As Fukushima residents return, some see
hope in nuclear tourism
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[June 21, 2018]
By Tim Kelly
FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - On a cold day
in February, Takuto Okamoto guided his first tour group to a sight few
outsiders had witnessed in person: the construction cranes looming over
Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Seven years after a deadly tsunami ripped through the Tokyo Electric
Power plant, Okamoto and other tour organizers are bringing curious
sightseers to the region as residents who fled the nuclear catastrophe
trickle back.
Many returnees hope tourism will help resuscitate their towns and ease
radiation fears.
But some worry about drawing a line under a disaster whose impact will
be felt far into the future. The cleanup, including the removal of
melted uranium fuel, may take four decades and cost several billion U.S.
dollars a year.
"The disaster happened and the issue now is how people rebuild their
lives," Okamoto said after his group stopped in Tomioka, 10 kilometers
(6.21 miles) south of the nuclear plant. He wants to bring groups twice
a week, compared with only twice a month now.
Electronic signs on the highway to Tomioka showed radiation around 100
times normal background levels, as Okamoto's passengers peered out tour
bus windows at the cranes poking above Fukushima Daiichi.

"For me, it's more for bragging rights, to be perfectly honest," said
Louie Ching, 33, a Filipino programmer. Ching, two other Filipinos and a
Japanese man who visited Chernobyl last year each paid 23,000 yen
($208.75) for a day trip from Tokyo.
NAMIE
The group had earlier wandered around Namie, a town 4 kilometers north
of the plant to which residents began returning last year after
authorities lifted restrictions. So far, only about 700 of 21,000 people
are back - a ratio similar to that of other ghost towns near the nuclear
site.
Former residents Mitsuru Watanabe, 80, and his wife Rumeko, 79, have no
plans to return. They were only in town to clear out their shuttered
restaurant before it is demolished, and they chatted with tourists while
they worked.
"We used to pull in around 100 million yen a year," Mitsuru said as he
invited the tourists inside. A 2011 calendar hung on the wall, and
unfilled orders from the evacuation day remained on a whiteboard in the
kitchen.
"We want people to come. They can go home and tell other people about
us," Mitsuru said among the dusty tables.
Okamoto's group later visited the nearby coastline, where the tsunami
killed hundreds of people. Abandoned rice paddies, a few derelict houses
that withstood the wave and the gutted Ukedo elementary school are all
that remain.
It's here, behind a new sea wall at the edge of the restricted radiation
zone, that Fukushima Prefecture plans to build a memorial park and
5,200-square-metre (56,000-square-foot) archive center with video
displays and exhibits about the quake, tsunami and nuclear calamity.
For a graphic on Fukushima returnees, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2lv77E6
LURING TOURISTS
"It will be a starting point for visitors," Kazuhiro Ono, the
prefecture's deputy director for tourism, said of the center. The Japan
Tourism Agency will fund the project, Ono added.
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ourists from Tokyo's universities, look out from a bus at an area
devastated by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, near Tokyo
Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant, in Namie town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan May
19, 2018. Picture take May 19, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Ono wants tourists to come to Fukushima, particularly foreigners, who
have so far steered clear. Overseas visitors spent more than 70 million
days in Japan last year, triple the number in 2011. About 94,000 of
those were in Fukushima.
Tokyo Electric will provide material for the archive, although the
final budget for the project has yet to be finalised, he said.
"Some people have suggested a barbecue area or a promenade," said
Hidezo Sato, a former seed merchant in Namie who leads a residents'
group. A "1" sticker on the radiation meter around his neck
identified him as being the first to return to the town.
"If people come to brag about getting close to the plant, that can't
be helped, but at least they'll come," Sato said. The archive will
help ease radiation fears, he added.
SPECTACLE
Standing outside a farmhouse as workmen refurbished it so her family
could return, Mayumi Matsumoto, 54, said she was uneasy about the
park and archive.
"We haven't gotten to the bottom of what happened at the plant, and
now is not the time," she said.
Matsumoto had come back for a day to host a rice-planting event for
about 40 university students. Later they toured Namie on two buses,
including a stop at scaffolding near the planned memorial park site
to view Fukushima Daiichi's cranes.
Matsumoto described her feelings toward Tokyo Electric as
"complicated," because it is responsible for the disaster but also
helped her family cope its aftermath. One of her sons works for the
utility and has faced abuse from angry locals, she added.
"It's good that people want to come to Namie, but not if they just
want to get close to the nuclear plant. I don't want it to become a
spectacle," Matsumoto said.

Okamoto is not the only guide offering tours in the area, although
visits of any kind remain rare. He said he hoped his clients would
come away with more than a few photographs.
"If people can see for themselves the damage caused by tsunami and
nuclear plant, they will understand that we need to stop it from
happening again," said Okamoto, who attended university in a
neighboring prefecture. "So far, we haven't come across any
opposition from the local people."
(Reporting by Tim Kelly; additional reporting by Kwiyeon Ha and Toru
Hanai; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
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