Thursday, March 28, 2013

Street View of a Fukushima Ghost Town


Washed up boats one kilometre inland from the Pacific Ocean

Google has released more haunting Street View imagery of the areas affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Google were asked by the mayor of Namie-machi to record Street View imagery of his town which sits in the Fukushima 12-mile evacuation zone. He wanted the evacuated residents of the town to be able to take a virtual tour of the town that they can no longer visit in person.

You can view haunting imagery directly on Google Maps or on the Memories for the Future website.


At Kamaishi Municipal Toni Elementary School it is hard not to imagine students once studying radiation half-life in the physics lab of this abandoned school.

In the town of Namie-machi itself, as you explore the abandoned town, you can observe the destruction caused by the earthquake and get a first hand view of how nature is reclaiming the town's sidewalks and empty parking lots.



Via: The Google Blog

3 comments:

Seattle Auto Detail said...

It was sad to see the remnants of a tragedy that shock the whole world.

Retractable Awning said...

The memories came back when I see this town.

Anonymous said...

Found a cemetery, abandoned. People can't even visit their ancestors. This reminds me of Chernobyl. It's a special sort of "burned". Fires change everyplace to have a similar look. And now we can see that radioactive contamination does, too. What an incredible loss in time and investment - people's lives, both directly in the catastrophe, and in the years invested in a house, a community. They will never be made "whole."