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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
After the disasters of March 11, tens of thousands were ordered to leave their homes in the vicinity of the damaged nuclear plant, their footprints now frozen in the mud.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
Two dogs scrap on Okuma's empty streets. In the early days of the crisis the no-go zone was alive with roaming farm animals and pets: cows, pigs, goats, dogs, cats, even ostriches. Often defying police patrols and barricades, volunteer rescuers rounded up and decontaminated some pets, returning them to their owners, and fed others. But by midsummer, a number of the pets had perished of starvation and disease.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
Futon bedding is usually folded and stored in closets each morning. But residents had no chance to put their homes in order before their hasty exodus, prompted by evacuation orders on televised news conferences before dawn on March 12. This bedroom is in Okuma, less than three miles from the damaged nuclear plant. Town officials in the area have accused power company Tepco of violating its duty to warn them of the crisis.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
Evacuation drills are common in Japan's earthquake zones. So when the real thing happened in March, the children knew what to do—and expected to return in a few days. Months have gone by since the students fled. Still sitting in the classroom cubbies are the leather book bags that can cost several hundred dollars apiece and are one of a Japanese child's most valuable and cherished possessions. They will likely never be reclaimed.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
A lone animal rights activist walks along the Fukushima coast. The power plant lies just over the hill, less than half a mile away. Weeks after other tsunami-hit regions were cleared of debris, cleanup crews hadn't yet been dispatched to this area because of radiation levels. Despite stiff penalties for illegally entering the zone, some animal rescuers defied restrictions as they sought to aid pets and farm animals that had been left behind.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
Months after the tsunami, grass had sprouted from this wrecked car on the coast near Namie. Debris littered the coast of Fukushima in the aftermath of the storm; concern over radiation prevented immediate cleanup.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
There were no provisions to evacuate livestock from the irradiated zone, and animals were abandoned.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
A hog wandering the deserted streets of downtown Namie discovered this feed store, where it gorged itself, then napped.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
Police wearing protective face masks guard a road leading into the zone in the city of Minami-Soma. The sign reads Keep Out.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
In a gym in Hirono, residents in protective suits are briefed before being escorted to their homes for a June 8 visit and to retrieve a few small items. (There's no room on the bus for larger things.) Although the trips in were strictly controlled, a town official says that for the decontamination process—disposing of shoe covers, suits, caps, and masks and being screened for radiation—everyone and everything was waved through.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
Nobuko Sanpei, 74, eats dinner in her cardboard-box home at the Big Palette Fukushima convention center in Koriyama. "It was sweltering, so I cut out a hole," she said. For months after the nuclear disaster, thousands of refugees lived in cardboard "houses" in inns, schools, and other public shelters. Sanpei, who has since moved to a small apartment, pines for the rice paddies she and her husband tended in Tomioka, south of the power plant.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
An evacuee relaxes in her makeshift dwelling on the floor of the Big Palette convention center. The crammed emergency quarters lack privacy, and disease can spread rapidly. Older residents, who spent their lives in tight-knit rural communities, are often reluctant to move into temporary housing, isolated from friends and family. Social workers are trying to prevent a wave of kodoku-shi, or lonely death, among solitary seniors.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
Tattooed Toyoo Ide, 69, is one of the men taking advantage of the bathing facility set up by the Self-Defense Forces outside the Big Palette evacuation center. A lifelong employee of the nuclear power plant and self-described wise guy, Ide misses his home deeply: "There's no water or electricity now, but if there were, I'd go back, radioactivity or not. I'd go back today. I can't live in a stranger's town."
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
Waters ruined a photo album left behind on Fukushima's tsunami-ravaged coast. In the pictures the children are dressed in fine kimonos worn during a ceremony for the traditional celebration when children turn three, five, and seven.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
On a brief visit to her home in Namie, Junko Shimizu packs her husband's suit to take out of the zone.
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Photograph by David Guttenfelder
At this home within the nuclear zone the earthquake dislodged and shattered a portrait of a family member. In Japan many families keep the memory of their forebears alive by displaying somber images of deceased patriarchs and matriarchs, who often stare down at a Buddhist family altar where incense is burned and prayers are offered to the dearly departed. Now the portraits preside over empty households.
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