Namie ghost town in Japan

Two years have passed since the earthquake and tsunami off the east coast of Japan that caused the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, but the vast territories around the power plant still remain an exclusion zone. Residents of the small village of Namie, north of the emergency nuclear power plant, were evacuated shortly after the earthquake, and were no longer able to return to their homes. Namie has become a ghost town.

At the request of local authorities, Google sent camera-equipped vehicles to Namie to map the streets of the deserted city so that locals could see their abandoned homes. Namie City Mayor Tamotsu Baba wrote on the Google blog: “After the March 2011 earthquake, the whole world moved on, and many cities in Japan began to recover. But for Namie, time has stopped forever. We, the people of the older generation, inherited this city from our ancestors, and it hurts us very much that we could not pass it on to our children.”

(Total 30 photos)

1. A Volkswagen parked near a damaged building in Namie Township. (© Google, Inc.)

2. The streets are overgrown with grass and bushes. (© Google, Inc.)

3. The roof of a house destroyed by an earthquake in 2011 lies on a road in the village of Namie, Japan. (© Google, Inc.)

4. Bicycles are in an abandoned parking lot near the train station in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

5. Fallen headstones lie in a cemetery near the coast. (© Google, Inc.)

6. Empty fishing port in Ukedo. Before the tsunami, there were 140 fishing boats in the port. (© Google, Inc.)

7. Vending machines near the damaged building. (© Google, Inc.)

8. Fishing boats and garbage lie close to the coast. (© Google, Inc.)

9. The ruins of a house lie on the street in Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

10. Abandoned residential building and overgrown parking lot. (© Google, Inc.)

11. The wreckage of the boats lie near the damaged building in the harbor of Ukedo. (© Google, Inc.)

12. The car is reflected in the mirror near the overgrown road in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

13. A wrecked car near a dam off the coast in Ukedo. (© Google, Inc.)

14. Damaged building in the harbor of Ukedo. (© Google, Inc.)

15. A collapsed house near an empty restaurant in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

16. Surviving building off the coast in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

17. Garbage lies on the road near the Pacific coast in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

18. A dilapidated house stands in a field in the area affected by the tsunami. (© Google, Inc.)

19. Monument near the road near the coast in Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

20. Wrecked vehicles on the road in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

21. Most of the roads in Namie end in a dead end. They are either destroyed by the earthquake or lead to the exclusion zone. (© Google, Inc.)

22. Another collapsed house in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

23. Wrecked cars lie in a field near the coast in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

24. Fishing nets lie in an abandoned prayer house in Ukedo. (© Google, Inc.)

25. Crows sit on the bridge over the river Ukedo in the village of Namie. (© Google, Inc.)

26. The tractor stands among the thickets of grass. (© Google, Inc.)

27. Ukedo Elementary School building. All 92 of her students managed to evacuate before the tsunami. (© Google, Inc.)

28. Elementary school in Ukedo. (© Google, Inc.)

29. The inscription on the school board reads: “I love Ukedo Elementary School. I will definitely be back". (© Google, Inc.)

30. In the distance, the buildings of the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant rise. View from the rooftop of Ukedo Elementary School. (© Google, Inc.)