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 (For a video of 'Fukushima refugees face a bleak return home'
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http://www.reuters.tv/Bus/
2016/03/03/inside-fukushima-s-first-town-to-reopen) Hayakawa is one of the few residents to return to this agricultural
town since it began welcoming back nuclear refugees five months ago.
The town, at the edge of a 20-km (12.5 mile) evacuation zone around
the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, was supposed to be a model of
reconstruction.
Five years ago, one of the biggest earthquakes in history shook the
country's northeast. The 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami it spawned
smashed into the power plant on the Fukushima coastline triggering a
meltdown and forcing nearby towns to evacuate. The disaster killed
over 19,000 people across Japan and caused an estimated 16.9
trillion yen ($150 billion) in damages.
Only 440 of Naraha's pre-disaster population 8,042 have returned -
nearly 70 percent of them over 60.
"This region will definitely go extinct," said the 76-year-old
Hayakawa.
 He says he can't grow food because he fears the rice paddies are
still contaminated. Large plastic bags filled with radioactive
topsoil and detritus dot the abandoned fields.
With few rituals to perform at the temple, Hayakawa devotes his
energies campaigning against nuclear power in Japan. Its 54 reactors
supplied over 30 percent of the nation's energy needs before the
disaster.
Today, only three units are back in operation after a long shutdown
following the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima. Others are looking to
restart.
"I can't tell my grandson to be my heir," said Hayakawa, pointing at
a photo of his now-teenaged grandson entering the temple in a full
protective suit after the disaster. "Reviving this town is
impossible," he said. "I came back to see it to its death."
That is bound to disappoint Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Rebuilding Naraha and other towns in the devastated northeast, he
says, is crucial to reviving Japan.
Tokyo pledged 26.3 trillion ($232 billion) over five years to
rebuild the disaster area and will allocate another 6 trillion for
the next five years.
VANISHING TOWN
More than 160,000 people were evacuated from towns around the
Daiichi nuclear plant. Around 10 percent still live in temporary
housing across Fukushima prefecture. Most have settled outside their
hometowns and have begun new lives.
In Naraha, two restaurants, a supermarket and a post office, housed
in prefabricated shacks, make up the town's main shopping center.
The restaurants close at 3 p.m.
No children were in sight at Naraha's main park overlooking the
Pacific Ocean on a recent morning. Several elderly residents were at
the boardwalk gazing at hundreds of bags stuffed with radioactive
waste.
In fact, the bags are a common sight around town: in the woods, by
the ocean, on abandoned rice fields.
Little feels normal in Naraha. Many homes damaged in the disaster
have been abandoned. Most of the town's population consists of
workers. They are helping to shut down Tokyo Electric Power Co's
<9501.T> Daiichi reactors or working on decontamination projects
around town.
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Other workers are building a new sea wall, 8.7 meters high, along a
nearly 2 km stretch of Naraha's coast, similar to other sea walls
under construction in the northeast.
A local golf course has been turned into dormitories for workers.
Some families have rented their houses to workers.
"Naraha is a workers' town now," said Kiyoe Matsumoto, 63, a member
of the town council, adding that her children and grandchildren have
no plans to come home.
RADIATION LEVELS
The town's future depends on young people returning, residents say.
But only 12 below the age of 30 have returned as worries about
radiation linger.
Radiation levels in Naraha ranged from 0.07 to 0.49 microsieverts
per hour in January, or 0.61-4.3 millisieverts per year. That
compares with the government's goal of one millisievert a year and
the 3 millisieverts a year the average person in the United States
is exposed to annually from natural background radiation.
The significant drop in atmospheric radiation allowed the government
to lift the evacuation order last Sept. 5 - "the clock that had been
stopped began ticking again," Japan's Reconstruction Agency said on
its website.
"It is hoped that the reconstruction of Naraha would be a model case
for residents returning to fully evacuated towns," the agency
statement said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the town a month after that and
repeated one of his favorite slogans: "Without reconstruction of
Fukushima, there's no reconstruction of Japan's northeast. Without
the reconstruction of the northeast, there's no revival of Japan."
But with few people coming back, there is little meaning in what the
reconstruction department in Naraha does, said one town hall
official who requested anonymity. "I don't know why (Abe) came," he
said.
Back at his Buddhist temple, part of which he has turned into an
office for his anti-nuclear campaign, Hayakawa called the idea
Naraha could be a model of reconstruction "a big fat lie".
"There's no reconstructing and no returning to how it used to be
before (March 11). The government knows this, too. A 'model case'?
That's just words."
($1 = 113.1100 yen)
(Editing by Bill Tarrant)
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