The town of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, held on Saturday its first coming of age ceremony in the town since the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The ceremony, in which participants took their first steps into adulthood, was originally scheduled to be held in January in the city of Iwaki in the prefecture, where many of the accident's evacuees live, but it was postponed due to the novel coronavirus crisis.
Although an evacuation order has been lifted for some areas in Futaba, residents are not allowed to return. The Futaba municipal government decided to hold the ceremony in the uninhabited town as it believes doing so will reduce infection risk.
Of the 62 new adults in the town, 19 who live as evacuees across the country attended the ceremony that took place at the Futaba Business Incubation and Community Center in the Nakano district, an area where evacuation orders were lifted.
On behalf of the new adults, Miyu Ishii, a third-year university student from Tokyo, said: "It makes me very happy that this ceremony was held in my hometown. In the future, I'd like to return and get involved with town planning."
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