Tsunami, Nuclear | featured news

Japan's government on Saturday approved bringing the country's first nuclear reactors back online since last year's earthquake and tsunami led to a nationwide shutdown, going against wider public opinion that is opposed to nuclear power after Fukushima....

Japan shuts down its last working nuclear power reactor this weekend just over a year after a tsunami scarred the nation and if it survives the summer without major electricity shortages, producers fear the plants will stay offline for good.

With a minute of silence, tolling bells and prayers, Japan will on Sunday mark the first anniversary of an earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis that shattered public trust in atomic power and the nation's leaders.

Documents show that Japanese leaders foresaw the possibility of a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, but kept their knowledge secret for months.

Japan says it will soon require atomic reactors to be shut down after 40 years of use to improve safety following the nuclear crisis set off by last year's tsunami....

Japanese officials unveiled a decades-long plan Wednesday to decommission the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where reactor cooling systems failed after the country's devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.

U.N. inspectors faulted Japan on Wednesday for underestimating the threat of a devastating tsunami on its crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant but praised its overall response to the crisis as exemplary....

A worker at Japan's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant died on Saturday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said, bringing the death toll at the complex to three since a massive earthquake and tsunami in March.

Japan's shelters are still packed, with no firm word on when evacuees may return home. Cleaning up the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl is likely to take decades and cost Japan an untold fortune.

Japan's cabinet approved on Friday almost $50 billion of spending for post-earthquake rebuilding, a down payment on the country's biggest public works effort in six decades.