Feature: Will cherry blossoms bloom in future shadows of Fukushima disaster?

The scenes from the towns and villages still abandoned four years after an earthquake triggered tsunami breached the defenses of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, would make for the perfect backdrop for a post- apocalyptic Hollywood zombie movie, but the trouble would be that the levels of radiation in the area would be too dangerous for the cast and crew.

The central government's maxim of "Everything is under control" in and around the nuclear plant, has been a blatant lie since the disaster began to unfold on March 11, 2011, quickly escalating into the worst civilian nuclear crisis ever to happen, with twice the amount of radioactive materials being released into the environment than the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Due to the high security around the plant itself, with menacing fences and security guards ensuring that access within the 20- kilometer "no go zone" is difficult without government supervision, and within 2-5 kilometer nearly impossible without attracting a lot of attention along and around the single trunk road that connects the main city of Fukushima with Miyagi Prefecture, also on the east coast and Yamagata prefecture to the west, coupled with the ambiguous readings of radiation in the vicinity, the actual situation on the deck is somewhat easy for the powers to be obscure.

The coastal district of Futaba, located well within the 20- kilometer exclusion radius around the leaking facility and the district of Okuma, which also cohosts the leaking nuclear facility, are destined to remain uninhabited, despite the evacuees being assured by the government that they would be able to return to their homes and businesses after a two-year stint away, that was quickly extended to four years, with many of those evacuees comprising more than 120,00 refugees still languishing in makeshift, wooded shelters, with no idea when they will be allowed to return home.

Adding insult to injury, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the stricken plant and responsible for a plethora of avoidable gaffes that have led to radioactive leaks from the plant, particularly from hastily constructed storage tanks that have a tendency to rupture or overflow when it rains, where the water mixes with even more contaminated water from ditches under the plant's reactors that then flow into the Pacific Ocean, keeps moving the goalposts when it comes to the evacuees' subsidies and compensation payouts, while the government stands accused of misusing funds earmarked for the region's restoration and recovery, with trillions of yen still apparently sitting unused in state accounts.

TEPCO and the government still cannot say how long the decommissioning process will take, but estimates of 30 to 40 years seem hugely optimistic, as the decontamination work on and off site is frustratingly sluggish.

As with the majority of the towns and villages in the vicinity of the plant, the town of Namie in the Futaba District of Fukushima Prefecture, has seen a buildup of contaminated waste, stored openly along the streets and on many disheveled rice fields- - that will and should, never again see another crop harvested, due to the government's deceptive disclosure of radiation readings- - in industrial black bags akin to bigger, slightly more robust garbage bags that can be found in any convenience store or supermarket.

The local municipalities are under a great deal of pressure from the central government to house facilities to store the waste, but with the former providing no clear road map for the waste's decontamination and disposal, the fear is that the storage facilities, as with the "temporary" shelters built for the region' s evacuees, will become permanent.

"I guess they're okay for now," a lone resident, decked out in boots and heavy all-weather gear, on a stroll with his dog, not far from the largely deserted town of Namie, told Xinhua, with reference to the waste. "But I'm not sure for how much longer," he added. As to the levels of radiation in the region and his own safety, he said, "I won't be outside for long as it's started raining." The dog, however, looked happy enough just to be outside and mobile, no doubt a rare treat for this lucky pup -- depending on one's definition of "lucky."

Roadside boards dotted frequently around the region declare that decontamination work is ongoing and apologize for any inconvenience caused. But the inconvenient truth of the matter is that for those living outside of Fukushima Prefecture and indeed, for observers the world over, the belief is that there's a Herculean decontamination effort being conducted in the region to make the land inhabitable again, so evacuees can be rehoused, local infrastructure rebuilt and the disaster declared over, in the not-too-distant future. This belief, however, as things stand, is a fallacy.

While industrial equipment, supposedly part of the decontamination effort, like cranes and diggers lie idled, as a handful of day laborers and part-timers, lay fresh soil over old by hand and hose down roads with water, in what could only be described as a completely unscientific, uncoordinated and pointless attempt at improving the contamination situation in the towns and villages around the plant, even those with technical knowhow and high-end equipment for taking samples and testing radioactivity seemed nonplussed about the situation.

"We don't know exactly how dangerous it is here, so that's why we are wearing these suits and masks," one of two scientists, presumably working for the government, told Xinhua when asked if it was necessary for them to be wearing so much in the way of protective clothing.

The other, meanwhile, hastily chucked the equipment in the back of their SUV to conceal their activities, with the pair speeding off along a dirt track and away from the rice fields and drainage ditches they were testing, in the town of Iitate, which was originally outside the exclusion zone, but due to a change in wind direction in the days following the plant's hydrogen explosions, became one of the most irradiated regions in the prefecture.

With village after village and town after town becoming increasingly run down as the years have ticked by since the multiple meltdowns at the plant first forced the residents to flee, it's hard to imagine the region's future, as the reality of the situation, as is now, is unfathomably bleak and depressingly " apocalyptic."

But one resident refuses to give up. He still, out of either a sense of true hope, sheer bloodymindedness, or, indeed, utter naivety -- or perhaps a galvanizing mix of all three -- believes that the likes of Futaba and Okuma, will bounce back and once the plant has been decommissioned, new life breathed into the region.

In preparation for this, as industrial vehicles whizz by and kick up dust, highlighting a dearth of domestic vehicles along the sole arterial road that carves a path past the nuclear plant, he is, as he does every weekend as a "hobby" clearing weeds and waste away from fragile "Sakura" Cherry Blossom tree saplings, that have been planted along the road to herald the future recovery of the region in 30-year time.

"It's important that the roots are strong enough to take hold and the saplings aren't killed by these parasitic weeds," he said, chopping away at straw-like weeds and stuffing them, with gloved hands, in his backpack.

"It's not about whether or not the situation here is completely fixed or not in 30-year time, or whether or not these trees will actually bloom, it's about making an honest effort on a daily basis to do something positive here, not simply give up," he told Xinhua through his mask.

His message and attitude, at this point in time, being a far cry from that of those responsible for an avoidable disaster that will forever be remembered in the future annals of global tragedies. Endi