FUTABA, Fukushima Prefecture--Inside the former town hall here, it's as if time had stood still for more than a decade.

A calendar for March 2011 remains on a wall on the ground floor, which housed the industry promotion division and the health and welfare division.

A newspaper dated March 11, 2011, lies on a shelf.

A wheelchair and a pushcart sit abandoned in the reception area for the residents’ life division, testimony to the haste in which the workers likely evacuated the office.

A stopped clock showed 2:46, the time in the afternoon that the Great East Japan Earthquake struck that day.

The quake did not break the clock, which, however, was later adjusted to show that time, a town official said.

The town of Futaba, cohost to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, was entirely evacuated after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at the plant.

The building that housed the town government has remained as it was then for 14 years.

Even after the evacuation order was lifted for Futaba’s downtown area at the end of August 2022, the four-story edifice remained in disuse because of age-related deterioration and other reasons.

An Asahi Shimbun reporter was allowed to enter the former town hall, which is destined to be demolished, on a recent day in mid-February.

The old town hall stands about 800 meters southeast of the JR Joban Line’s Futaba Station.

A town government official who accompanied the reporter on the tour said the building has no problem in its earthquake resistance.

The town government, however, is currently housed in a new town hall rebuilt just outside Futaba Station, partly because it would be costly to repair the infrastructure in the old building.

In addition, an interim storage facility for soil that was removed during decontamination work in Fukushima Prefecture lies right outside the former town hall.

As the reporter set foot on the premises, he saw several umbrellas with fading colors outside a side entrance. A sheet of paper saying “Do not enter” in Japanese and English was seen on a door that leads to the interior.

The warning was put up after a stir was caused by a social media post that showed individuals, likely non-Japanese, intruding into the old town hall and trespassing in the room near the main entrance and the town assembly speaker’s office, the official explained.

Cardboard boxes, marked with notes saying “for preservation” and “for disposal,” were seen piled high along a passageway. 

Work began last year to organize documents and materials that are left in the old town hall.

PAPER SHEETS WITH NUKE PLANT INFO

The reporter proceeded to the second floor, which housed the mayor’s office, the secretarial and public relations division, and the nuclear power management office.

Hotline telephones that connected the town hall with the Fukushima No. 1 and Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plants were seen next to the desk used by the head of the nuclear power management office.

Containers for box lunches, likely eaten by workers at the time, were seen left in the telecommunications equipment office, which was in charge of community broadcasting.

Big paper sheets, seen posted also on the second floor, were inscribed with notes on the developing situation at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant according to information provided by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator.

These are replicas of the original sheets that are kept elsewhere, the town official said.

During the initial phase of the quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, workers dealt with the emergency on the second floor, where they jotted on the paper sheets information received from the Fukushima No. 1 plant, as well as the number of evacuees at each evacuation center, the official added.

Desks of workers with the residents’ life division and the secretarial and public relations division were seen piled with empty bottles of energy drinks.

The scene suggested the workers possibly had to cut down on their sleep to deal with disaster response on that fateful day 14 years ago.

SCHEDULE BOARD, CHANDELIER

The third floor housed the construction division, the education board secretariat and a large conference room.

A schedule board from the time was seen outside the education board. One section of it noted a graduation ceremony to be held at Futaba Junior High School on March 11.

The top floor, the fourth, houses the assembly hall where a chandelier hangs from the ceiling.

Part of the chandelier had fallen to the floor from the effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent seismic events that occurred off Fukushima Prefecture.

The reporter concluded the tour by going to the rooftop and looking out over the surroundings.

Black jumbo bags filled with soil from decontamination work were seen on the other side of a barricade that stretched around the interim storage facility just across a road.

It remains to be decided when the old town hall building will be demolished.