The massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, exacted a huge toll on Minamisoma, leaving hundreds dead or missing and much of the city of 70,000 people destroyed. However, the tragedy for the coastal city was just beginning.
Minamisoma's location 25 km north of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant put it in the direct path of a sinister invisible danger after three of the plant's tsunami-hit reactors experienced nuclear meltdowns. More than 60,000 of the town's residents evacuated as fears grew over radiation that was released into the air from the crippled nuclear plant. Speaking to an audience five years later at a news conference in Tokyo, Katsunobu Sakurai, the mayor of Minamisoma, said his city has still not fully recovered from the nuclear disaster.
Amid calls to toughen safety measures in Japan's nuclear industry following the accident, all reactors across the country were subsequently halted. Last year saw the restart of three idled nuclear reactors in Fukui and Kagoshima prefectures after those facilities passed new tougher safety tests instituted in the wake of the disaster. Later this year, Tepco is hoping to reactivate two reactors at its mammoth Kashiwazaki-kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture, which would be the company's first restarts since the Fukushima meltdowns.
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