Memorial Park Opens 15 Years after Fukushima Disaster

Fukushima, May 2 (Jiji Press)–A memorial park dedicated to mourning the victims of the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster opened in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, on Saturday. The Fukushima March 11 Memorial Park was jointly established by the Japanese government and the prefecture in an area straddling the Fukushima towns of Namie and Futaba, which were severely affected by the tsunami-triggered accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The 46.4-hectare park features a national memorial hall consisting of a 16.5-meter hill, the same height as the tsunami, and an indoor memorial space. From a flower-offering alter on the hill, visitors can overlook the surrounding area, where reconstruction work is underway, as well as the Pacific Ocean. The park also includes an area that recreates the rural scenery as it existed before the disaster and preserves the remains of former settlements, including damaged houses. The park was initially scheduled to open on April 25, but the opening was postponed after a special advisory was issued on April 20 for potential earthquakes off the northern prefecture of Hokkaido and the Sanriku northeastern region. Ahead of the park’s opening, Fukushima Governor Masao Uchibori, Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Yasushi Kaneko, reconstruction minister Takao Makino and other officials visited the park and laied flowers. Ordinary visitors also laid prepared flowers. Among them was Shizue Otomo, 74, who lost a cousin living in Namie to the tsunami. “I prayed for my cousin to rest in peace,” Otomo said. “While the landscape has changed so much, I hope this park becomes a place where people who used to live here can accept those changes.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]