This is the six-month anniversary of the Japanese tsunami and meltdown at Fukushima. Here’s a good roundup of the last six months at the plant. In short, TEPCO has been struggling with the immense quantities of highly radioactive water necessary to cool the reactors, water purification systems haven’t worked as planned, and they still haven’t finished building the polyester “wrappers” that will be replacing the reactor building exteriors destroyed by explosions.
This Guardian piece about life in Fukushima, and among Fukushima evacuees, is worth a read if you want a fuller picture of what it’s like to live in and around a highly contaminated area. As an example, one of the extracurricular activities at Fukushima area schools is looking for (and finding) contamination in the schoolyard.