Eight months ago, people left the town of Namie in haste. Families raced from their homes without closing the front doors. They left half-finished wine bottles on their kitchen tables and sneakers in their foyers. They jumped in their cars without taking pets and left cows hitched to milking stanchions.

Now the land stands frozen in time, empty and virtually untouched since the March 11 disasters that created a wasteland in the 20-km zone of farmland that extends arouond the wrecked, coastal Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

Some 78,000 people lived in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, but only a handful have been allowed to return. Cobwebs spread across storefronts. Mushrooms sprout from living room floors. Weeds swallow train tracks. A few roads, shaken by the earthquake, are cantilevered like rice paddies. Near the coastline, boats swept inland by the tsunami still lie beached on main roads.