TOMIOKA, Japan (AP) – Part of the city of Tomioka, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, is still a no-go zone 10 years after a melt sent radioactive precipitation over the area.
The forbidden zone is about 12% of the city, but it was home to about a third of Tomioka’s population of 16,000. It remains closed after the rest of the city in northeastern Japan was reopened in 2017.
Only those with official permission from the city may enter the area for a day visit.
Part of the area, called Yonomori, used to be a shopping center full of shops, houses, a 7-Eleven convenience store and a popular regional supermarket chain called York Benimaru.
The area also includes Yonomori Park, surrounded by streets lined with cherry trees, where city dwellers used to gather for “hanami” parties, have a picnic under the flowers and walk through a tunnel of flowering trees.
This part of the forbidden zone has been designated a special recovery site and the authorities want to reopen it in 2023. The other half of the zone is a nuclear waste dump, an area full of black bags containing radioactive soil, cut tree branches and others contaminated debris collected across the city. The bags will be sent to a medium-term waste storage facility in Futaba and Okuma, the two cities that host the nuclear plant.