The spooky remains of a once thriving town lie abandoned following the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Power Plant.
Over 160,000 people were forced to evacuate and flee when the disaster occurred following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and a devastating tsunami. Over 8,400 people died when an enormously powerful 9.0-magnitude quake struck.
Multiple explosions at the plant and radiation forced the evacuation and much of the surrounding area remains a ghost town. Residents were not allowed back until 2017 but of the 21,000 that were offered a place, only around 1,000 chose to return.
The nearby town of Namie was turned into a ghost town in the aftermath of the event, while the small town of Futaba with a population of around 5,600 only saw residents returning easier this year after a government project to remove the contaminated topsoil.
People around the world are used to seeing the fallout of a nuclear disaster, with images of empty playgrounds, apartment buildings and even fairgrounds burned into their minds after the devastating accident at Chernobyl in 1986.
Chernobyl was supposed to be a one-off due to being poorly built but the images of empty schools, SEGA arcades and hair salons are now also found in Japan, rather than in the former Soviet Union.
Hauntingly, a faded sign in Futaba reads "Nuclear Power - The Energy for a Better Future" and wild boars have been seen roaming the streets in Namie.
As a result, many of the surrounding areas remain overgrown, spooky and with sad reminders of the speed with which people had to completely abandon their day-to-day lives as people remain reluctant to return.
In 2017, residents were told they would be allowed to return when the radiation returned to a fifth of the level considered damaging enough to give people serious long-term health effects, but people were slow on the uptake apparently concerned with the history of the place.
Former teacher Ito Tatsuya was a Namie resident and said to the New Scientist: "It’s a strange feeling, but I never want to go there again."
The Fukushima disaster occurred when the tsunami hit the plant and struck the power supply needed for cooling the reactors
A report by the World Nuclear Association said: "At 3:36 pm on Saturday 12, there was a hydrogen explosion on the service floor of the building above unit 1 reactor containment, blowing off the roof and cladding on the top part of the building, after the hydrogen mixed with air and ignited."
Last week, executives of the plant operator the Tokoyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) were ordered to pay just under the equivalent of £80 billion in damages.
