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Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

A protester is shown wearing a white radiation protection suit and holding a sign with cuts of fish and the radioactive symbol.

Japan to start releasing Fukushima water into sea in 2 years

Environment

Japan’s government announced Tuesday it would start releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years.

Security guards look at outbound vehicles moving toward them at a security checkpoint where part of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen in the background in Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan, Feb. 25, 2021. An official

The world rethought nuclear energy after Fukushima. Climate change complicates it.

Fukushima 10 Years Later
Nuclear reactors of No. 5, center left, and 6 look over tanks storing water that was treated but still radioactive, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant

Plan to dump Fukushima’s radioactive water into ocean causes outcry

Energy
This photo shows the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant situated in Naraha and Tomioka towns, Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan, Feb. 26, 2021.

‘The Journey Itself Home’: Reflections on moving forward after devastation in Japan

Fukushima 10 Years Later
When Yuji Onuma was a kid, he lived in Futaba, a part of Fukushima. Today, he has kids of his own — but they can’t go near Futaba. Here, he wears protective clothing during a visit to his old house.

Photos: See Japan’s nuclear legacy — from Fukushima to Hiroshima

Books
The World

This Japanese woman never gave up on her hometown. Even after the tsunami

Arts

Tomoko Kobayashi is one of the few residents who keeps coming back to the town of Odaka in Japan every day. Residents there were ordered to evacuate after the tsunami hit Japan in 2011. Tomoko hopes to help preserve the town for future generations.

PBS NewsHour Science Correspondent Miles O'Brien

Science reporter Miles O’Brien on the Fukushima cleanup, irradiated fish and losing his arm on assignment

Environment

Three years after the tsunami-induced meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, PBS NewsHour correspondent Miles O’Brien talks about the continuing contamination crisis, and the accident that caused him to lose his arm.Three years after the tsunami-induced meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, PBS NewsHour correspondent Miles O’Brien talks about the continuing contamination crisis, and the accident that caused him to lose his arm.

A sign reading "Nuclear Power - The Energy for a Better Future" hangs over a street in the town of Futaba, inside the 12-mile radius exclusion zone around Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in a 2012 photo.

One lesson of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown is that Japan’s culture needs to change

Environment

Three years after the triple meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, neither local communities nor the country’s economy have fully recovered. And one critic says Japan won’t be safe again until it’s made some fundamental changes in its culture.Three years after the triple meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, neither local communities nor the country’s economy have fully recovered. And one critic says Japan won’t be safe again until it’s made some fundamental changes in its culture.

The government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is proposing to restore nuclear power to a prominent position in the country's energy mix, nearly three years after a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

In a post-Fukushima shift, Japan’s government charts a path back to a nuclear future

Environment

Japan’s prime minister has unveiled a plan to restart the country’s nuclear energy program almost three years after the Fukushima disaster. But given the country’s deep divide over nuclear power, the plan is short of specifics and retains a commitment to developing renewable energy sources.

coal barge

Fukushima is casting a shadow on Japan and the Warsaw climate meeting

Environment

Japan has announced that it won’t meet the climate pollution reduction targets it agreed to under the landmark Kyoto Protocol, negotiated on its own soil in the 1990s. The reason? Fukushima has shut down its nuclear power industry.