As the nation prepares for the first anniversary of the tsunami, the Japanese are preoccupied with radiation fears, the antinuclear debate, and bashing the operator of the Fukushima plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), for its response to the crisis. The workers who risked their lives remain faceless and nameless. Increasingly, they are also voiceless, because they fear being associated with the now-vilified power company if they speak about what went on in the plant. Six workers spoke to Newsweek on the condition that their real names not be used so they could provide a rare firsthand account of the fear and courage of these men--as well as describe what they consider unsafe practices during the initial stages of the recovery effort.

The Tohoku 9.0 earthquake, fifth largest ever recorded, created a tsunami with large waves up to 40 meters, with walls of water swallowing coastal towns, has been one of the worst natural disasters in recent history with the death toll reaching just below 20,000 people, estimated damage $310 billion. The scale of the calamity is truly epic. Hence, the Fukushima nuclear accident should have been only a side show.

Not so, it immediately became the principal show. Coverage in the U.S. media replicated hysteria, sensationalism, scaremongering and disinformation that characterized coverage of the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident in 1979. It appears that coverage in Europe wasn’t much better. Initially the mainstream media paraded a stream of anti-nuclear activists who excelled in predicting an equivalent of Armageddon with cataclysmic consequences.

Since the Fukushima catastrophe almost one year ago, Jun Shigemura has been providing psychological care to workers from the stricken nuclear facility. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he tells of the immense challenges facing TEPCO employees -- and why most of them have elected not to quit their jobs.

Seismic risk at the Fukushima nuclear plant increased after the magnitude 9 earthquake that hit Japan last March, scientists report. The new study, which uses data from over 6,000 earthquakes, shows the 11 March tremor caused a seismic fault close to the nuclear plant to reactivate. The results are now published in Solid Earth, an open-access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

The research suggests authorities should strengthen the security of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to withstand large earthquakes that are likely to directly disturb the region. The power plant witnessed one of the worst nuclear disasters in history after it was damaged by the 11 March 2011 magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami. But this tremor occurred about 160 km from the site, and a much closer one could occur in the future at Fukushima.

The village of Kawauchi near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant declared an end to evacuation on Tuesday and called on residents to return.

Kawauchi is the first among municipalities located in evacuation zones designated after the nuclear accident to take such a step.

The village will restart administrative services and reopen schools, nurseries and clinics in April, Kawauchi Mayor Yuko Endo said at a press conference.

The Ministry of the Environment on Jan. 26 announced a schedule for decontamination work covering 26,700 hectares of "special decontamination areas" tainted with radioactive materials from the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

The schedule eyes completion of decontamination work in areas where the yearly radiation dosage is below 50 millisieverts per year by the end of March 2014. However, the effectiveness of decontamination efforts is still unclear and there are a host of issues to deal with after the decontamination work is finished, including the building of infrastructure for each community. It remains unknown whether residents will be able to return to their homes.

The government's schedule does not clarify the targets for reducing radiation levels. The results of model decontamination work that the Cabinet Office is handling are expected to be released in February or March, and the Ministry of the Environment plans to wait for those results before deciding on targets.

The Japanese government is launching a large-scale cleanup of the fields, forests, and villages contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. But some experts caution that an overly aggressive remediation program could create a host of other environmental problems.

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Ten months after the nuclear disaster, trust in the authorities is nearly nonexistent. Without it, Japan’s government risks the biggest cleanup fiasco of all: a decontamination effort that carries huge financial and environmental costs but still fails to convince Fukushima residents that their homes, farms, and forests are safe once again

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Japan may announce on December 16 that tsunami-damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima are in a cold shutdown, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Friday, an important milestone in its plan to bring under control the worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

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Declaring a cold shutdown will have repercussions well beyond the plant as it is one of the criteria the government has said must be met before it begins allowing 80,000 residents evacuated from within a 20 km (12 mile) radius of the plant to return home.

A considerable amount of the melted fuel is thought to have penetrated the reactor's pressure vessel and fallen to the bottom of the containment vessel, which includes the pressure vessel, TEPCO said.

If it is assumed that all of the fuel at the No. 1 reactor fell to the containment vessel, this could have eroded the vessel's 100-centimeter-thick concrete bottom by 65 centimeters, it said. But the fuel would not penetrate the containment vessel, it added.

At the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors where cooling continued for a certain period of time, about 60 pct of fuel is estimated to have melted. If all of the melted fuel is assumed to have fallen to the reactors' containment vessels, their bottoms could have been eroded by at the most 12 centimeters and 20 centimeters, respectively.