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Our hometown Tsushima, Namie Town, Fukushima Prefecture. Surrounded by the mountains of Abukuma, it was a beautiful mountain village known for producing natural matsutake mushrooms and Akamatsu.
However, a large amount of radioactive material released by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was carried by the wind in the northwest direction and poured into Tsushima more than 30 km away. Even after 10 years have passed, it has been designated as a "return difficult zone" and I am still unable to return.
In order to check the situation at home, we may go home temporarily with permission. The scenery will change when you open the gate of the iron fence and enter the restricted area. The damage to his home is unbearable, with boars destroying the doors, monkeys ruining the rooms and hakubisin inhabiting the attic. I used to keep laughing, but I can't live in the same house anymore.
Lost our Home Town
About 1.6% of the total area of Tsushima has been designated as a "Specified Reconstruction and Recovery Base Area", and decontamination work and the dismantling of houses have started for the purpose of regional regeneration. However, 98.4% remains untouched, the prospect of the feedback does not have standing.
Even if you leave a ruined house, you will still have a "negative heritage" for the children and grandchildren who will live in the future. I thought of my parents who struggled to develop the land, but I still had to choose to demolish them.
A house full of family memories is about to be swallowed up in the mountains. The proof of a life that has died is about to disappear. I want to leave the oldness and last appearance to the descendants 100 years later.
Although it was an aerial shot with a drone, it was literally "with mountains, with valleys". There are also places where the radio waves from communication devices do not reach, and private houses that are hard to find because they are covered with forests. I carried the equipment, climbed a mountain polluted with radioactivity, crossed a valley, searched for each house, and recorded without missing.
In order to leave the disappearing hometown as a video, 12 residents form the center, and in May 2019, we formed a “Meeting to leave hometown Tsushima as a video”. We started a project of using a drone to shoot aerial photography of all 520 houses.
However, there are many houses scattered in the remote mountains like the popular program "Potsun and House". What's more, roads that haven't been maintained for 10 years are devastated and you can't even set foot.
DVD "Hometown Tsushima"
In order to make people all over the country know about Tsushima, we have put together a 70-minute video on a DVD as "The Last Seven Stories of the Vanishing Hometown." This is an interview that conveys our current feelings and a part of the aerial image taken with a drone. We were able to complete it with the support of many people through crowdfunding.
Currently, I am editing a DVD set of "Furusato Tsushima Complete Record Collection (tentative title)", which is an aerial shot of all 520 households in Tsushima. We are also proceeding with collation work between the house and the landlord, aiming for completion by the end of 2020. This DVD set will be distributed to the residents of Tsushima who have left their hometown and are now living in evacuation.
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