2022-02-26 Fukushima

Fukushima Daini NPP

View of Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant from the south over concrete wave breakers

Left to Time

Eleven years after it was urgently evacuated, an elder care facility in Fukushima holds empty wheel chairs that will never be used again.

Abandoned Storage

Tools and debris lay scattered in a wrecked vehicle storage building near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Fukushima Fish Farm

Ruins of a commercial fish farm in Fukushima that was destroyed by a tsunami in 2011.

Fukushima Fish Farm

Damaged ponds at a fish farm in Okuma Town, Fukushima.

Abandoned Fish Farm

Concrete ponds where juvenile fish were raised in water warmed by the neighboring nuclear power plant with signs describing the fish and farming process.

Inconvenience

A convenience store ransacked by earthquake and wild boars in the town of Okuma, Fukushima, Japan.

Convenience Store

Shaking ground, vandals, and wild boars all contributed to the destruction at this convenience store in Okuma Town, Fukushima.

Fukushima Number 2 Nuclear Power Plant

Fukushima Daini, or "2F" is the "other" nuclear power plant that suffered severe damage on March 11, 2011, but workers there averted the meltdowns and explosions that occurred at Daiichi, 11km (7mi) further north.

Sunlight Okuma Entrance

A stone sign marks the barricaded entrance to the Sunlight Okuma Special Home for the Elderly.

Okuma Town Adult Day Care Center

A sign above an entrance at Sunlight Okuma reads: Okuma Town Home Care Support Center Okuma Town Elderly Day Service Center

Sunlight Okuma Administration Office

Documents, computer equipment, and personal effects sit abandoned and fading in an office area at the Sunlight Okuma Elder Care facility 2km southwest of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Storage at Fukushima Daiichi

An Interim Storage Facility for contaminated soil is under construction in the shadow of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and over a thousand tanks holding over a million tons of contaminated and treated water.

Independent Radiation Monitoring

Safecast volunteer Joe Moross inspects a radiation sensor near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Fukushima Exclusion Zone

Moss grows on a car abandoned in the evacuated area around the wrecked nuclear facility in Fukushima Japan.

Successfully Evacuated

No residents died in the evacuation of the Sunlight Okuma Elder Care Facility. Not all similar sites were as fortunate.

Sunlight Okuma

A gurney used to evacuate residents sits outside the entrance of a care facility 2km from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Nature Prevails

Weeds and young trees sprout in a parking lot at the Sunlight Okuma Home for the Elderly.

Fukushima Exclusion Zone

An abandoned car with graffiti in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone.

Fukushima Exclusion Zone

A bicycle and assorted power tools lay abandoned in a storage building near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Fukushima Exclusion Zone

Even sturdy reinforced concrete was no match for the tsunami on the coast of Fukushima.

Fukushima Fish Hatchery

Before it was destroyed by the same tsunami that led to the meltdowns, this facility used seawater warmed by steam from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant next door.