Japan – It is a daunting task. Contamination from the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl has spread far and wide, across fields and farms, rivers and forests. Tens of thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes.
But, shovelful by shovelful, one half-empty city on the edge of the evacuation zone is fighting to bring its future back.
Feeling forgotten and left largely to fend for themselves by the central government, officials in Minami-Soma, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, have designated August as "Decontamination Month" in a campaign to woo spooked residents home.
"We decided that we could not sit by and wait until Tokyo figured out what to do," said town official Yoshiaki Yokota. "It’s an enormous task, but we have to start somewhere."
Read the rest of the story: Japan city declares nuclear Decontamination Month.