Two years after Fukushima's triple nuclear meltdown forced tens of thousands of residents to flee, it is possible to take a virtual journey deep into the exclusion zone to one of the towns they left behind. Google Street View has published striking images of the devastation visited on Namie by the March 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown: abandoned homes, shops and restaurants, fields blanketed in grass and weeds.
Google's camera-equipped vehicles began filming in Namie this month at the invitation of its mayor, Tamotsu Baba, whose sadness at his town's fate is matched by fears that the rest of the world is forgetting about Fukushima. For residents from towns and villages near the crippled power plant, the crisis is far from over. About 160,000 who fled the 12-mile evacuation zone, including 21,000 from Namie, are still living in temporary housing.