The area of present-day Futaba was part of
Mutsu Province. The remains of
Kofun period burial mounds have been found in the area. During the
Nara period, it was the center of ancient Futaba District in
Iwaki Province During the
Edo period, it was part of
Sōma Domain, ruled by the
Sōma clan until the
Meiji restoration. Town records indicate that over 700 residents of the region died due to a tsunami in the
1611 Sanriku earthquake. The area was the site of the
Battle of Iwaki during the
Boshin War. On April 1, 1889, with the establishment of the modern municipalities system, the villages of Shinzan and Nagatsuka were created in Shineha District, Fukushima, which subsequently became Futaba District in April 1896. Shinzan was raised to town status on February 1, 1913. Shinzan merged with Nagatsuka on April 1, 1951 becoming the town of Shineha, which changed its name to Futaba on April 1, 1956.
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami Futaba was severely affected by the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, and the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. Besides sustaining considerable damage from the earthquake and the
tsunami (which devastated the coastal area), the entire population of the town was evacuated en masse on the morning of March 12, as it is well within the exclusion radius around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. On March 28, 2013, the central government rezoned the town into two areas according to level of radiation: in the first, people were free to go in and out but not allowed to stay overnight; in the second, all entry was forbidden because of elevated radiation levels that were not expected to go down within five years after the accident. However, only 4 percent of the town area zone was opened to daytime return of residents, and the town remained uninhabitable. As of 2017, the Japanese government is leading a cleanup of the town, aiming for 11 percent to be livable by spring 2022. In March 2020, the town's
train station was reopened as cleanup efforts continued, and an area of habitability of around one square mile was established around the station. Services between Futaba and the neighbouring towns of
Namie and
Naraha commenced on March 14, 2020. In 2022, resettlement of the town commenced when the first three residents to return on a permanent basis arrived. It is planned to increase Futaba's population to 2,000 over the course of five years. ==Economy==