We bring forth some photographs of the present day Fukushima prefecture, once full of life like any other town, now just a gloomy shadow of its past -- each photo a grim reminder of the irreversible catastrophe.
The quake struck on Tuesday morning at about 06:00 local time (2:30 am IST on Tuesday), the Japan Meteorological Agency said, adding that the epicentre of the quake, which was felt in Tokyo, was off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 25km, the agency said.
Japanese government on Monday blasted the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant for its "absolutely unacceptable" mistake of giving an extremely high radiation reading, as engineers battled to contain the country's worst atomic crisis.
Battling highly radioactive water from leaking into the sea, desperate Japanese engineers on Monday pumped coloured powder to trace leakage, as the operator Tokyo Electric Power Company announced plans to dump 11,500 tonnes of contaminated water into the ocean to clear storage space at Fukushima nuclear plant.
High radiation has seeped into groundwater under the crisis-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, authorities said on Friday, as Japanese and United States troops launched an intensive air and sea search for thousands of people who remained unaccounted for after the March 11 quake and tsunami.
Under fire for its handling of the atomic crisis at radiation-leaking Fukushima nuclear complex, the plant's operator on Sunday said it aims to stabilise the facility within six to nine months, as United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed unwavering support to tsunami-hit Japan during a solidarity visit to Tokyo.
Japanese engineers on Saturday inched closer to connecting power at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plants, north of the Japanese capital, so as to restore the damaged cooling system to the dangerously overheated nuclear fuel.
The slow-moving disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan that is spreading a cloud of anxiety across the world has forced most nations to either suspend or review their nuclear power programmes, but not India.
Japanese workers at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant on Tuesday plugged a crack leaking highly toxic water into the sea from a concrete pit, though authorities were concerned about a possible hydrogen blast due to the build up of gas at a stricken reactor.
Workers were evacuated from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant on Sunday after radiation levels surged 10 million times higher than usual, dealing a major blow to efforts to avoid a meltdown of the reactors. The radiation in the water is 10 million times higher than that seen usually in the No 2 reactor complex, according Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the plant, 250-km northeast of capital Tokyo.
Japanese power companies, including Tokyo Electric Power Company and J-Power, seek to make their presence felt in India.
A strong earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale centered on a southern chain of Japanese islands shook buildings in the Tokyo area
Japan marks the fourth anniversary of a quake-tsunami disaster that swept away thousands of people.
Unprecedented rainfall in Japan unleashed heavy floods on Friday that ripped through parts of the island nation on Thursday, forcing more than 1 lakh people from their homes.
'What lies at the core of Abe's stance is Japan's crisis management ability amid the increasingly tense North Korean situation,' says Rajaram Panda.