It has been done before, and, if the team behind the “Fukuichi Kanko Project” have their way, it will be done again.
In 1986, after the explosion of a reactor in Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power station, the nearby town of Pripyat was evacuated.
25 years later, in 2011, Pripyat was reopened – as a tourist attraction.
It is called “Dark Tourism”. And it seems to be working.
As International Business Times reports:
The architects of the proposed “dark tourism” destination in Fukushima envision it as a site of healing and a place to teach future generations, much like the Genbaku (A-bomb) Dome in Hiroshima, which is now a Unesco World Heritage Site.”
The team behind the Fukuichi Kanko Project hopes to lay the groundwork for a tourist destination to open in 2036 — 25 years after the disaster — when decommissioning and decontamination work should be fairly advanced.
And London Telegraph reports:
[The aim] is for Fukushima to achieve a similar status as the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hold among Japanese people.
[Read More From International Business Times]
[Read More From London Telegraph]