15 years after Fukushima disaster, Japan struggles with rising maintenance costs

Japan on Wednesday marked 15 years since a devastating earthquake and tsunami struck the country’s northeastern areas, triggering the world’s worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl crisis.The triple disasters of the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, resulting tsunami and meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex led to the loss of more than 22,000 lives. The plant’s operator is still struggling to dismantle the damaged facilities by 2051.The central government stopped hosting memorial services in Tokyo in 2022, but Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is set to attend a ceremony hosted by Fukushima prefecture.The latest figures from the National Police Agency put the death toll from the disasters at 15,901 people, while 2,519 were still missing as of the end of February, mostly from Miyagi, Fukushima and Iwate prefectures.People pay their respects to the victims of the 2011 tsunami in Otsuchi, Iwate prefecture, on Wednesday. Photo: Jiji Press/ EPAHowever, while the police and other groups have worked to search for and identify the remains of the victims, changes to the terrain and the passage of time have further hindered efforts that were already complicated by damage to the bodies.