From mutated insects and broken-down rescue robots, to cobweb-infested schools that haven’t been touched in years, the Fukushima evacuation zone - the site of one of the worst disasters of the 21st century - is showing no signs of regaining¹ even a semblance² of habitability... for humans, at least.

 

基因突变的昆虫、损毁的救援机器人、学校里层层密布的蜘蛛网……多年都无人问津，没有任何迹象表明经历了21世纪最严重灾难的福岛无人区还可以居住，至少，对人类来说不可以。

 

Wild boars are reportedly thriving in the evacuated³ areas around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which experienced multiple meltdowns following an earthquake-triggered tsunami⁴ back in 2011. And now they’re tearing through nearby farmlands, causing more than US$900,000 (¥98 million) in crop damage for local farmers.

 

How did things get so bad? Well, under normal circumstances, this boar population would be kept under control by local hunters, with The Japan Times calling pork - including wild boar meat - "the nation's most popular meat".

 

But the problem is these wild boars have been contaminated with caesium-137 - a radioactive substance with a half-life of 30 years - from eating plants and small animals around the exclusion⁵ zone, and now the hunters won't go near them.

 

"Wild boar, along with raccoon, have been taking advantage of the evacuation zone, entering vacant houses in areas damaged by the [disaster], and using them as breeding places or burrows," assistant ecology professor Okuda Keitokunin at the Fukushima University Environmental Radioactivity Institute told the local press.

 

Now reproducing with abandon in the exclusion zones, the wild boar population has increased 300 percent since the disaster, from around 3,000 to 13,000, and they’re spilling out into the nearby farms to tear up and trample⁶ the crops.

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