ITAIBARA, Tottori Pref. -- The death of this village's sister looms large in the collective memory of its residents.
Shimo-Itaibara, just one valley over, became a ghost town after the last villager moved out in the mid-1980s. And now only a handful of shaky buildings are still standing.
"Every time we (Itaibara residents) got together, we often talked about how we must do something about our village, because we don't want to be like Shimo-Itaibara," said Iwao Harada, who was born here 69 years ago.