11/03/2023
At 14:46 on March 11, 2011, the Tōhoku earthquake, one of the strongest ever recorded, triggered a catastrophic tsunami off the east coast of Japan. More than 15,000 people lost their lives. Three meltdowns occurred at the Fukushimia Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the entire region was declared an exclusion zone and nearly 200,000 people had to be evacuated. In 2017, six years after the accident, I visited the evacuation zone around the power plant and captured the fate of the fate of the people who had lost everything and were only slowly allowed to return to their old homes.
There should have been a second trip to Fukushima in March 2020, but due to the emerging SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, all bookings had to be cancelled shortly before departure. In 2021, on the tenth anniversary of the catastrophe, I made a second attempt - but Japan did not allow any foreigners into the country at that time. In the end, it would take until October 2022 for the borders to be reopened.
In a few days, I will be on my way to Japan again. Twelve years will have passed since the disaster. I will set out with Karin Taira again to capture what another six years of reconstruction and normalization mean for Fukushima. And this time, the visit won't end in front of the gates of the power plant...
The 2017 article can be found at https://www.oneman-onemap.com/en/2018/04/10/one-day-in-the-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-evacuation-zone/ .