Google Maps a Japanese Nuclear Ghost Town | Hacker News Reader

Google Maps a Japanese Nuclear Ghost Town

theatlantic.com

157 pointsarbuge39 comments

Everything is so pristine and untouched. If it were the US, it would have all been looted and graffitied long ago. But I'm afraid by publishing the condition of his town through Google Maps, the mayor has pretty much assured it won't stay pristine very long. Japan has its share of thieves and vandals too.

Plus hordes of amateur photographers and urban explorers will be trying to sneak into the place, radiation or not.

I'm thinking those bikes & the VW beetle will be the first to go...

Radiation contamination makes an excellent deterrent, not only can you not see it, you can't know even if you don't feel any ill effects if you're going to die coughing up a lung in a few weeks (and no, nowhere except inside the containment buildings is that contaminated)

That said, it was an opportunity for Google to take radiation readings everywhere (perhaps they did but didn't release that information). Looking at the map this town must have been in the north east plume [1] mentioned in the reports.

Sadly since the first survey I can't find links to follow up surveys, the last being done around the end of 2011. Presumably with a wet season behind us there would be movement of ground contamination and I would think that every month they would do another survey if only to create better models about how a contaminated environment evolves. Is rain significant? wind? How much is is encapsulated by plants? Lots of questions.

[1] http://enformable.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/New-Japan-R...

I've watched this, and it was pretty interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or_rksDBssw

> Radiation contamination makes an excellent deterrent

Well, quite a lot of people here in Japan now have their own Geiger counters (pretty much everybody I know). The one I bought is a cheap (~ $150) model made by Soeks specifically to address consumer demand in post-Fukushima Japan.

(http://www.amazon.co.jp/ガイガーカウンター-SOEKS-01M-2-0L-JP-NUK-079-...)

Crooks would loot electronics and other valuables in the abandoned towns near Chernobyl and sell them to unsuspecting buyers.

The problem got so bad, the authorities resorted to imposing the death penalty on looters.

Might be worth mentioning that there are people that live inside the exclusion zone, like Naoto Matsumura. He stayed behind to take care of all the animals.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/japan-farmer-fukush...

[2] https://www.facebook.com/pages/Naoto-Matsumura-Guardian-of-F...

VICE Japan also made a video [1] on a couple of people (incl. the person in your 2nd link) who decided to stay and take care of what they could.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llM9MIM_9U4 (With English CC)

I understand it would not have been necessary, but I think this would have been a good opportunity to put one of those self-driving cars to use. Lots of potential obstacles and the (not really a concern) health risk factor.

Or even just a remotely controlled car.

This is highly interesting!

Things I could notice: First, wildlife just ignores radiation, also nature is quick to take back whatever we are not using.

Second, Japanese architecture is interesting, no building is ugly, both the modern ones (like the waterfront building that did not got smashed) and old ones (the traditional-looking houses). Maybe excepting schools (that are just rectangular boxes filled with windows).

Also, Japanese are very organized, even seeing debris scattered and destroyed stuff, the town still looks more organized and clean than the stuff I see here in Brazil for most part.

Good to see that someone left a message on the blackboard, making explicit how he liked the school.

Also, interesting to see that some stuff held well against the tsunami, the damaged graduation hall for example still has everything in place except where the floor collapsed, and still looking good.

The cars littering a field for some reason to me look like grazing cows.

Good vending machine that one supporting a building!

And it is dreading when I noticed that the most present animals are crows, not other sort of birds, it is like if most of life left, and death decided to remain.

This town also looks the sort of place I want to live in the future when I can (of course, without disaster...)

That town had negligible amounts of radiation, but this was a clear case of better safe than sorry and calling an evacuation was clearly a good idea. However, after a few weeks the area was at normal background levels, so keeping a large exclusion zone is perhaps overly cautious.

One sievert carries with it a ~5.5% chance of eventually developing cancer. These places are dealing with ~0.000001 Sv per hour level which is .008sievert after 10 years which when multiplied by say 100,000 people may suggest reasonable cancer risks. However, there is a fair amount of evidence that suggests ultra low levels of radiation are significantly less harmful than that. But, it's really hard to measure small effects on large populations as there are lot's of cancer risks.

It is a mistake to think that radiation is evenly distributed. Or that all radiation is equally harmful. Neither are all animals and plants affected in the same way. This is much more complex than some averaged random statistics will have you believe.

Not that I disagree with what you said and I would even add that children, adults, and the elderly all have different cancer risks as well. But, a sievert is normalized based on harm and not the energy equivalent for any one radiation type. So, while the risks are different it is plenty useful for evaluating order of magnitude risks as in is this directly lethal, a significant cancer risk, a minor cancer risk or a negligible risk.

I'm inclined to agree with the wildlife. Are people legally allowed to move here?

What surprised me is that someone left a barely used Volkswagen Beetle there and didn't even return for it...

I noticed that, too. The owner might be dead, though.

Well, this got depressing quickly.

Well, it all started with a major earthquake + tsunami + nuclear disaster ... depressing from the start.

Who would? It's surely insured and a new car that hasn't been flooded or doused with radiation is a lot more desirable.

You mean the one with the cement wall leaning on it?

>it is dreading when I noticed that the most present animals are crows

Not necessarily a dread thing... perhaps they're karasutengu; crow spirits who live like mountain hermits and sometimes provide guidance to people. It was also the divine crow Yatagarasu who was sent from heaven to guide Emperor Jimmu to Yamato.

I love what Google has done with Street View. Taking the technology indoors just does something completely different for me than outdoor shots. In this place it lets you look at intimate details of what used to be other peoples' every day lives. There's so much to explore. Can any one read this blackboard? http://goo.gl/maps/zWAqm

I'd love to see a hack that lets one walk around in first-person inside an environment using Street View imagery, like a video game. Maybe the imagery is sufficient for that if used right.

"I'd love to see a hack that lets one walk around in first-person inside an environment using Street View imagery, like a video game."

There was a TED video in 2010 doing almost that: http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera.html

I just watched that whole thing. Very impressive.

interesting, but didn't microsoft started to try to map the world with that very same approach way before streetview?

i can't remember the name of the project though...

Terraserver.com

Sorry about downvoting your comment, did not mean to.

Google have been doing lots of fun topical things with Street View lately.

Here's Japanese Cherry Blossom viewing, Street View style: http://www.google.com/landing/japanview/

I think it says

    学びもののまとめをしよう
    生活のまとめをしよう
    事業と休みの区別をしよう

which are kind of preachy statements about how they should run the class.. Keep your learning stuff in order, keep your lifestyle in order, have a clear break between classtime and rest time. I'd assume that it's a left over from when the class was studying for end of year exams perhaps? Since the earthquake came at the end of a school year.

> Can any one read this blackboard?

The first two sentences are too blurry for me. I think the third (left-most) sentence is:

○ 授業と休み時間の区別をしよう

"Let's distinguish between class time and break time."

This guys card is black is that good?

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Namie+town,+Fukushima+Prefect...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_badge_dosimeter

If I am understanding that article correctly, it is used not as an alert but as a record of how much cumulative exposure a person has received while in a hazardous area.

Some cars, several buildings and some things look like they've been abandoned yesterday. The VW for instance looks cleaner than my car, which I drive daily and wash regularly. Other cars are completely smashed up, rusty. The same goes for roads: some look like they've been paved yesterday, some are completely cracked and overgrown. Not meaning antthing by it, just an observation!

Yeah but the interesting things only come out at night. Zombies, I mean zombies.

Having said that, its been 2 years since it was left and the building and roads look to be intact. No dust or leaves even.

Looks like a regular town in where i live, East Europe.

I was thinking this, too. There's one shot of a concrete apartment block that looks like it could be taken to any number of cities in the former sphere of soviet influence.

Why the blog is dot.mx?

Lesson I learned: when you have a major accident and the government (any of them) says it's all safe to stay, eat and drink, GTFO as soon as possible. http://rt.com/news/japan-fish-radiation-fukushima-321/ We made a mistake and we're sorry might not do it, when you get cancer or your children are born with 3 heads.

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