From the archive

Inside Fukushima as people evacuated from radioactive ghost town begin their return

Inside Fukushima as people evacuated from radioactive ghost town begin their return

Now, the Daily Mirror's Special Correspondent Tom Parry and photographer Andy Stenning have gained rare access inside the radioactive Fukushima plant eight years after its catastrophic meltdown...(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)For the last eight years, only animals have wandered in the silent ghost towns near the Fukushima nuclear power site as nature reclaimed empty buildings.
(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)Even now many feel they have been forgotten as Japan seeks to move on from Fukushima, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)Around the town, police officers wearing masks stand at checkpoints, blocking entry to streets where Geiger counter readings are still dangerously high.
(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)She tells me she opened the cafe because there was “a need for somewhere to go” in the eerily empty town.
(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)(Image: Andy Stenning / Daily Mirror)Surfers Akiko and Toshio Kanomi run through the swell.