Iitate, Fukushima prefecture, Japan.
The area, northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, was heavily exposed to radioactive fallout in March 2011. The Government lifted evacuation orders for a part of Iitate in March 2017 despite radiation readings that mean it is not safe for people to return to Iitate. As of December 2017, the population of Iitate was 505, 7.7% of the population in March 2011. Greenpeace has been conducting radiation surveys in Iitate since March 2011, when it was the first to warn of the high levels of radiation and the urgent need to evacuate. Adopting a return to normal policy, the Japanese government undertook an unprecedented decontamination program for areas of Fukushima contaminated by the triple reactor meltdown in March 2011. Fukushima prefecture is 70 percent mountainous forest which has not and cannot be decontaminated, with decontamination efforts focused along roads and in towns, farmland and in narrow areas around people’s houses. Even so, the result has been that the Japanese authorities have produced a nuclear waste crisis, with over 13 million cubic meters of waste located in 147,000 locations (as of July 2017). The Japanese government is determined to force people back to their homes despite the on-going radiation risks and the vast volumes of nuclear waste.