Fukushima: How One Disaster Still Shapes Lives 15 Years Later
ALBANY, N.Y. (April 14, 2026) — When a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan’s eastern coast in 2011, four nuclear reactors exploded and three melted down. One hundred and sxity thousand people fled from an area twice the size of New York City. Most of these atomic refugees are still displaced from a nuclear exclusion zone full of radioactive animals and high levels of radiation. Fifteen years later, the disaster is still ongoing, often out of public view.
Professor of English and Journalism Thomas A. Bass set out to document this reality during a recent return to Fukushima, where he reported on communities still navigating contamination, displacement, and uncertainty long after global attention has faded. His latest article, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists with support from the Pulitzer Center, focuses on the people living in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. As one resident told him, the crisis is ongoing, with “no end in sight.”
“This kind of investigative reporting is one of the skills taught to future journalists at Albany,” Bass says. “Never before has factual reporting, based on first-hand experience in the field, been more important. The investigation can be on the east coast of Japan or the east side of campus. In both places, the same skills are used to produce a compelling story.”
Learn more about UAlbany’s journalism program.