You can’t say you have all the answers if you haven’t asked all the questions. So, at a conference on the medical and ecological consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, held to commemorate the second anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that struck northern Japan, there were lots of questions. Questions about what actually happened at Fukushima Daiichi in the first days after the quake, and how that differed from the official report; questions about what radionuclides were in the fallout and runoff, at what concentrations, and how far they have spread; and questions about what near- and long-term effects this disaster will have on people and the planet, and how we will measure and recognize those effects.

I was up working in what were in my part of the world the early morning hours of March 11, 2011, when I heard over the radio that a massive earthquake had struck northeastern Japan. I turned on the TV just in time to see the earliest pictures of the tsunami that followed what became known as the Tohoku quake. The devastation was instantly apparent, and reports of high numbers of casualties seemed inevitable, but it wasn’t until a few hours later, when news of the destruction and loss of power at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant hit the English-language airwaves, that I was gripped by a real sense of despair.

Thyroid abnormalities have now been confirmed among tens of thousands of children downwind from Fukushima. They are the first clear sign of an unfolding radioactive tragedy that demands this industry be buried forever.

Two years after Fukushima exploded, three still-smoldering reactors remind us that the nuclear power industry repeatedly told the world this could never happen.

Chris Noland was living in Tokyo on March 11, 2011 when the massive earthquake hit the northeast east of Japan. He recorded the effects of the earthquake on his apartment, and then realized he should and could do something to help. He connected with a foreign NGO and began his first ever stint as a volunteer. Noland’s earnest narration and tears as he uncovers diaries and keepsakes runs in stark contrast to the devastated landscapes in the cities he visits, first to clear and rebuild, and then to investigate the effects of the Fukushima meltdown.

New research shows that corrosion of reactor pipes currently being used to pump water into the reactors in an attempt to cool the melted fuel may compromise those pipes long before TEPCO plans to stop injecting water. This same corrosion may be doing considerable damage to metal parts in the spent fuel pools.

Fukishima may no longer be on the front pages, but the next “clean” nuclear power advocate will undoubtedly not want you to know this..

What replaces the cultural critique in the Japanese edition and in the body of the English summary is a ringing indictment of the cozy relationship between the Japanese nuclear industry and the government agencies that were supposed to regulate it. This “regulatory capture,” as the report details, is certainly central to the committee’s findings and crucial to understanding how the Fukushima disaster is a manmade catastrophe, but it is not unique to the culture of Japan.

The massive disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility that began with the March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami could have been prevented and was likely made worse by the response of government officials and plant owners, so says a lengthy report released today by the Japanese Diet (their parliament).

But perhaps most damning, and most important to the future of Japan and to the future of nuclear power worldwide, is the Investigation’s finding that parts of the containment and cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi were almost certainly damaged by the earthquake before the mammoth tsunami caused additional destruction.

Little more than 13 months after the world’s third major civilian nuclear accident in three decades, it might be surprising to find that one of the words commonly used in context with nuclear power these days is “renaissance.” Though more the product of public relations than real observation, the concept of a “nuclear renaissance” took hold over the last decade purportedly as a response to the rising price of fossil fuels and a growing concern over climate change–and it became so much a part of the lingua franca that even after an earthquake and tsunami triggered the massive crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (a crisis that continues to this day), media reports still try to assess how much of a renaissance we will see post-Fukushima, rather than laugh at the idea that a renaissance ever existed.

After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Stu Levy mobilized to volunteer his help, traveling with a group bringing food and gasoline to a shelter serving 1,000 people, where the volunteers put together a soup kitchen to feed the refugees their first hot meal since the quake. A subsequent trip took him to Ishinomaki, on the Tohoku coast, where over 3,000 people in a city of 165,000 had been killed, with over 2,700 unaccounted for, and another 30,000 displaced.

Fronm these experiences comes tonight’s film Pray for Japan.