But the earthquake and the nuclear accident changed everything all of a sudden.”

Ties severed

Nishizaki, then a fifth-grader, was in his homeroom when the earthquake that precipitated the crisis struck. He fled with only the clothes he was wearing. Since that day, he has been living as an evacuee, moving with his family from one place to another within Fukushima Prefecture and in neighboring Niigata. His ties with his home and neighbors have been severed.

“ I had no doubt that I would spend my life in the town,” says Nishizaki. “But the earthquake and the nuclear accident changed everything all of a sudden.”

The town projected that renovating them would cost 900 million yen, or about 8.6 million dollars, per school. In addition, it would require an estimated 10 million yen, or about 95,000 dollars, a year in maintenance costs.

Yoshida Katsunori, an official at Namie’s education board, says: “It’s extremely important to pursue the ideal of preserving school buildings. But, financially speaking, it might not be realistic.”

Fukaya Naohiro, a Visiting Associate Professor at the Fukushima Future Center For Regional Revitalization, says all efforts should be made to preserve buildings that can serve as reminders of the accident and help us prepare for future disasters.

“When it came to preserving the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, it wasn’t just local residents, but people across Japan, who took part in the debate,” says Fukaya. “Each and every one of us should think about what to do with the Fukushima buildings.”

Concrete reminders

Nishizaki says that there are some things that people can understand only when they visit the site and see it for themselves: “We want people to know that children who had been at the schools at the time of the accident couldn’t go back for nine and a half years.”

At the time of writing, just one building in Fukushima Prefecture has been listed to be preserved as a memorial for future generations.