![Yoshiko Furukawa uses her mobile phone to show photos of the damage the 2011 Tohoku earthquake inflicted on her house in Fukushima. Photo: Philip Wen Yoshiko Furukawa uses her mobile phone to show photos of the damage the 2011 Tohoku earthquake inflicted on her house in Fukushima. Photo: Philip Wen](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/67632054-a09d-4649-806b-e0d21cde9393.jpg/r0_0_729_409_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
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Tokyo: Yoshiko Furukawa had just got home from her morning work shift when she felt the ground beneath her start to rumble.
Having lived in Japan all her life, she had experienced earthquakes numerous times before; but nothing like this.
The jolts quickly gained in magnitude, knocking her off her feet, as her house roiled violently up, down and side to side.
"I felt sure the ceiling would cave in on me," the 53-year-old says. "When it stopped, I remember thinking the worst was over."
When urgent instructions came to immediately evacuate the area, Furukawa had yet to realise her home, eight kilometres from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, was at the centre of one of the world's worst nuclear emergencies in a generation.
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck 130 kilometres off Japan's northeastern coast at 2.46pm local time on March 11, 2011, causing the Fukushima nuclear plant to be knocked off the power grid. Back-up diesel generators usually kick in and deliver power needed to circulate cooling water around its reactor core.
Those generators, however, failed some 40 minutes later after getting slammed by seven tsunamis triggered by the quake, some as high as 15 metres.
That night, the Japanese government triggered a state of emergency plan to prevent a full-blown nuclear meltdown, and began the evacuation of more than 150,000 people in the surrounding area.
More than four years on, as authorities continue efforts to clean-up areas heavily contaminated by radiation around the decommissioned plant, Furukawa is among tens of thousands displaced residents still unable to return home.
Next challenge
We first run into Furukawa at the Japanese Diet, where a public information briefing is being held on the Japanese government's attempts to revive its nuclear industry, more than four years after all reactors were shut down after Fukushima.
Furukawa is now part of a concerned group of thousands of former Fukushima residents campaigning against the country's return to nuclear power.
Sendai, the first Japanese reactor is set to restart, possibly as soon as Monday, after the country's nuclear regulatory authority deemed it had passed new safety requirements – including detailed emergency countermeasures and the construction of higher tsunami walls.
The restarting of Japan's nuclear reactors is unprecedented in scale – 25 of Japan's 43 reactors have applied for restart permits.
It is also fraught with difficulty; with lessons learned elsewhere showing the process rarely goes smoothly.
Of 14 reactors that resumed operations after four years offline, all had emergency shutdowns and technical failures, according to the World Nuclear Association.
"If a car isn't used for a while, and you suddenly use it, then there is usually a problem. There is definitely this type of worry with Sendai," said Ken Nakajima, a professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute.
Japan's restarts are being closely watched. It will, in a way, provide proof the world can move on from the Fukushima disaster - itself an obstacle on the way to a global nuclear renaissance.
Success in Japan might allow the industry to re-emphasise nuclear as a carbon-free energy alternative before international climate negotiations in Paris this year.
The attraction of nuclear power, especially among Asian nations, is clear.
With increasing competition for oil and gas, and the negative impact of carbon pollution, nuclear power is considered key for both energy and environmental security.
Elsewhere in Asia, after a momentary pause after Fukushima, nuclear power development has gone full steam ahead, with China and India setting the pace.
China has the world's largest nuclear power development program. On top of 16 existing nuclear reactors, it is building 26 and has plans for a further 51, as it looks to diversify its power-generating base away from coal.
India has 20 nuclear reactors with seven more on the way.
But in Japan, Fukushima has irrevocably changed perceptions of the nuclear industry's safety, with considerable anger and suspicion directed at the government and Fukushima's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
While the tragedy was triggered by a large-scale natural disaster, an investigation compiled by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Commission found the nuclear accident could have been prevented or at least mitigated if not for some endemic failings inside TEPCO and regulatory authorities.
Its sobering conclusion is that this was not a natural disaster but "a profoundly man-made disaster — that could and should have been foreseen and prevented".
It describes a culture of collusion inside Japan's 'nuclear village' that put the interests of power producers ahead of public safety and wilfully ignored the risks of a major nuclear accident in an earthquake-prone country.
A Japanese civilian judiciary panel last month forced prosecutors to indict three former TEPCO executives for failing to take steps to prevent the Fukushima disaster.
The decision is unlikely to lead to a conviction of the former executives, after prosecutors twice said they would not bring charges, but means they will be summoned to appear in court to give evidence.
"We've seen from this that it is the weakest that suffer. They've put the interests of the corporations ahead of the health and safety of the people," says Izutaro Managi, a high-profile lawyer who is leading a class action suit against TEPCO and the Japanese government on behalf of 4000 affected Fukushima residents.
The restarting of the Sendai and other nuclear reactors, he says, is a "slight" against the memory of those who died and those who have been displaced by the tragedy.
"To think that nothing can go wrong [with nuclear power] is a mistaken mindset. This is how we have landed in this predicament,"
But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pushed forward with a pro-nuclear message and has sought to normalise the nuclear disaster. And the government plans to return residents back to their homes, seen by critics as part of a plan to speed up reconstruction and cut compensation payouts within two years.
Government-run decontamination efforts are ongoing in 11 cities, with at least 20,000 people involved in the clean-up. In the mammoth task, workers try to remove tons of contaminated surface soil, plants and leaves, placing them in bags or in one of the nearly 800 temporary outdoor storage facilities that have been set up across the disaster zone.
Some areas have already been reopened but many people are reluctant to return because of a lack of facilities and distrust of government claims it is safe. Others are resigned to never returning to their homes and businesses.
Many of the subsidies, predominantly funded by the government but paid through TEPCO, are designed to incentivise businesses and farmers to continue operating in affected areas.
While organisations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency say the decontamination effort has shown promise, environmentalists say the levels of radiation remain unacceptably dangerous.
"A lot of people have long forgotten about Fukushima, they think the affected areas are not as bad, they think the situation has been brought under control," Furukawa says.
"I've already exceeded the point of hurt and sadness, now it's just pure anger when I think of my current situation."