More than two and a half years have passed since
the massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan,
wrecking the Fukushima nuclear plant and claiming nearly 16,000 lives.
When it became clear that nuclear contamination was widespread, the
government evacuated about 160,000 people living near the plant and
established a 20-km compulsory exclusion zone, which remains in place
today. Today, Tokyo Electric Power Company is still struggling to
contain contaminated water at the destroyed plant. Former residents are
allowed to return up to once a month, but they're forbidden to stay
overnight. Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj recently joined one of
these trips, capturing images of a haunting landscape and lives torn
apart by disaster. [40 photos]
A security officer blocks the road from Route 6 into the the exclusion
zone near the tsunami-crippled Daiichi nuclear power plant near Tomioka
in Fukushima prefecture, Japan, on September 13, 2013. Former residents
of evacuated towns can visit their homes inside the exclusion zone once a
month, with special permissions. A total of 160,000 people were ordered
to leave their homes around Daiichi plant after the government
announced the evacuation following the nuclear disaster in March of
2011. Picture taken September 13, 2013. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) 
Waves break on barriers as a typhoon hits the area near Iwaki town,
south of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, on
September 16, 2013. Almost all the beaches in Fukushima prefectures
remain closed since the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In July
this year, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), a company that runs the
crippled Daiichi plant reversed months of denials and admitted that
hundreds of tons of groundwater that has mixed with radioactive material
may be flowing out to the sea every day. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
Nature begins to reclaim the streets of the evacuated town of Futaba in
Fukushima prefecture, on September 22, 2013. Decades ago, the citizens
of Japan's Futaba town took such pride in hosting part of the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear complex that they built a sign over a promenade
proclaiming that atomic power made their town prosperous. Now, they are
scattered around Japan with no clear sign of when they might return to
their homes. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
A Buddhist monk wears a Geiger counter as he leads a small funeral
ceremony for Yotsuno Kanno, who died as an evacuee, at a cemetery in the
evacuated town of Minamitsushima inside the exclusion zone, on
September 21, 2013. Kanno, who was evacuated after the disaster at
Daiichi plant in 2011 with rest of people from Minamitsushima, died in
temporary accommodation in May this year two weeks short of her 100th
birthday. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
Keigo Sakamoto, 58, holds Atom, one of his 21 dogs and over 500 animals
he keeps at his home in the exclusion zone near Naraha, on September
17, 2013. Sakamoto, a former caregiver and farmer who refused to leave
the exclusion zone around the crippled Daiichi nuclear power plant
decided to name his dog Atom because it was born just before the 2011
tsunami and nuclear disaster. With donations and support from outside
Fukushima, Sakamoto lives with his animals of which many were abandoned
by previous owners as they left the exclusion zone. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
Mieko Okubo, 59, poses with a portrait of her father-in-law Fumio Okubo
next to his jacket in his room where he committed suicide in the
evacuated town of Iitate, on September 18, 2013. Mieko, who lives
outside the exclusion zone, comes back every other day to feed Fumio's
dog and clean the house. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
A jacket belonging to Fumio Okubo hangs in the room where he committed
suicide in the evacuated town of Iitate, on September 18, 2013. Fumio, a
102 year old farmer, hanged himself in the house he lived in all his
life after authorities ordered evacuation from the area following the
nuclear disaster at the tsunami-crippled Daiichi power plant. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
Plastic bags, containing radiated soil, leaves and debris from a
decontamination operation, sit dumped at a tennis court at a sports park
in Naraha town, on September 21, 2013. The most ambitious radiation
clean-up ever attempted has proved costly, complex and time-consuming
since the Japanese government began it more than two years ago in the
wake of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. It may also fail -- storage is a
big problem. Most of the contaminated soil and leaves remain piled up
in driveways and empty lots because of fierce opposition from local
communities to storing it in one place until the Ministry of Environment
secures a central site that could hold it for the longer term. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
Naoto Matsumura, 53, stands in an empty street in the evacuated town of
Tomioka, near the tsunami-crippled Daichi power plant, on September 17,
2013. Despite government orders, Matsumura never left and now lives
alone inside of the nuclear exclusion zone with his 50 cows, two cats, a
dog, a pony, and two ostriches. He has made it his mission to take care
of those animals left behind, even if they no longer can be sold to a
market due to their exposure to high levels of radiation. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
A doctor conducts a thyroid examination on four-year-old Maria
Sakamoto, brought by her mother to the office of Iwaki Radiation Citizen
Center NPO, in Iwaki town, south of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant, on September 18, 2013. The non-profit organization offers
free thyroid examination for children from Fukushima area. As the World
Health Organization (WHO) says children in Fukushima may have a higher
risk of developing thyroid cancer after the Daiichi nuclear disaster,
mothers in Fukushima worry that local health authorities are not doing
enough. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj) #
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