• Google Street View takes former residents on virtual tour inside Japan nuclear zone

    Google via AP

    A screenshot made from the Google Maps website shows stranded ships left as a testament to the power of the tsunami which hit the area, near a road in Namie, Japan.

    Google via AP

    A crushed building in Namie, a nuclear no-go zone where former residents have been unable to live since they fled from radioactive contamination near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant two years ago.

    By Arata Yamamoto, Producer, NBC News

    Google via AP

    Google's camera-equipped vehicle moves through Namie in a photo released on March 27, 2013 and taken earlier in the month.

    Crumpled homes, abandoned shops, empty streets. The town of Namie has lain virtually untouched since its residents were evacuated two years ago, following the accident at the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant.

    On Wednesday they were able to see their town again thanks to Google, which began offering glimpses of Namie on its Street View service. The town's mayor, Tamotsu Baba, invited Google to document the current state of Namie after receiving numerous requests from constituents who wanted a reminder of their home town.

    Although some restrictions on entering the town have been lifted, Namie's 21,000 former residents have not yet been allowed to return to live there due to the still-high levels of radiation.

    In a message posted on the Google website, the mayor said he hoped that sharing the images with the rest of the world would serve as a reminder of the consequences of a nuclear accident.

    Related:

    Nuclear refugees visit their home near stricken Fukushima plant

    Fukushima: Before, during and after

    Inside the Fukushima exclusion zone

     

    Google via AP

    Google via AP

  • 'Nuclear refugees' visit their home near stricken Fukushima plant

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    Wearing white protective masks and suits, Yuzo Mihara, left, and his wife Yuko pose for photographs on a deserted street in the town of Namie, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, on Feb. 22, 2013.

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    A single house remains standing in an area wiped out by the tsunami near Ukedo port in the town of Namie.

    Until two years ago, Yuzo Mihara and his wife Yuko lived quietly in the Japanese town of Namie. Yuzo ran a store and Yuko a beauty salon. But their lives were upended on March 11, 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami crippled the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 

    Yuzo and Yuko are now among over 100,000 Japanese 'nuclear refugees', having had to abandon their home when the town was evacuated due to the nuclear alert.

    European PressPhoto Agency photographer Franck Robichon followed the couple as they made a brief visit to their old home last month. They were able to collect a few belongings and clean the house, which had been invaded by mice.

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    Yuko Mihara enters her house, where the floor is littered with books and furniture.

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    Yuko Mihara offers prayers to her ancestors in front of a family Buddhist altar inside her house.

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    Yuko Mihara cleans her kitchen, which is covered with debris and putrefied food.

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    Yuzo Mihara cleans the couple's house, which has been invaded by mice.

    Located within the 20-kilometer exclusion zone, Namie saw its coastal area wiped out by the tsunami and its inland zone contaminated by radiation. Most of the town's 21,000 former residents still hope to make a permanent move back in the future, but for now they are only allowed to return for a few hours to minimize their exposure to radiation.

    Wearing white protective masks and suits, former Namie residents have to drive through Okuma and Futaba, towns where the radiation levels are so high that a future return is inconceivable. 

    Most of the former residents of the exclusion zone are still waiting for proper compensation to be negotiated with the government and TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant. Two years have passed since the disaster and frustration is gaining ground in the community. Cloistered in cramped temporary accommodation, the evacuees face an uncertain future. The stigma of being seen as 'assisted persons' by the wider community only adds to their despair.

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    Yuzo Mihara carries garbage out of his house.

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    Yuzo Mihara looks at a collapsed house in his neighborhood.

    Franck Robichon / EPA

    A destroyed house in the abandoned town of Namie.

    Related:

    Fukushima: Before, during and after

    Inside the Fukushima exclusion zone

    Slideshow: Triple tragedy for Japan

  • Fukushima: Before, during and after

    DigitalGlobe

    DigitalGlobe acquired this satellite image of Japan's Fukushima nuclear complex on Feb. 2, 2012, almost a year after the tsunami. Click here for larger version.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News




    Satellite images tracked the catastrophic impact of Japan's magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami on the Fukushima nuclear complex and other key sites, and now they're tracking the reconstruction.

    To mark Sunday's anniversary of the disaster, DigitalGlobe is releasing pictures showing "before, during and after" views of the devastation. You can see the three views of Fukushima here — but you really should check out our interactive slideshow to get a better sense of the changes that have taken place over the past year at Fukushima and at the Port of Sendai, which was destroyed in the tsunami.

    "I'm struck by the progress, by how efficient the Japanese have been in reconstructing their infrastructure," Steve Wood, vice president of DigitalGlobe's analysis center, told me today. "In less than a year they've been able to turn this port into an active, functioning component. That's significant, considering that a year ago there were shipping containers, fires and mud covering that entire area. ... And there are literally hundreds of examples of that up and down the coast."

    In the hours, days and weeks after the March 11 quake, satellite operators funneled fresh imagery to disaster workers, relief groups, government agencies and private companies coping with the aftermath. "We saw everything from big industrial partners who wanted to see the status of their factories, to government agencies involved in the actual reconstruction," Wood said.

    Japanese officials and the U.S. military used the images to figure out which places were best for setting up aid operations, while relief organizations scanned wide-scale maps to see which areas were most in need of help. In places where planes weren't allowed to fly, "we were effectively the only game in town" for that initial post-quake aerial imagery.

    Today, satellite images provide an effective way to gauge how much progress is being made, through comparisons of the before-during-and-after views. "To communicate and explain that to people is really an important and powerful tool that I've seen evolve over the years," Wood said. Pictures from space were important in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean quake and tsunami, they're important for Japan, and they'll be important for current and future hotspots such as Syria.

    During Japan's crisis, Wood's team at DigitalGlobe was working 24/7, and the weeks and months have sped by. "It's hard for me to believe it's been a year," Wood said. For some of us, Sunday's anniversary may seem like a turning point — but it's really just one more day in the timeline of Japan's reconstruction. These pictures remind us that the work is far from finished.

    DigitalGlobe

    A labeled version of the image from Feb. 2 shows the status of the four nuclear reactor buildings at the Fukushima plant.

    DigitalGlobe

    A satellite image from March 14, 2011, shows the ruined Fukushima nuclear complex during the height of the crisis. Click here for larger version.

    DigitalGlobe

    A satellite image from Nov. 21, 2004, shows the Fukushima complex long before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Click here for larger version.

    More about the Japan quake and tsunami:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

     

  • At opposite ends of the nuclear debate

    Christian Aeslund / Greenpeace via EPA

    An undated handout photograph released by Greenpeace on Feb. 28 shows a multinational Greenpeace alpine team climbing to deliver messages of support and hope for the victims of the nuclear disaster to the summit of Mt. Fuji in Japan. Reports state that the messages were collected from thousands of people in Japan and around the world, with the hope that the messages will help unite the
    people of Japan in opposition to nuclear power and encourage the Japanese authorities to listen to them. The climbing team is comprised of eleven alpinists from Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.S.

    Kimimasa Mayama / Pool via EPA

    Member of the media, escorted by TEPCO employees, wearing Tyvex protective suits and masks look at the number three and number four reactor buildings of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, north east of Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 28. Members of the media were allowed into the plant on Feb. 28 ahead of the 1-year anniversary of the March 11, 2011 tsunami and earthquake.

    AP reports: Nearly a year after it suffered multiple meltdowns, the tsunami-hit Japanese nuclear plant is in shambles, barely running on a patchwork of makeshift equipment.

    Japan announced in December that Fukushima Dai-ichi is stable and minimal radiation is being released from its melted reactors.

    Plant chief Takeshi Takahashi said Tuesday he has to admit the plant is still rather "fragile." He took the job in December after his predecessor resigned due to health reasons.

    Tuesday's tour for Tokyo-based foreign media, including The Associated Press, was organized by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.

    Story: Japan leaders feared 'devil's chain reaction'

    Story: Japan withheld risks of nuclear disaster

  • Zen monk fights radiation in Japan

    Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

    Koyu Abe gives instructions to volunteers during a radiation cleansing event hosted by himself at an elementary school in Fukushima, Japan on Feb. 5, 2012.

    Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

    Volunteer workers clean inside ditches during a radiation cleansing event hosted by Zen priest Koyu Abe at an elementary school in Fukushima,

    Slideshow: Zen monk fights radiation in Japan

    Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

    A Buddhist priest in Fukushima works to clean up radioactive

    Launch slideshow

    Reuters reports: Last summer, Zen monk Koyu Abe grew and distributed sunflowers and other plants, such as field mustard and amaranthus, in an effort to lighten the impact of the radiation and cheer local residents of Japan's Fukushima city. Now he is trading his ceremonial robes for a protective mask, working with volunteers to track down lingering pockets of radiation and cleaning them up.

    "The damage here in Fukushima is different from the destruction caused by the tsunami," Abe said.

    "You can't see it. Nothing looks as if it's changed, but really, radiation is floating through the area. It's hard for those hit by the tsunami, but it's hard to live here too."

    Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

    Koyu Abe prepares for a workshop to inform local residents on how to deal with radioactive contamination at his study room.

    Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

    Hisashi Abe, 3, plays inside his grandparents' house near Joenji temple in Fukushima, Japan. Abe has been kept inside most of his time since last March due to fear of radiation.

    Related contents:

     

  • Outside the Frame: Rare chance to see inside Fukushima, Japan's crippled nuke plant

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    Workers in protective suits gather near their lockers inside the emergency operation center at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, Nov. 12. Members of the media were allowed into the plant on Saturday for the first time since the March 11 tsunami and earthquake triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

    Photographer David Guttenfelder writes:

    Today was a very rare chance to see inside the grounds of Fukushima's Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. It was the first time that the media was allowed access to the site since March, when the earthquake and tsunami triggered explosions and the reactors began to melt down.

    A group of about 50 or more journalists was allowed to go in Saturday. I was the only non-Japanese photographer. We had to put on white haz-mat protective suits, two pairs of gloves, double layers of thick white plastic booties over our shoes, a head cover and a full respirator mask. Officials covered my cameras with plastic bags. I wasn't going to be able to change the settings on my cameras, change the batteries and memory cards, or switch lenses once the bags were sealed shut.

    We boarded two buses and drove past a police checkpoint and into the "exclusion zone"— a 20-kilometer-radius contaminated no-man's land surrounding the destroyed power plant. Everything looks like a ghost town inside the zone. Earthquake rubble still lies in piles. Vending machines sit idle. We saw a pachinko pinball parlor with its front wall caved in. Overgrown weeds and creeping grasses have begun to reclaim abandoned parking lots and sidewalks. Stray cows, dogs and cats still wandered around and crows picked through garbage. The radiation meters showed between 1 and 7 microsieverts here.

    Guards in protective suits checked our buses and waved us through the gate of Dai-ichi. Almost immediately I could see the stacks and ravaged exterior of one of the units. From a distance we stopped the bus and photographed the plant. Japanese TV correspondents did their "stand-ups" wearing the full spacesuits from inside the bus. Then we drove remarkably close to the reactors.

    The buses moved along a narrow street tightly squeezed between the outer wall of the building units and the sea. We were only about 20 yards from the plant wall. The place is devastated. Walls are sheared away. Overturned vehicles and twisted steel beams lie upside down in huge earthquake craters. Abandoned pump trucks, used in early efforts to cool the site, sit idle. Dozens of hoses snake across the ground and through open doors or ruptures in the walls. Everywhere, there are pools of water. Elsewhere on the grounds there were dozens of busy workers. But next to the reactors, there are no signs of life. The radiation meters showed 300 microsieverts even inside the bus.

    It wasn't that easy to photogaph. We were not allowed to get out of the bus which kept moving. We probably had about 3 minutes in total to shoot while the bus rolled past, close to the plant. In fact, we were so close to the plant that my widest lens could only make a full frame of nothing but twisted debris.

    We also visited an emergency operation center near the reactors. I think this place was actually more interesting than seeing the damaged reactor itself because it was here that I found the people. Inside was a giant planning room. On the walls were monitors showing live video feeds on flat screen TVs. Men in white suits and masks typed on computers and added figures on desk calculators. Workers rested on the floor against their lockers. Everyone looked a bit weary to me. 

    I think everyone is wondering, "Who are these people who go to the plant each day to make a living and, on behalf of the country, to battle the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl?"  

    Read more here.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    The crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station is seen through a bus window in Okuma on Nov. 12. Japan took a group of journalists inside the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for the first time, stepping up its efforts to prove to the world it is on top of the disaster.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    Officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Japanese journalists pass by a newly built sea barricade next to the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Japan, Nov. 12. Media allowed into Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant for the first time Saturday saw a striking scene of devastation: twisted and overturned vehicles, crumbling reactor buildings and piles of rubble virtually untouched since the wave struck more than eight months ago.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    The crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station is seen through a bus window in Okuma, Japan, Nov. 12.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    A deserted street inside the contaminated exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen from bus windows in Fukushima prefecture, Nov. 12. Conditions at Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, devastated by a tsunami in March, were slowly improving to the point where a "cold shutdown" would be possible as planned, officials said on Saturday during a tour of the facility.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    A worker carries his belongings as he walks among the temporary housing structures erected for workers at J-Village, a soccer training complex now serving as an operation base for those battling Japan's nuclear disaster, near Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima prefecture Nov. 11, eight months after the disaster.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    A man dresses in a room where workers leave their clothing before putting on protective suits at J-Village, Nov. 11. Japan's lower house approved a 156 billion USD draft budget to finance post quake reconstruction and boost an economy hit by slow global growth and a strong yen.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    A worker, left, steps from a radiation screening machine after removing and discarding his protective suit as he arrives at J-Village, Nov. 11.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    Men sort and clean protective masks at J-Village, Nov. 11.

    David Guttenfelder / AP

    An employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co. looks at piles of used protective clothing that was worn by workers inside the contaminated "exclusion zone," and later will be placed inside containers at J-Village.

  • Dalai Lama visits Japan, meets with disaster survivors

    By Jim Seida

    According to the Kyodo news service, The Dalai Lama on Saturday visited an area devastated by the March earthquake and tsunami and took part in a Buddhist memorial service for the victims.

    The 76-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader offered words of encouragement to survivors during the service at Saiko Temple in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.

    Kimimasa Mayama / EPA

    Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama on board a Tohoku Shinkansen bullet train and a baby held by a mother touch through the window at Koriyama railway station, northern Japan, Nov. 6, after delivering a speech to Fukushima residents racked with the aftermath of the March 11 tsunami and radiation damage caused by the accident at Fukushima nuclear power plant.

     With about 1,000 people attending, the Dalai Lama said that as a human being he shares the pain of survivors who lost their loved ones, and that he hopes people will be able to overcome their sorrow and rebuild their lives.

     

    In Ishinomaki, about 3,800 people were killed or went missing in the disaster, the largest number of victims in a single municipality.

    Kimimasa Mayama / EPA

    Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama (L) is welcomed by tsunami survivors and relatives of victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as he arrives in Ishinomaki.

    The Dalai Lama also plans to visit other hard-hit areas, including Sendai and Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture.

    He visited Tokyo in April and held a special Buddhist service for victims of the March 11 disaster, but was unable to visit the devastated area.

    Before his visit to Ishinomaki, the Dalai Lama, who arrived in Japan on Oct. 29, made a speech in the city of Osaka and visited Wakayama Prefecture's Koyasan University, which is affiliated with Koyasan Kongobuji Temple. The university invited the Dalai Lama to celebrate its 125th anniversary.

    Kimimasa Mayama / EPA

    Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama comforts a kindergarden child, who lost his parents in the tsunami caused by the March 11 earthquake, as he visits Saikoji temple to hold a memorial service for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Ishinomaki, northern Japan, Nov. 5. An estimated 15,800 people died in the earthquake and tsunami.

     View our slideshow of the Dalai Lama's life.

  • Reuters

    Japanese soldiers rescue residents from a flooded neighborhood in Koriyama, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, on Wednesday, Sept. 22. Typhoon Roke has left at least 13 people dead and 6 missing after pounding Japan with heavy rain and strong winds, public broadcaster NHK said, but it did not have a major impact on the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

    Flooding follows typhoon Roke in Fukushima

    By Jonathan Woods, msnbc.com

    A powerful typhoon slammed into Japan on Wednesday, leaving 13 people dead or missing in south-central regions and halting trains in Tokyo before grazing a crippled nuclear plant in the tsunami-ravaged northeast.

    Read more in our full story.

  • Athit Perawongmetha / Getty Images

    People cry as they observe a minute of silence at 2:46 p.m., the time that the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit six months ago, as they commemorate the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami on September 11, in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The earthquake triggered a tsunami wave of up to ten meters which engulfed large parts of north-eastern Japan and also damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing the worst nuclear crisis in decades. The current number of dead and missing is reportedly estimated to be 22,900.

    Japan marks six months since earthquake, tsunami

    Read more here.

  • Inside the Fukushima exclusion zone

    By David R Arnott, NBC News

    "You can't see it. It's not tangible. It's a fear of the unknown."

    Patrik Lundin is telling me what it feels like to be surrounded by an invisible danger: high levels of radiation. Lundin's photography project, 36 Views of The Fukushima Dai-ichi Exclusion Zone, explores the effects of the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear plant following the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11. The work pays homage to Hokusai and is inspired by a series of woodcuttings, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, that the Japanese artist produced between 1826 and 1833.

    Patrik Lundin

    View 29 - 0.4 microsievert / hour

    Patrik Lundin

    View 5 - 0.1 microsievert / hour.

    The project is a 180-degree dissection of the radiated land areas surrounding the plant. Each view has been taken in five-degree increments, looking towards the failed reactor. In Hokusai's woodcuttings every view contained Mount Fuji. In Lundin's work, the common factor is that each image contains levels of unseen radiation.

    Lundin travelled to Japan in July, four months after the earthquake, and felt that his photographs had to go beyond the images of destruction that dominate the visual record of the disaster. "People have seen those images. They don't react to them anymore," he told msnbc.com. "What I am interested in is the aftermath of events, rather than the immediate."

     

    Patrik Lundin

    View 34 - 0.3 microsievert / hour

    Patrik Lundin

    View 23 - 6.6 microsievert / hour

    Lundin, who is studying for a Masters in Photojournalism at the University of Westminster, spent seven days inside the exclusion zone, exposing himself to a total of 60μSv (microsieverts) of radioactive material. Although he was working in the 30km zone around the plant, where evacuation is voluntary (mandatory exclusion applies within 20km of the plant), he was stopped seven times by police who wanted to know what he was doing there.

    "At times I felt a completely irrational fear over what I was doing to myself. In a lot of the zone the landscape is exactly the same as before - in most of the pictures you don't see the effects of the earthquake or the tsunami - but there are just no people. It's an eerie feeling."

     

    Patrik Lundin

    View 22 - 2.2 microsievert / hour

    Lundin's work is on show in the exhibition Habeas Corpus: Bodies in the Frame, which runs at Ambika P3 in London from September 2-4.

    Click here for Patrik Lundin's website.

  • TEPCO via Reuters

    An image taken by a gamma ray camera showing the bottom of a ventilation stack standing between Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No.1 and No.2 reactors, where radiation exceeding 10 sieverts per hour - seen here in red - was recorded.

    Lethal levels of radiation recorded in Fukushima gamma ray image

    msnbc.com news services report:

    Pockets of lethal levels of radiation have been detected at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in a reminder of the risks faced by workers battling to contain the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

    Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) reported on Monday that radiation exceeding 10 sieverts (10,000 millisieverts) per hour was found at the bottom of a ventilation stack standing between two reactors.

    Tepco said Tuesday it found another spot on the ventilation stack itself where radiation exceeded 10 sieverts per hour, a level that could lead to incapacitation or death after just several seconds of exposure. Continue reading.

  • Doctor describes fatigue of workers at Fukushima nuclear plant

    By David R Arnott, NBC News

    Newly released photographs taken by a doctor who has examined workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant show the difficult living conditions they have endured while battling to bring the situation under control.

    Takeshi Tanigawa via Reuters

    Workers engaged in operations to stabilize the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant take a rest on the floor of a gymnasium inside the grounds of the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant, about 10km away from the crippled Daiichi plant in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan, in this photo taken May 7 and released June 2 by industrial medical doctor Takeshi Tanigawa, who examined the workers.

    The Japan Times reported that Ehime University professor Takeshi Tanigawa had visited the workers twice since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that triggered a series of meltdowns at the plant. He warned that there was an increased risk of accidents because the workers had suffered from chronic sleep deprivation and fatigue, the paper said.

    Takeshi Tanigawa via Reuters

    Industrial medical doctor Takeshi Tanigawa, right, talks with a worker operating to stabilize the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant, in this photo taken April 16 and released by Tanigawa on June 2.

    Tanigawa also warned that workers were at risk of developing PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) due to what they had been through in the early days of the disaster, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

    See more images of the disaster in our slideshow and more pictures related to Fukushima on PhotoBlog.

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