Six years after Fukushima nuclear disaster, residents trickle back to deserted towns

HUNTING BOAR

Namie, which used to have six grade schools and three middle schools, plans to eventually open a joint elementary-junior high school. So children will need to commute to schools elsewhere initially.

A hospital opens later this month, staffed with one full-time and several part-time doctors.

Reconstruction efforts may create some jobs. The town's mayor, Tamotsu Baba, hopes to draw research and robotics firms.

Prospects for business are not exactly bright in the short term, but lumber company president Munehiro Asada said he restarted his factory in the town to help drive its recovery.

"Sales barely reach a tenth of what they used to be," he said. "But running the factory is my priority. If no one returns, the town will just disappear."

Shoichiro Sakamoto, 69, has an unusual job: hunting wild boars encroaching on residential areas in nearby Tomioka. His 13-man squad catches the animals in a trap before finishing them off with air rifles.

"Wild boars in this town are not scared of people these days," he said. "They stare squarely at us as if saying, 'What in the world are you doing?' It's like our town has fallen under wild boars' control."

Some former Namie residents say the evacuation orders should remain until radiation levels recede and the dismantling of the ruined nuclear plant has advanced.

But it is now or never for his town, Mayor Baba believes.

"Six long years have passed. If the evacuation is prolonged further, people's hearts will snap," he said. "The town could go completely out of existence."

Reuters