The Lonely Towns of Fukushima
March 10, 2017 As reported by Motoko Rich in the New York Times.
While on a speaking tour of Japan, sponsored by Green Action of Kyodo, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps lunched at a just opened organic café very close to the main entrance of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. It was seven months before the catastrophe struck on 3/11/11. Kevin had just met with the mayor and vice mayor of Okuma and Futaba, the host towns of Fukushima Daiichi. He would give a public presentation that evening, attended by more than 50 local residents.
Very likely, that café is now a part of the "Dead Zone," as is most to all of Futaba and Okuma. Many of the local residents, and even elected officials, Kevin met that day, have been nuclear evacuees for six years now, with no end in sight.
Of course, very similar scenes, as described in the article above, have been observed in Pripyat, Ukraine, and other Dead Zone towns near Chernobyl, as well.