The residents of Okuma were among more than 150,000 people who were forced to flee their homes after the March 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As one of the wrecked plant’s two host towns, Okuma was abandoned for eight years before authorities declared that radiation levels had fallen to safe levels, allowing residents to return. Even now, 60% of Okuma remains off limits, and only a tiny fraction of the pre-disaster population of 11,500 has returned since their former neighbourhoods were given the all clear in April. A month later, Okuma’s mayor, Toshitsuna Watanabe, and his colleagues returned to work at a new town hall. In the second of a three-part diary for the Guardian, Watanabe recalls the search for a temporary home for Okuma’s nuclear evacuees.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Okuma’s interim-storage site for radioactive soil collected from across Fukushima prefecture. Photograph: Okuma town office

Toshitsuna Watanabe, mayor of Okuma

One day after the Fukushima disaster I received a letter from a woman I’d never met who lived a long way from Fukushima. Inside the envelope were three ¥1,000 notes (£22) and a message that said: “Mayor, life must have been tough for you. Please use this small amount of money to buy something to eat, like gyudon [beef bowl].” At the time, the media was reporting extensively on our town’s unprecedented circumstances after we had to evacuate following the nuclear meltdown. I assumed she had seen reports about Okuma and felt sorry for us. I was incredibly touched by her gesture, and donated the cash she sent to a fund for our town’s recovery.

After the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, many Okuma residents ended up in Aizuwakamatsu, a city further inland. We hadn’t had much of a relationship with the city before, even though it’s also located in Fukushima prefecture. Other people from our town were scattered around the prefecture, living in temporary shelters like school gymnasiums. They were desperate to find somewhere where they could settle down and live safely as evacuees. We decided that Aizuwakamatsu was the best option, since it was a long way from the nuclear plant and had not been seriously affected by radiation.

But we needed to act quickly, as we would need to provide temporary accommodation and schools, as well as finding a place where we could continue to carry out the town’s official business, even though we were no longer living there. I and the head of the Okuma board of education asked Aizuwakamatsu’s mayor, Ichiro Kanke, if he could help. He kindly agreed, saying that we should all help each other in difficult times. We had finally found a place where we could begin Okuma’s recovery, even though we were 100km away from our hometown.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Temporary housing units in Aizuwakamatsu for evacuated Okuma residents Photograph: Okuma town office

I wouldn’t wish what happened to Okuma on anyone. But it’s also true that I would never have experienced the kindness shown by so many people if the meltdown had never happened. The woman who sent me cash was not alone. We encountered countless acts of generosity from people in our temporary home and from those in other parts of Japan and overseas.

Right after the disaster, people evacuated to almost every one of Japan’s 47 prefectures. But as time passed, many of them returned to Fukushima prefecture, although they weren’t able to return to their homes near the nuclear plant. Today, 75% of people from Okuma live somewhere in Fukushima prefecture. As long as we were living in another city, we were dependent on local people for their help and understanding, and I worried that we were becoming a burden to them. Under those circumstances, it was often hard to make the right judgment call when trying to help Okuma residents in exile.

In the years after the disaster, tens of thousands of workers removed topsoil and other radioactive waste from affected areas of Fukushima prefecture so that tens of thousands of evacuees could start returning home. Japan’s government decided that the huge quantities of toxic soil removed from radiation-hit communities would be stored temporarily near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, with the intention of moving it to a permanent storage site outside Fukushima prefecture 30 years later.

The plant is located in two towns – Futaba, which is still off limits to residents – and Okuma. The problem is that, so far, the government has not been able to find another place in Japan that is willing to store the contaminated soil permanently. That means lots of people in Okuma are worried that, in fact, the soil will end up being stored in the town for good. I understand their concerns. Okuma is home to many families who have lived there for generations, and they were unhappy about the prospect of their land being used to store toxic soil for decades to come. But if they hadn’t accepted the temporary storage plan, the soil would have been left in plastic bags strewn across Fukushima prefecture. The recovery effort would have been doomed from the start.

I often saw piles of black plastic bags filled with contaminated soil and awaiting removal in areas where Okuma evacuees were living. As a resident of Okuma and of Fukushima prefecture, this really troubled me. I couldn’t see a way around the problem of soil storage. But in the end, I took the decision as mayor to accept the government’s request to store the soil – temporarily – in Okuma. All I could do then was ask the town’s people for their understanding.