Climbing without a map: After 10 years, Japan's nuclear clean-up has no end in sight
Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which once had six reactors, was plunged into crisis by the tsunami that followed a magnitude 9.0 quake off the shore of northern Japan on March 11, 2011. The quake and tsunami flooded the back-up power generators at Fukushima, knocking out cooling systems. The reactors quickly overheated, setting off explosions as uranium cores melted down. The radioactive plumes that formed forced the evacuation of about 160,000 people.
Written By:
Sakura Murakami and Aaron Sheldrick / Reuters |
7:50 pm, Mar. 14, 2021
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Children walk among the candles during the 10th anniversary of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and triggered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in Futaba, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, March 11, 2021. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon