-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
In Small Numbers, Visitors Are Returning to Fukushima
It has been more than seven years since the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan.
Now, tour organizers are bringing tourists to the area.
People are slowly returning to the area where the disaster struck. Many hope that visitors will help bring back towns there and increasingly ease fears of radiation.
Tourism in the Fukushima area
Takuto Okamoto operates tours through the area. He brings groups two times a month to places like Tomioka, a town 10 kilometers from the wrecked1 power plant.
“The disaster happened. The issue now is how people rebuild their lives,” Okamoto said.
He wants to increase his tours to twice a week.
The area around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is not fully2 back to normal.
Electronic signs on the highway to Tomioka show radiation levels 100 times normal background levels.
Louie Ching is a 33-year-old programmer from the Philippines. He, two other Filipinos and a Japanese man who visited Chernobyl each paid about $209 for the trip from Tokyo.
Ching said about his visit, “For me, it’s more for bragging4 rights, to be perfectly5 honest.”
Few people return to Namie
The group visited another town, Namie. It is only four kilometers from the disabled nuclear plant. Residents began returning after officials lifted restrictions6. But only 700 of 21,000 people have returned.
Mitsuru Watanabe is a former resident who owned a restaurant in town. He is 80 years old now. He and his wife Rumeko have no plans to return. They returned only to clear out the restaurant which is the same as it was when they fled the area in 2011. But he did not want people to forget about the area.
“We want people to come. They can go home and tell other people about us,” he said.
Okamoto’s tour group also traveled to the coast where the deadly tsunami7 killed hundreds of people.
Empty rice fields, empty houses and a school were all that remained.
The area is at the edge of the restricted radiation zone. A new sea wall has been built to replace the one destroyed by the tsunami.
Fukushima Prefecture plans to build a memorial park there. It will have a center that will show videos and exhibits as well as hold records related to the earthquake and ocean waves of 2011.
Kazuhiro Ono is the prefecture’s deputy director for tourism.
He said the Japan Tourism Agency will fund the project while TEPCO, Tokyo Electric Power Company, will provide materials for the archive. He said, “It will be a starting point for visitors.”
Ono wants foreign tourists to come to Fukushima. While Japan has seen a 200 percent increase in tourism from 2011, the area has seen very few visitors.
Hidezo Sato is the first person to return to the town. He hopes more tourists arrive.
“If people come to brag3 about getting close to the plant, that can’t be helped, but at least they’ll come,” he said. Sato said the archive center will help ease people’s fears about radiation.
But Mayumi Matsumoto is uneasy about the park and archive plans. The 54-year-old lives in a rebuilt farmhouse8 with her family.
“We haven’t gotten to the bottom of what happened at the plant, and now is not the time,” she said.
The cleanup of the Fukushima Daiichi plant including removing the nuclear fuel could take 40 years and cost billions of dollars.
Matsumoto had come back for a day to hold a rice-planting event for about 40 university students. Later they toured Namie on two buses. And they visited the place where the park is expected to be built.
Matsumoto described her feelings about Tokyo Electric as “complicated.” She feels the company was responsible for the disaster. But, it also helped her family afterwards.
One of her sons works for the company and he has faced angry residents.
She said: “It’s good that people want to come to Namie, but not if they just want to get close to the nuclear plant. I don’t want it to become a spectacle.”
Okamoto is the only guide offering tours to the area. And there are very few visitors. But Okamoto says he hopes that the people he brings will not only take pictures but understand the extent of the damage caused by the disaster.
I’m Mario Ritter. And I’m Caty Weaver9.
Words in This Story
tour – n. an activity in which you go through a place (such as a building or city) in order to see and learn about the different parts of it
bragging rights – expression a good reason to talk with pride about something you have done
resident – n. someone who lives in a particular place
tsunami – n. a very high, large wave in the ocean that is usually caused by an earthquake under the sea and that can cause great destruction when it reaches land
prefecture – n. any one of the areas into which some countries (such as Japan and France) are divided for local government : the area that is governed by a prefect
archive – n. a place in which public records or historical materials (such as documents) are kept
spectacle – n. something that attracts attention because it is very unusual or very shocking — usually singular
收听单词发音 |
1
wrecked
|
|
| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
brag
|
|
| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
bragging
|
|
| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的现在分词 )；大话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
restrictions
|
|
| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
tsunami
|
|
| n.海啸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
farmhouse
|
|
| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
weaver
|
|
| n.织布工；编织者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
购买
在百度中搜索