A 9.0-magnitude earthquake. A towering tsunami. And a partial nuclear meltdown. Four years to the day after disaster struck the coast of northern Japan, killing nearly 20,000 people, the country continues to struggle with its aftermath.
Workers show up, day after day, for the painstaking, dangerous and decades-long process of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Clean-up activities are underway in the 12-mile evacuation zone surrounding the reactor, but a quarter of a million people have yet to return to their homes. Visiting the contaminated ruins as they exist now, UCLA researchers Yoh Kawano and Arfakhashad ("A.K.") Munaim told Salon, can best be described as "surreal."
"Imagine traveling through what, visually, can only be described as a thriving urban core," said Kawano of driving through an evacuated city, "and yet there isn't the sound of a single other vehicle, laughter...any human noise. Just birds chirping."
