JAPAN. Dondo festival at Shimodo area in Kawamata town. Janvier 2012.
The popular festival has a history dating back more than 900 years. Dondo festival is a Lunar New Year's event to pray for good fortune and a bountiful harvest by collecting and burning the ornaments that decorated houses during the New Year such as pine boughs, sacred rice-straw ropes, and other charms.

The catastrophe of March 11th has a constant force throughout the life of the country today. For this traditional event the decision was made this year not to make fires usually very high by fear that smoke and falling ash causes the possible dissemination of radioactive materials across the region.