Through the no-go zone
Noriko Ikeura starts the workday as a bus guide. Her day is about the same as for most people. She gets up early in the morning, gets some breakfast, then waits for buses to show up at the station. From 8 a.m. to 9:40 p.m. she helps bus drivers navigate their routes and ensures the safety and well-being of the passengers. Same-old, same-old. Except passengers on her bus are warned not to open the windows during the trip, and a television screen drops down from the ceiling at the start of the trip and shows the journey on a map. Rather than charting kilometers driven, it measures the amount of radiation absorbed by passengers.
Ikeura’s bus is the only regular public transportation through the infamous no-go zone surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The area is now called the Difficult to Return Area -- not the no-go zone -- but homes and businesses are still gated and neglected. Paint was fading and peeling, cars had dust on them, and weeds and grass were growing through cracks in the sidewalk. No one has called this place home since the triple disaster of 3.11.
The Montana Journalism Abroad crew, myself included, got on the Joban Bus from Naraha to Hiranomachi where we would later transfer to a train to Sendai, the last stop on our Japan trip.
Being able to see more of Japan is usually a treat, but it didn’t feel that way on this ride. After passing through the town of Tomioka, the road was lined with buildings that had been abandoned and untouched for six years. The farther we drove along, going through towns such as Okuma, Futaba, and Namie, we saw more and more homes, shopping centers and gas stations that had simply been abandoned. Grass as tall as three meters grew in the fields and from cracks in the streets, covering even cars and homes that were left behind during the disaster.
Photo by Parker Seibold
Some of the areas I saw were devastated by the tsunami. But all them had been shaken by the earthquake and then exposed to some level of radiation from the failing power plant. People -- former residents, workers and police -- come and go through these areas, but they’re not allowed to spend the night here. And few people invest time and money caring for a place that is officially “Difficult to Return To.”
Ikeura has been guiding for the Joban Line through the evacuated parts of Fukushima since the route opened two years ago. The bus connects areas formerly served by the JR Line train line, which was damaged by the tsunami. Ikeura said she feels safe working in the evacuated areas. She was issued a personal dosimeter, and the bus shows passengers a screen containing real time information about the amount of radiation they are passing through. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that when the bus passed the entrance to the Fukushima Daiichi power plant itself, the real-time radiation screen was folded back up into the ceiling and not visible to the passengers.
During our time in the affected areas, I saw radiation levels vary. In areas such as Naraha, Tomioka, and Haranomachi, the microSv/h was low, around .05. Towns in the middle of the no-go zone were considerably higher, with Okuma ranking at 2.717 microSv/h. Though the risk and fear of radiation seemed much greater initially, I felt safe in the bus heading to Sendai to finish our reports.
Photo by Parker Seibold
There is often discord in the sights of the no-go zone: the height of the uncut grass, the broken windows and doors that have not been fixed, the lack of people bustling around town living their lives. What I hoped to gain from passing through was an understanding about what the people who had lived there must have gone through, how difficult it must be to abandon homes in these beautiful agricultural valleys between the mountains and the sea.
What I also gained was an appreciation of the people who want to see what I saw in the hopes of understanding what happened six years ago. To bear witness to this tortured landscape is a way to create a community -- of the world, of Japan. If people see these abandoned places, they may feel grateful for their own homes but also sad for the homes and history that have been lost. Maybe they will want to help find solutions for the contamination so everyone can return home.