Inside the Japanese Exclusion Zone

Another post for those of you that like modern ruins. 

 

The "Exclusion Zone" is an area surrounding the crippled Fukushima nuclear reactor is closed off to public access, except for special permission.  MSNBC has provided an evocative description of a small town inside the Exclusion Zone one-year after the tsunami and reactor disaster:

...it was a suburbs-fringed town surrounded by cattle farms. There were neat three- and four-bedroom houses on half-acre plots. There were tricycles and big-wheels on the driveways. There were swing sets in the yards. The only thing missing was people. If space travelers arrived after an extinction-level event, this is what they might find. A traffic light on the main street blinking red cautioned drivers who weren’t there to slow down.

I walked down the center of the street. It’s an odd feeling to walk down the middle of a main street, down the dotted line. I walked into a large drug store. The door was open. It was an American-style drugstore that sold everything from candy bars to razors to toilet paper. The shelves were still stocked. There were half-filled baskets in the aisles. It was silent. No people. No cash registers. No background music. Nothing.

A sushi restaurant was next door. It was locked. The menu on the front window showed the lunch special, a combo of sushi and miso soup, that was offered on the day of the explosion.

I walked into a man’s home. I opened his fridge. It was full. The food was rotten.

There was a laundromat nearby. There were carts half full of clothing in front of the washing machines.

But suddenly we heard movement. Cows, which have broken out of their enclosures, have taken over the town. They seemed more wild and aggressive than usual. The cows were led by bulls. We had to hide behind a tree as the bulls raced past, cows charging behind them. They ran so quickly I saw a cow slip on the street and crash into storefront. She scampered to her feet and joined the feral herd.

Read the whole thing.