The Eerie Repopulation of the Fukushima Exclusion Zone wired.com

In March, when cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom, the Japanese leg of the Olympic Torch relay will kick off at a soccer stadium 12 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (yes, that nuclear power plant).
That’s bound to surprise and maybe worry some attendees, whose memory of the facility's catastrophic meltdown nine years ago is still fresh.
But in fact, the government has been aggressively decontaminating and rehabilitating Fukushima prefecture, and life is slowly returning to the exclusion zone.
It also cut the monthly $1,000 stipends evacuees received from the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which owns the nuclear plant.
When Price visited, he navigated “a mixed state of reconstruction and decay.” In the neatly cared-for town centers, locals went to work, chatted over coffee, and even attended a cultural festival.