2024-05-01T20:54:20-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/29900977/the-involuntary-park-or-home-images-of-the-fukushima-dai-ichi-s-exclusion-zone Nam Henderson 2011-12-05T19:29:55-05:00 >2011-12-08T09:16:02-05:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/lh/lh6i0s8cu8kuqeut.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>Nobuko Sanpei, 74, eats dinner in her cardboard-box home at the Big Palette Fukushima convention center in Koriyama. "It was sweltering, so I cut out a hole," she said. For months after the nuclear disaster, thousands of refugees lived in cardboard "houses" in inns, schools, and other public shelters. Sanpei, who has since moved to a small apartment, pines for the rice paddies she and her husband tended in Tomioka, south of the power plant.</p></em><br /><br /><p> Presented are twenty images culled from the collection of photos taken by David Guttenfelder this June and December for National Geographic. Capturing images of communities that have become ghost towns. Tens of thousands of area residents remain displaced, with little indication of when, or if, they may ever return to their homes. More at National Geographic's website <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/japan-nuclear-zone/guttenfelder-photography" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.&nbsp;</p>