Masako Sakata, an award-winning Japanese documentary film director, took the long route to answer a gnawing question: how is that Japan is still wedded to atomic power while Germany decided to phase out its nuclear plants by 2022 in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster? In her latest film “Morgen” (the German word for “tomorrow”), set for release this fall in Tokyo, Sakata documents how Germany decided to switch to alternative energy sources in 2011, including natural gas, wind and solar power. The decision came partly in response to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis triggered by a devastating earthquake and tsunami. “I wondered why Germany could do this, but Japan couldn’t,” Sakata said in a recent interview with Kyodo News.
Kyodo 23rd July 2018 read more »
Beaches destroyed by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan have reopened for the first time in eight years. Reconstruction work on the seawalls has been completed on Haragamaobama beach in Soma City, Fukushima prefecture, which was reopened to the public on Saturday, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. Before the quake sparked the tsunami in 2011 that swamped the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the beach, 25 miles north of the crippled Daiichi nuclear plant, attracted up to 50,000 visitors every season. Two other beaches hit by the tsunami in Miyagi prefecture, north of Fukushima, have also reopened.
Newsweek 23rd July 2018 read more »
