FUKUSHIMA (Japan), Dec 6 (NNN-Bernama) — The reopening of J-Village, Japan’s first national training centre for football, is a testament to the continuing recovery efforts in Fukushima in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.
Japan’s State Minister for Reconstruction, Takeya Toshiko, said J-Village is a symbol of recovery efforts in Fukushima, adding the centre gained world attention when it was the starting point for the torch relay of the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics held in Tokyo.
“J-Village has become a symbol of recovery and rebuilding in Fukushima. However, the evacuation orders remaining in place in some areas of the surrounding municipalities of the disaster poses a variety of challenges and we are very much in the process of reconstruction,” she said.
She said this in her welcoming speech at the dinner reception held for the delegation of the 4th ASEAN-Japan Smart Cities Network High Level Meeting at J-Village here, Monday.
In 1997, J-Village was founded in Fukushima as the nation’s first ever National Football Centre. Following the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the venue was utilised as the support base for the nuclear power plant accident and lost its function as the football centre.
However, in July 2018, J-Village was re-established to serve its original purpose, as the venue resumed part of their operation to facilitate training camps and tournaments for Nadeshiko Japan and various age categories of the national team.
Takeya said the damage of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 forced residents in the surrounding areas to evacuate their houses for an extended period of time.
In this regard, she highlighted that the Japanese government will impose steady measures to ensure the return of the residents, besides rebuilding their livelihood and industries in stages.
“Next year, we will be opening the Fukushima Institute for Research, Education and Innovation which is essential in eradicating the misperception associated with the nuclear disaster,” she added.
Earlier, the delegation visited Terra Labo – a prominent drone survey company – situated in Minamisoma City in Fukushima.
The wide open area and hangar for the test field area is used by Terra Labo to develop their own drone aircraft for survey and information gathering during disaster and operational management. The drone can carry up to 10kg and is able to be configured with various sensors and camera for different uses.
Following that, the group visited the Fukushima Robot Test Field – a complex owned by the Fukushima prefecture government and built over the ruins of farmlands devastated by the 2011 Tsunami.
They also visited the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum.
The delegation consisted of representatives from 10-member ASEAN countries including three media personnel from Malaysia, the Philippines and Cambodia.
— NNN-BERNAMA
