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from Photographers Blog:
Destination Fukushima: Two years on
Fukushima, Japan
By Issei Kato
“Let’s put our hearts together and keep going, Fukushima!” reads a large banner that hangs across a large steel structure that stands next to the No. 4 reactor building at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The plant was overwhelmed by a massive tsunami and earthquake two years ago, triggering hydrogen explosions and a nuclear meltdown.
I was at the Fukushima site for the second time on Wednesday, ahead of the two year anniversary of the March 11 tsunami and earthquake, as a pool photographer, taking pictures of the crippled plant on behalf of foreign media based in Japan. This time, I was struck by how many more workers were on-site and the large number of tanks filled with contaminated water scattered around the area.
Tepco let reporters get closer to the damaged reactor buildings, allowing me to photograph laborers in stifling protective gear, standing at the top of destroyed buildings. I was also able to photograph inside the Common Pool Building, a site where Tepco plans to transfer fuel rods from Reactor 4 later this year, the first step of a decades-long battle to decommission the plant.
from Photographers Blog:
Inside the world’s biggest nuclear plant
Kashiwazaki, Japan
By Kim Kyung-hoon
“Sleeping nuclear giants” - That was my first impression when I visited the world’s biggest nuclear power station, Kashiwazaki Kariwa power plant in Japan's Niigata Prefecture.
GALLERY: IMAGES FROM THE PLANT
With seven reactors which can produce a total of 8,212 megawatts of electricity, this power station is officially registered as the largest nuclear power station in the Guinness Book of Records. But the reality of the power station is much different than its reputation. Two of its reactors were shut down for a time after the 2007 earthquake and the remaining reactors were taken offline for safety checks and maintenance due to public concerns about the safety of nuclear energy in the quake-prone country after Fukushima’s nuclear disaster.
from India Insight:
An atom of doubt at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant
Opponents of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, under construction in Tamil Nadu, are raising fresh questions about the plant's safety because of Indian government documents that they say reveal a problem in the design of one of the two reactors.
The reactor's design differs from the plan that Russia and India came up with when they agreed to build the reactor in 1988, according to the documents published by India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.
from Expert Zone:
Fukushima disaster report: relevance of cultural traits
(The views expressed in this column are the author's own and do not represent those of Reuters)
The first report of the three major investigations commissioned by the Japanese government into the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011 was released in Tokyo on Thursday. The findings of the investigation, chaired by Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa challenged the dominant assumption that this tragedy unfolded due to a confluence of natural calamities of tectonic proportion -- namely a tsunami and an earthquake -- and concluded that Fukushima was alas, ‘man-made’ and occurred due to "a multitude of errors and wilful negligence" that implicated the government, safety regulators and the operator of the nuclear plant.
from Photographers Blog:
A visit to Fukushima Ground Zero
By Issei Kato
“This day finally came.”
That was my first impression when I was chosen as a pool photographer on behalf of foreign media based in Japan to visit the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
We were allowed to enter the plant last Monday, ahead of Japan’s one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami, which triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl. The media tour was the first to take place since the Japanese government announced in December that reactors at the plant had reached a stage of cold shutdown. We were allowed to cover not just from inside a bus, but from a certain outlying spot close to a reactor building for 15 minutes.
from Ian Bremmer:
Japan’s year of resilience
Almost a year on from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that left the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in its wake, it’s fair to say Japan has experienced a crisis unlike any other since the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War Two.
Over 13,000 people died from the quake, many from drowning. The final death toll, which will include those who were unable to receive proper medical care during the disaster, will be even higher. An estimated 100,000 children were uprooted from their homes after the quake, along with some 400,000 adults. And in the areas affected by fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, cleanup work is really just beginning. With all of this coming in the teeth of the global economic crisis and Japan’s national industrial slowdown, the densely populated main island of Japan has not seen anything like this in decades.
from Photographers Blog:
Tragedy in Fukushima: when can we go back to home again?
After covering myself from head to toe in protective clothing in the hope of protecting me from radiation, I went to accompany evacuees who were temporarily allowed to visit their homes in the 20 km no-entry zone surrounding the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, a place now notorious for its radiation leaks.
My destination was Okuma town where the whole population of about 11,000 had been evacuated since last year’s earthquake. The town is still afflicted with high levels of invisible radiation.
from Photographers Blog:
Have you seen this Fukushima child?
By Kim Kyung-Hoon
Near midnight on March 12th, 2011, I was looking for Fukushima evacuees who had fled from towns near the nuclear power plant hit by a massive tsunami and earthquake the day before, and was now leaking radiation.
On hearing the warnings of meltdown and radiation leaks at the nuclear plant, my colleagues and I drove west from Fukushima airport where we landed by helicopter with two very simple goals: stay as far away as possible from the nuclear power plant, and find the evacuees.
from Photographers Blog:
Fukushima’s invisible fear
By Issei Kato
These days, a mask, protective clothing and radiation counter have all become a usual part of reporting trips, as essential as a camera, lenses and a laptop. Soon, this situation will have gone on for a full year.
The 20 km (12 mile) zone around Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is now a virtual ghost town after being evacuated of residents due to radiation. I asked a friend, who was forced by the disaster to leave the area and has been searching for a way to resume work, for help, and was able to enter the area where he used to live.
from Full Focus:
Fukushima silence
Buildings remain vacant and streets deserted inside the 20km (12 mile) radius exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The March 2011 tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling systems, leading to the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years.
