Namie, Japan (dpa) – Yuichi Harada stepped gingerly into the darkened clock shop he used to run with his family, the main display shelf still sprawled over the desk where it was knocked by the devastating earthquake in north-eastern Japan three years ago.
He recalled how crowds would throng the streets around Namie railway station, lined with family-run stores like his, to celebrate traditional festivals and indulge in the local pan-fried noodles.
But all the stores are now shuttered and some partially collapsed since the March 2011 quake and tsunami and the ensuing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, seven kilometres away.
The only remaining inhabitants are the rats after authorities evacuated the 20 kilometres around the plant when it suffered explosions, fire and radiation leaks, forcing Namie town’s around 21,000 residents to leave.
Farmlands and craftsmen’s workshops were contaminated with radiation in the town which was well known for the local pottery called Soma yaki or Soma ware, distinguished by its crazed glaze and double-layered construction.
About 70 per cent of Namie’s residents relocated within Fukushima prefecture while the rest dispersed all over the country.
“Namie has fallen apart,” Naohiro Sato, a public official from the town, said. “Its families have been separated, neighbourly ties have been severed and local communities have vanished.”
“There has been very little progress when it comes to the psychological aspect of the post-disaster reconstruction,” Sato said.
“These evacuees do not know where they will take up residence,” he added.
Many of them have been squeezed into prefabricated temporary housing for nearly three years.
Harada, the fourth-generation owner of his shop, which employed nine staff, including his mother, 88, daughter and son-in-law, now lives with his wife and mother in Nihonmatsu city, 50 kilometres west of Namie.
He has visited his hometown twice this year, as authorities allow residents to make temporary returns as radiation levels fall.
The government first said residents could start returning in March, but this has now been put back at least three years, after local officials conceded that decontamination efforts has had “only limited effects.”
The extra delay caused many Namie residents to abandon hope of returning home. Only 18.8 per cent of them said they wanted to go back to the town anyway, a government survey in August showed.
But Namie plans to allow about 5,000 of its residents to return to certain areas by March 2017 where levels of radiation are relatively low, town officials said. About 30 officials have already started working at the town hall to prepare for their return.
The municipal authorities hope to help businesses that could cater to those involved in decontamination work or the decommissioning of the six nuclear reactors at the plant.
It will probably take up to four decades to scrap all the units, the government said, potentially providing plenty of business for the town.
Harada still finds it hard to see the stricken power plan as a boon for the community. “We cannot go home unless they get rid of the risks from the nuclear power plant,” he said.
The plant’s operator Tokyo Electric Power Co has been struggling with a series of troubles including leaks of toxic water and power outages at the complex.
“They are even going to make children go back. That is totally wrong,” Harada stressed.
Setsuko Kuroda, a leader of women’s group in Fukushima, said Tokyo Electric and the government want to stop paying compensation and are trying to push evacuees to go back to radiation-contaminated areas.
“They believe money is more important than people’s lives,” she said.
Harada said the decision should take into account more than just the radiation levels. The community had been destroyed, he said, and would not be resuscitated simply by allowing residents home.
“We were thrown out by the nuclear accident,” Harada said. “The government has a duty to recreate a community for us. And we have the right to have one.”
Harada and others have formed a non-profit group, Shinmachi-Namie, to discuss the future of the community, but they are not optimistic about returning to Namie.
“If there is a municipality which accepts us, that would be our hometown,” Harada said.
Takehiko Kambayashi 