Walk Through a Japanese City Still Abandoned 2 Years After the Tsunami

The 21,000 people who lived in the Japanese town of Namie-machi before the 2011 tsunami still have not returned to it. They've been barred from re-entering the community within the Fukushima Exclusion Zone created by the tsunami's cascading nuclear disaster. But at least now these nuclear refugees – and the rest of the world – can virtually tour the town left behind.

As part of Google's ongoing project documenting the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami, which our Henry Grabar first wrote about here, the mapping giant has now sent its Street View cars through Namie-machi. As the town's mayor, Tamotsu Baba, writes on the Google Lat Long blog: