A signboard promoting nuclear energy is installed as a reminder of the nuclear safety myth at the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 24. Yuji Onuma, 45, who wrote the slogan when he was an elementary school pupil, speaks before the signboard. (Shoko Rikimaru)

Photo/Illutration Yuji Onuma, second from right, who penned the slogan, looks at the signboard with his family at a museum in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 24. (Toshiyuki Hayashi)

FUTABA, Fukushima Prefecture--For decades, a signboard promoting nuclear power greeted residents and visitors in the town center of Futaba, which co-hosts the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Now, that slogan on the signboard “Genshiryoku--Akarui Mirai no Energy” (Nuclear power is the energy of a bright future) will serve as a chilling reminder of the Fukushima nuclear accident at a museum here

On March 24, an official at the prefecture's Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum completed fitting the remaining three of the 14 original letter panels onto a signboard installed at the outdoor terrace on the first floor of the museum. Each panel is 90 centimeters on each side.

Yuji Onuma, 45, a former resident of Futaba who evacuated to Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, visited the museum on the day with his family. He had penned the slogan when he was an elementary school sixth-grader.

Onuma supported having the signboard serve as a precautionary tale as decommissioning work of the crippled nuclear plant will continue for decades. 

“We were able to preserve the history that the town once promoted nuclear power,” he said. “The nuclear disaster is not in the past and is not finished yet but it is continuing even now. I hope this part of the town's legacy can reflect the reality as it is.”

Before the nuclear disaster, the 16-meter-long signboard was hung across the shopping street in front of JR Futaba Station.

After the nuclear accident in 2011, it was taken down and kept by the town. The signboard came to be known as a negative legacy symbolizing the nuclear power safety myth espoused by companies such as Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

Futaba officials had been asking the museum, which opened last September, to put the actual signboard on display. But the request had been once turned down due to the size of the original. Only a photo of it had been on display at the museum.

Related News