JAPAN | Two years after the earthquake The ghost towns left Fukushima seen by Google Street View

Google has started to show through the function 'Street view', which displays streets and highways through its mapping service, pictures of Namie, which remains evacuated Japanese people since 2011 because of its proximity to the troubled Fukushima nuclear plant. Google Street View has shown shocking images of devastation that Namie lived in March 2011: abandoned houses, shops and restaurants closed, grassy fields and brush. Equipped with Google camera vehicles in Namie began filming this month, at the invitation of Mayor Tamotsu Baba, whose sadness over the fate of his people corresponds to the fear that the rest of the world is forgetting Fukushima. The U.S. Internet giant led, through the main thoroughfares of the town, the car equipped with cameras that used to portray the 360-degree views of "Street View" for two weeks. For residents of towns and villages near the nuclear plant, the crisis is far from over. About 160,000 people fled the area, 21,000 of them in Namie, are still living in temporary accommodation. Namie is within the 20-kilometer perimeter path around the nuclear plant where access is prohibited and was completely evacuated after the onset of the crisis at the plant. The mayor of the municipality, Tamotsu Baba, personally asked Google to photograph the people for their plight not be forgotten and that its inhabitants had a way of seeing the new pictures of your city, which can not know whether return someday. "We hope that these images of 'Street View' show clearly what caused the great East Japan earthquake and nuclear disaster," Baba said in a statement posted on the blog of Google Japan. The images can be seen today on Google maps to activate the 'Street view' show houses and infrastructure destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami that hit the city hard and nearby nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011. The photographs, which are also appreciated boats were swept inland, are a testimony to the hard situation of the people, which were not able to carry out reconstruction work for over two years. The images of 'Street view' reveal much of Namie, located north of the plant, and its reach south side show to a point 391 prefectural road located just 2.6 miles from the enclosure that houses the nuclear plant.