The work of the Polish photographer.
These pictures show an abandoned and contaminated city in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, four years after two natural disasters (the strongest ever Japan earthquake and ensuing tsunami) provoked an accident at a nuclear plant.
Polish photographer and film Director Arkadiusz Podniesinski received special permission to visit the city in Fukushima Prefecture exposed to radiation resulting from the infamous crash of 2011. His pictures tell the tragic story of people who were forced to leave their home, located not far from the destroyed nuclear power plant.
It took more than four years after the disaster, and many of the abandoned homes, schools and buildings are in the same condition in which they were abandoned.
Some of the evacuated residents of Fukushima are still in temporary housing, and some of them have no hope of ever getting back home.
Podniesinski wrote:
Fukushima disaster etched in the memory of local residents, the evacuation order is still in force, the complete absence of people in a restricted area means that everything is in the same place as four years ago.
Toys, electronic devices, musical instruments, and even money were left in their places. Only a tragedy of this magnitude can appear in such poor form.”
Podniesinski had to make movies about the consequences of such disasters, and to interview emergency workers and evacuated residents.
He visited Fukushima four times and took these pictures in July 2015.
“Abandoned car. They cannot be carried without the permission of the owners.”
The destruction began on 11 March 2011, when an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 points, originated in the sea, rocked the coastal city of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture. The tremors lasted for about three minutes and caused significant damage to the region, but they caused a chain reaction that was much worse.
World nuclear Association reported:
“The area of seabed that stretches for 650 km from North to South, as a result of the tremors has risen to 10-20 meters. Japan moved several meters to the East, and the coastline in some places, fell half a meter”.
As a result, the beach was hit by 15-metre tsunami flooded marshes 560 square kilometres of land and claimed the lives of 19,000 people. The tsunami took out the backup generators powering the cooling system of the reactors at Fukushima, which triggered the powerful explosions.
As a result of these explosions over the next few days there is a powerful emission of radioactive substances into the atmosphere.
Commission for the investigation of the accident found that the plant management ignored the essential safety requirements, including risk assessment and training plans for the adoption of emergency measures in emergency cases.
“In the immediate vicinity of the restricted area, I happened to notice an abandoned car. It is almost not possible to see at a distance, it is almost completely overgrown with green ivy.
Podniesinski wrote:
“The report prepared by the Japanese parliamentary Commission to investigate the accident leaves no doubt about the fact that the disaster could have been foreseen and prevented”.
Over 160 thousand people were evacuated from houses within a 20-kilometer exclusion zone. The contaminated territory was divided into areas according to pollution levels and the likelihood of how soon residents will be able to return.
“Four years have passed after the accident, and more than 120 thousand people still cannot return to their homes, and many of them still live in temporary premises, specially built for them.”
Changing the boundaries of the exclusion zone in the period between 2011 and 2015.
On the maps marked in red the areas with the highest pollution levels, and the entrance to them is strictly prohibited. Only in rare cases are given a special permission to visit these areas. The decontamination activities are not carried out here, as radiation contaminated the area is not subject to restoration, and it is unlikely that the residents used to be able to come back.
“Local nuclear energy ensures a brighter future.”
Orange areas on the map have a lower rate of contamination than the red areas, but these areas are also unsuitable for housing. Here you can see the teams of workers involved in the decontamination of properties in the area, and local residents can visit their homes for a limited period of time. Green areas are the least polluted by radiation, and the inhabitants will most likely get an opportunity to return to their homes in the near future.
The roofs of all buildings cleaned by hand one by one.
“Towns and villages also clear from the radiation methodically street by street, house by house. Walls and roofs of all buildings water and clean brushes. The scale of the enterprise and speed cause the rapture.”
One of the thousands of landfills with bags of radioactive soil.
According to Podniesinski, the first thing you notice when entering the area — hundreds of thousands of black bags filled with radioactive soil. They appeared here as the result of careful work on the decontamination zone.
In order to save space, the workers stack bags in layers one on top of another.
“Still not clear where to put the contaminated waste, the more that the people are protesting against long-term landfill located near their homes. They do not want to sell or rent their land for this purpose. They do not believe the assurances of the government that after 30 years, these bags of radioactive waste will no longer pose any kind of threat. They are concerned that the waste will remain there forever.”
“Twenty thousand workers painstakingly removed every piece of land. They remove the upper most contaminated layer of soil and put it in bags, which are then brought to one of the thousands of landfills. The bags everywhere. They become an integral part of the landscape in the vicinity of Fukushima.”
