Fukushima

Fukushima Prefecture, with its beautiful mountains and coastline, is home to people who have survived disaster and come out stronger. We meet a peach grower thriving again after the great 2011 quake, a family that rebuilt their seaside hotel destroyed by the tsunami, shopkeepers organizing a summer festival after a two-year pandemic gap, highschoolers continuing Fukushima's samurai horse riding legacy, and three women friends who have staffed a tiny country station together for 35 years.

Two years after the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, more than 150,000 people in Fukushima Prefecture are still forced to leave their homes and try to rebuild their lives amid the threat of radiation exposure. We'll look into the unprecedented challenges they are facing.

A community whose population now includes thousands of workers at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A temporary school in evacuation tries to keep the children from losing memories of their hometown. These are just some of the episodes of daily life in Fukushima Prefecture, 6 years after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster of 2011. This program documents the new day-to-day of a place that's still battling the consequences of the nuclear accident.

Six years have passed since northeastern Japan was struck by a huge earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident. Inspection using robots began this year at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to find molten nuclear fuel. In Fukushima Prefecture, evacuation orders were lifted this spring in many areas where long-running decontamination work has been completed. But for various reasons, many people are unable to return. For others, there's no prospect in the near future of evacuation orders being lifted for their hometowns.

A decade on from its triple core meltdown, we take stock of the mammoth task of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, an undertaking fraught with both technical and social challenges. The Japanese government maintains the process will take up to 40 years, but the schedule has already been revised 5 times, with pivotal elements postponed. Meanwhile, as people return to their homes in surrounding areas, the issue of how to dispose of unprecedented volumes of radioactive waste has become a sore point of contention between residents and the government. We look back on the 10 years since the nuclear disaster and explore the choices that will shape Fukushima's future.

A man wanders through the 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the stricken nuclear reactors at Fukushima. The cherry trees are in bloom and the natural surroundings make an idyllic impression. Radiation is invisible, yet a gaping emptiness looms where the tsunami engulfed streets and houses. The man is wearing normal clothing, just like the people still toughing it out here, for the time being at least. He occasionally encounters white "ghosts" in protective clothing, performing strange tasks. The zone in Fujiwara Toshi's NO MAN'S ZONE is both a place and a mental state.

We travel through Fukushima and Miyagi Prefectures, a region that has maintained a close relationship with nearby rivers and mountains. We start off heading north alongside Japan's 6th largest river, visiting a mini steam locomotive and enjoy some river boating along the way. In the city, we find a subway train that climbs up mountains and crosses rivers, and at times offers some nice scenery. Our journey ends with a specialty tourist train and a visit to 1,000-year-old hot springs.

Following the March 2011 accident at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, everyone within a 20km area was ordered to evacuate. Matsumura Naoto alone stayed put. For 10 years, he has taken care of animals abandoned by those who left. Only a few people have since returned, but the reconstruction is in full swing. Matsumura's home is changing beyond recognition. In Fukushima Monologue, we hear his story. It gives us a chance to reflect on resilience, and what is truly important.