Nuke holdout resolved to stay put Says officials have neglected the evacuees

Vines creep across the empty streets of Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, its prim gardens overgrown with waist-high weeds and meadow flowers. Dead cows rot where they were left to starve in their pens. Chicken coops writhe with maggots, a sickening stench hanging in the air.

This once-thriving community of 16,000 people now has a population of one.

In this nuclear no-man’s land poisoned by radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, rice farmer Naoto Matsumura refuses to leave despite government orders. He says he has thought about the possibility of getting cancer but prefers to stay, with a skinny dog named Aki, his constant companion.

Nearly six months after the catastrophic quake and tsunami, the 53-year-old believes he is the only inhabitant left in this town sandwiched between the doomed nuclear complex to the north and another sprawling nuclear plant to the south.

“If I give up and leave, it’s all over,” he said. “It’s my responsibility to stay. And it is my right to be here.”

Nuke holdout resolved to stay put Says officials have neglected the evacuees(Japan TImes) | Finance GreenWatch