More than 18,000 people died on 11 March 2011 after the strongest recorded earthquake in Japan’s history triggered a tsunami that laid waste to entire towns and villages and caused a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
In Tokyo, the emperor and empress led tributes to those who died, and encouragement to the 230,000 people who remain unable to go home, including 120,000 whose homes were irradiated by the nuclear disaster.
At 2:46pm, the exact time the magnitude-9 earthquake struck, people across the country observed a moment’s silence; in the devastated coastal communities, tsunami warning sirens sounded in an eerie reminder of the moment the quake triggered the country’s worst disaster since the second world war.
“I prayed at the memorial to say that we will not ever forget you, and we are managing the best we can here,” said a woman from Ishinomaki, one of the worst-hit towns. Her son said: “Reconstruction hasn’t really progressed very much (in the four years) but everyone’s doing the best they can so we have to too.”
But work to house tens of thousands of displaced residents has made slow progress amid administrative holdups, rising construction costs and the challenge of rebuilding on high ground away from the vulnerable coastline.
Just 15% of the 29,000 permanent homes planned for survivors and nuclear evacuees have been completed in the three worst affected prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.
The long wait has taken its toll on the health of displaced survivors.
In the four years since the disaster, more than 3,200 people, many of them elderly, have died of illnesses exacerbated by their living conditions, suicide and other causes, according to government records.
The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is expected to respond to criticism of the slow rate of recovery by announcing a new five-year plan this summer to boost the reconstruction of ruined costal communities and decontaminate residential areas affected by the Fukushima meltdown.
“Reconstruction is shifting to a new stage,” Abe said, adding that he hoped rebuilding work would be completed by the time Tokyo hosts the summer Olympics in 2020. “We will help disaster victims become self-sustaining. As the government, we will provide the best possible support.”
Although some families have been allowed to return to their homes on the outskirts of the 20km (12 mile) evacuation zone, almost 120,000 people are still living in nuclear limbo.
Japan has spent more than $15bn USD on lowering atmospheric radiation levels in residential areas near the stricken power plant, creating mountains of radioactive waste that is stored in 88,000 temporary sites in the area.
“A large number of workers have been brought in to decontaminate the village, so that residents can return, but when I look at what they are doing, the situation seems hopeless,” said Nobuyoshi Ito, an environment specialist who carries out independent radiation tests on crops in the evacuated village of Iitate.
“We don’t know how much it will cost, and even if the work is completed, it won’t be clean enough for villagers to return and resume their lives.”
Young families with children, fearing the possible effects of long-term exposure to radiation to their health, are scattered across Fukushima prefecture and elsewhere in Japan, leaving mainly elderly evacuees behind in cramped temporary housing units.
Michihito Endo, a retired teacher from Tomioka, a deserted town near the plant, does not believe he will ever go home. “We used to be able to walk in the mountains and drink the water, to enjoy ourselves without a care in the world,” Endo said.
“That’s no longer possible. It’s very hard to take. I get very angry when I think about how Tepco and the government promoted the construction of so many nuclear power plants.”
At Fukushima Daiichi – scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl – optimism following the removal of more than 1,300 spent fuel assemblies from one damaged reactor building has been tempered by recent reports of yet more leaks of highly contaminated water. That is in addition to the 200,000 tonnes of toxic water already being stored in hundreds of tanks blanketing the site.
Workers have yet to begin the removal of melted fuel from the three reactors that suffered meltdown, a process that will take four decades and cost tens of billions of yen.
Abe also faces criticism of his push to restart idled nuclear reactors while so little progress has been made in the area affected by the Fukushima crisis.
All of Japan’s 48 working reactors were shut down to undergo stringent new safety checks in the wake of the disaster.
The country’s nuclear watchdog has approved the restart of two reactors in south-west Japan, but local opposition could frustrate Abe’s plans to have them generating power again in the next few months.
The pro-nuclear lobby insists that at least some reactors must go back online if Japan is to tackle the mounting cost of importing fossil fuels and make progress towards meeting its climate change commitments.
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