Google has revealed, via a guest post on the Google LatLong blog by the Mayor of Namie-machi, Fukushima, Japan Tamotsu Baba, that the search company has added imagery of the Fukushima region to Google Street View.
People are still not permitted to enter the area in the wake of the nuclear disaster but Google, working with Namie-machi’s mayor, have braved an expedition into the city and returned with photographs of the location as it stands today.
The images show the destruction cause by both the earthquake and tsunami in the city and its surrounds, damage which cannot be set right as the area is still off-limits.
Mayor Tamotsu Baba said in his post “Those of us in the older generation feel that we received this town from our forebearers, and we feel great pain that we cannot pass it down to our children. It has become our generation’s duty to make sure future generations understand the city’s history and culture—maybe even those who will not remember the Fukushima nuclear accident. We want this Street View imagery to become a permanent record of what happened to Namie-machi in the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster.”
He added “It may take many years and many people’s help, but we will never give up taking back our hometown.”
Source: CNET