Fear and devastation on the road to Japan's nuclear disaster zone

[bananas]

Source: The Independent

Daniel Howden travels through a post-tsunami wasteland to the gates of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power station
IN PICTURES: THE ROAD TO FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI POWER STATION

Once this road was thronged with traffic: an expressway, one of the arteries of a nation's economic life, as familiar and modern a sight as you would find anywhere in Japan. The only barriers on the route to Fukushima Daiichi were the other people heading in the same direction.

Today the journey is different. It is a journey to the heart of a catastrophe. About 10 kilometres beyond the half-deserted city of Iwaki, the coastal road is blocked not by commuters but by landslides; the satellite navigation system that might once have flashed up traffic jams shows clusters of red circles that denote barred roads. And when we reach the inland expressway itself, the only vehicles disturbing the silence are the rumbling military trucks of Japan's Self Defence Force. Twenty kilometres out from the nuclear plant, abandoned road blocks mutely signal our entry into the nuclear exclusion zone.

It is a scene of devastation. Underneath us the road cuts across rice fields strewn with cars, their wreckages seemingly tossed by the hand of an angry child: in one paddy an upturned Nissan Micra; in another a Toyota people carrier filled to its sunroof with mud. The second storey of a nearby house perches on a single pillar, like a boxy flamingo. The ground floor has been erased, splinters of wood pointing the way the wall of water had gone.

The people here must have been able to hear the hydrogen explosions that rocked the power plant only three kilometres away. They can't have waited much longer to leave. No one will see the cherry blossom that's opening on the boughs of a tree in the school playground, or observe the custom to share a drink underneath it with friends. The children's umbrellas will stay in the rack outside their empty classroom.

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Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fear-and-devastation-on-the-road-to-japans-nuclear-disaster-zone-2253509.html

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Intrepid reporters make their way past the abandoned road blocks and check points.

[PoliticAverse]

1. Interesting story, but they couldn't find a radiation meter to bring with them...

to record and report levels they found along the way??

Or did they have one and just not report the levels they found?

[avaistheone1]

2. Chilling story.

My heart goes out to the people of Japan.

k&r