The Associated Press for <em>National Geographic</em> magazine
07 April, 2011
The Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan damaged vital cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. A 20-kilometer exclusion zone was declared around the plant, and more than 80,000 people were evacuated.
David Guttenfelder
Guttenfelder previously spent 20 years as a photojournalist for the Associated Press based in Nairobi, Abidjan, New Delhi, and Tokyo covering news in more than 75 countries aroun...
Odaka, Fukushima prefecture, Japan
Footsteps are imprinted in the drying mud left by the tsunami, on the streets of Odaka, inside the contaminated nuclear exclusion zone encircling the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan damaged vital cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Blasts occurred in a series of reactors, leading to nuclear meltdown and a release of radioactive material, in what was seen as the world’s most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. A 20-kilometer exclusion zone was declared around the plant, and more than 80,000 people were evacuated. The exclusion zone remained in place for months after the incident, with the Japanese government predicting it could take 40 years to fully decommission the plant and clean up surrounding areas.