Fukushima Towns Only Back to 20% of Population Before Nuclear Disaster

The Yomiuri Shimbun

21:04 JST, March 9, 2026

In 11 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture that were evacuated after the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in 2011, the combined population stands at about 18,000, or just 20% of the pre-disaster level, according to interviews with local governments.

Wednesday marks 15 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake, and many of the municipalities’ former residents are believed to have settled down where they evacuated to.

In the towns of Okuma and Futaba, where evacuation orders were lifted later than elsewhere, returning residents are particularly scarce. Over half of the population in these two towns consists of newcomers, and the new residents are making progress in rebuilding the communities.

In the 11 municipalities, evacuation orders were lifted between April 2014, three years after the disaster, and August 2022, allowing residents to return. Even so, the population in areas that were given evacuation orders has fallen from 88,330, when the disaster struck, to 17,818 as of January and February this year.

The population has generally recovered more where evacuation orders were lifted earlier. Naraha, where the order was lifted across the town in September 2015, now has 4,436 residents, or 55.4% of its previous population. That is the best recovery among the municipalities.

By contrast, in Okuma, where the order was partially lifted in April 2019, there are 1,086 residents, or 9.4% of the pre-disaster population. Futaba, where the order was partially lifted in August 2022, the latest date among the municipalities, the population stands at only 193 residents, or 2.7% of its pre-disaster level.

In both Okuma and Futaba, newcomers have outnumbered returning residents. There are 748 newcomers in Okuma, making up around 70% of the population, and 104 new residents in Futaba, or just over 50% of the population. In Okuma, the opening of a combined elementary and junior high school in 2023 led to more people moving there for educational reasons.

Seven of the municipalities still have zones where radiation levels are too high for people to live there. The Environment Ministry is carrying out decontamination work in places residents want to return to, and evacuation orders are expected to be lifted in stages beginning in fiscal 2026.