Radioactive Fukushima
Decontamination workers remove radiated soil and leaves from a forest in Tomioka town, Fukushima prefecture. In March 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami tore through Tomioka and other coastal towns in northern Japan, leaving behind destruction and deep wounds.
Today, four years after the disaster, residents are torn over government’s plan to build a radioactive waste storage site in the shadow of the wrecked nuclear plant.
A monument and a stone statue of Jizo for victims of the earthquake and tsunami stand in Tomioka town.
Norio Kimura offers prayers for his family.
Kimura checks radiation levels among debris.
He walks in front of a damaged house.
Dictionaries are left on desks at a classroom of Kumamachi Elementary School.
Tomoko Hoshino, 78, and her husband Akira (right), 79, who were evacuated from Okuma, talk at their house in a temporary housing complex in Aizuwakamatsu.
A woman stands outside at a temporary housing complex that accommodates nuclear evacuees from Okuma.
A fishing boat is seen through an abandoned house in Namie town.
A worker uses a high pressure water washing machine during a radioactive decontamination at a private residence in Tomioka town.
Workers operate heavy machinery to remove debris.
A decontamination worker removes radiated soil and leaves from a bamboo forest in Tomioka town.
Big black plastic bags containing radiated soil, leaves and debris from the decontamination operation lie in a field.
Big black plastic bags are dumped by the sea.
