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The Yomiuri Shimbun Shizuka Arakawa, center, and others promote an exhibition at the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo at an event in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, on Feb. 8.
The Yomiuri Shimbun
2:00 JST, February 21, 2025
FUTABA, Fukushima — The Reconstruction Agency’s exhibit at the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo will show how disaster-stricken areas have been recovering from the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent nuclear incident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The theme of the planned exhibit is “Build Back Better,” and it will be held at the EXPO Messe facility for six days from May 19.
On Feb. 8, an event marking 100 days until the opening of the Expo was held at the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture.
— Digital monument of ‘miracle lone pine’
The exhibition will be divided into four zones, covering earthquake remembrance and disaster response, food and fisheries, latest technologies, and the Fukushima Institute for Research, Education and Innovation (F-REI), built in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture. It will be held in an area measuring about 1,000 square meters, a quarter of the EXPO Messe.
Video footage will show damage occurring in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures in chronological order at the time of the disaster alongside footage of interviews with victims of the disaster. Disaster prevention measures and town planning in the stricken areas will be shown as well.
Food and marine products from the disaster-affected areas will be exhibited, as well as how locals make a living from them, and visitors will have the opportunity to taste some of the products.
There will be explanations of technology and products developed by private companies and others after the disaster and of research conducted at F-REI.
“The most important thing is to get as many people as possible to visit the disaster-stricken areas,” Reconstruction Minister Tadahiko Ito said. “I hope the displays will help attract people to the areas.”
A three-meter-high digital monument of the “miracle lone pine,” a tree that remained standing after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, will be set up at the East Gate of Yumeshima Station, the nearest station to the Expo venue, for six months from April 13. Visitors will be able to leave messages on a terminal at the venue or on a special website, which will make the tree “grow” by forming part of a mosaic of it.
The event in Futaba was attended by professional figure skater Shizuka Arakawa —Reconstruction PR Ambassador for the agency at the expo — and officials from the agency and other organizations in the prefecture. They took to the stage and explained the contents and significance of the exhibition in front of about 70 people who had gathered from inside and outside the town.
“As the ambassador, I would like to strongly convey through the Expo the efforts being made to pass on the technologies of Fukushima Prefecture and the memories and lessons of the disaster to the future,” Arakawa said.
Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori also expressed his hopes, saying, “I would like to communicate to people in Japan and abroad the current situation and appeal of the prefecture, which is making progress in its recovery, as well as our gratitude for the warm support we have received.”
