A drone flies over a railroad track during a trial in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Tuesday. It was the first drone flight above a railroad track out of the sight of an operator in an inhabited area in the country. The test was conducted jointly with Deloitte Tohmatsu. Sagawa Express and East Japan Railway cooperated with the test. The drone flew in an area of 3.5 kilometers from east to west by 2.4 kilometers from north to south.

Laid waste by a nuclear disaster a decade ago, Fukushima Prefecture is still struggling to recover, even as the government tries to bring people and jobs back to former ghost towns by pouring in trillions of yen to decontaminate and rebuild. But reconstruction efforts, from the mundane -- supermarkets and transport infrastructure -- to a cutting-edge hydrogen energy plant, have yet to entice more than a small fraction of the former population to return. As the country marks the 10th anniversary of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, parts of the prefecture are still off limits, and it remains a laggard in recovery. Its future is clouded by the 30 to 40 years it may take to decommission the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, near which massive amounts of treated radioactive water are in storage. The town of Namie, where a stone monument lists about 200 townspeople who died in the tsunami, emptied out overnight following the accident at the nuclear plant about 8 kilometers south.

A plan to remove fuel debris from the primary containment vessel of a reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is expected to be further pushed back after it became apparent that Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Ltd. will not be able to conduct an internal probe -- a key step to start removing the fuel debris -- by the end of March as planned. The internal probe would involve using remote-controlled robots to collect fuel debris inside the No. 1 reactor so Tepco can examine its composition and form. Tepco's plan is to open three holes in both the outer and inner doors of the primary containment vessel using pressurized water mixed with a polishing agent. After it succeeded in opening three holes in the outer door, Tepco started drilling a hole in the inner door in June 2019. But that procedure caused the concentration of radioactive dust to increase temporarily, prompting staff to suspend work.

Farmland in Fukushima that was rendered unusable after the disastrous 2011 nuclear meltdown is getting a second chance at productivity. A group of Japanese investors have created a new plan to use the abandoned land to build wind and solar power plants, to be used to send electricity to Tokyo. The plan calls for the construction of eleven solar power plants and ten wind power plants, at an estimated cost of $2.75 billion. Fukushima has been aggressively converting land damaged by the 2011 meltdown, such as this golf course (pictured above) into a source of renewable energy. A new $2.75 billion plan will add eleven new solar plants and ten wind power plants to former farmland The project is expected to be completed in March of 2024 and is backed by a group of investors, including Development Bank of Japan and Mizuho Bank.

The Fukushima Prefectural Government is leading a collaborative effort involving companies from different industries and a robotics testing field to invent a flying car. In early August, the research center at the test field began accepting applications for four additional companies. The prefecture is focusing on efforts to attract companies to the site, which remains the only facility in the country where development and testing can all be done at the same site. The prefecture hopes to create synergies among various businesses and local parts suppliers and eventually build one of the country's largest industrial centers in Fukushima. Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori introduced the concept in Tokyo during a conference on flying car development organized by the industry ministry on Aug. 2. The central government is in the process of putting together a plan to build a working flying car by 2023.

A coastal area in Fukushima Prefecture's Minamisoma, which seven years ago was overtaken by tsunami debris, is set to be resurrected as a major robotics research site. The Fukushima Robot Test Field, a 50-hectare site being built by the Fukushima Prefectural Government, is meant to be used by both domestic and foreign companies to develop robotics technologies. The site will be the central facility for the Innovation Coast project, the aim of which is to create new industries in tsunami-hit areas. But some of the participants are still waiting for the project to show signs of life. At the site, large fields for drone tests and a telecommunications tower are scheduled to be completed by June.

Convenience store chain Lawson Inc. and Japanese cybermall operator said Friday that they will organize a demonstration test on Oct. 31 for drone delivery services in an area devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and the subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture. The test will be conducted in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, utilizing a Lawson outlet, a mobile shop and Rakuten's drone. When the traveling shop visits areas some 2.7 km from the convenience store, it will take orders from local residents and deliver products from the outlet, including warm cooked food. The service will be available only on Thursdays during the test, and the experiment will be conducted over a period of six months. The drone can carry up to 2 kg of products and deliver them in about seven minutes.

FUKUSHIMA – In a world first, a drone successfully delivered a flask of hot soup to surfers on Thursday during a test of an unmanned flying vehicle traveling a preset route of more than 10 km. The industry ministry and the Fukushima Prefectural Government were among those conducting the test in a coastal area of Minamisoma in the prefecture, north of the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Traveling at 43 kph, the drone took 15 minutes to cover the 12 km from the Fukushima Hama-Dori Robot Testing Zone to Kitaizumi, a popular surfing spot. It was the first test of its kind in the world involving a drone flying for more than 10 km on a programmed route to make a delivery, according to the prefectural government. The robot testing zone is a designated area for testing robots to be used during post-disaster relief activities. An official of the prefecture said that as Japan has only a limited number of areas where long-distance drones can be tested, Fukushima will invite robot- and drone-related businesses to the prefecture as part of efforts to recover from the nuclear accident.