Plummeting morale at Fukushima Daiichi as nuclear cleanup takes its toll

[Art_from_Ark]

9. It is, indeed, too bad that the sites I have listed

are not available in English. They contain quite a bit of interesting information. The first article (about repopulating the town of Naraha), for example, includes the story of an evacuee from Naraha who is currently living in Iwaki and has her doubts about being able to move back in 2 or 3 years. She visits several places in her old town and is sad to see that so much has changed.

For example, the park where she spent much time with her family has been turned into "ground zero" for the radiation clean-up effort and much of the greenery has been replaced with steel and concrete. She visits the downtown area and sees that a store near the train station has been vandalized. Then she goes to her home (which she and her husband were buying with a sizable home loan) and says with a great sigh, "How can I come back here under such brutal conditions?"

She also visits the industrial park where she used to work, which housed 24 factories at one time but is now a ghost town, and reflects on the 2011 disaster. She says that from the high ground of the industrial park, she and other workers could see the tsunami coming. They cried out in horror as they saw the disaster unfolding.