Japanese tsunamis and nuclear disasters trigger $ 300 billion effort to rebuild a country

The country has expanded its reconstruction budget four times in 10 years and set the equivalent of $ 2,400 per person in Japan to revive the tsunami-hit Tohoku region and mitigate radiation from the nuclear power plant. Even though the dams are being built and the houses are being rebuilt, many people have not returned.

Most of the money was spent on rebuilding houses, adding dams and repairing other damaged infrastructure, with the aim of bringing people back and reviving major industries such as fishing, agriculture and tourism.

The Tohoku region, which is home to about 7% of Japan’s population, has been declining for more than a generation as young people move to larger cities. Half of the tsunami victims were 65 years of age or older.

In the three tsunami-affected prefectures, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, the collective population fell by 6% since the disaster.

Hundreds of miles of dams, some up to 50 feet high, have climbed along the coast, costing about $ 13 billion. About 80% of the planned 268 miles of dams have been completed.

In Ishinomaki, waves of up to 33 feet traveled more than 3 miles inland, killing more than 3,000 people – including 74 of the 78 children attending Okawa Elementary School that day. The city is now protected by dams that are up to 32 feet high.

The tsunami collapsed over 1,000 miles of coastline, flooding some communities up to 6 miles inland. Some cities have seen the widespread destruction of homes, such as Rikuzentakata in Iwate, where 99.5% of homes have been damaged. In Ishinomaki, 4,000 people have died or are still unidentified and 76.6% of all houses in the city have been at least partially destroyed.

When the quake struck, the Fukushima Daiichi reactors shut down automatically. Spare diesel generators operated the cooling pumps until two tsunami waves flooded the factory, tearing down the generators. In the following days, the accumulation of hydrogen caused explosions in reactors 1, 2 and 3; a fire broke out in 4. Radiation levels rose to 400 millisieverts per hour (people are normally exposed to 2.4 millisieverts per year). The government has declared an evacuation area with a radius of 12.5 miles.

Now, a forest of steel tanks containing more than a million tons of water with radioactive elements is growing outside the plant. Water flows through the boiler every second, keeping the reactors cool, adding to the problem. The Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co.

, the owner of the plant, is studying the release of water with radioactive tritium in the Pacific. They say it’s safe for other countries to do the same at nuclear power plants, but people in the fishing industry are worried.

Officials estimate that there are still 30 years of work before Fukushima Daiichi is completely dismantled. The biggest task, which has not yet begun, is the removal of molten fuel from reactors 1, 2 and 3. Because the reactor parts are too radioactive for humans and are often inaccessible to robots, they have not yet been completely mapped or photographed.

The memory of what is sometimes called the “triple disaster” – earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis – is an annual event in Japan. On March 11 this year, the government will hold a ceremony to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the disaster at the Tokyo National Theater, offering a minute of silent prayer at 2:46 p.m., Earthquake Time. Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako are ready to attend.

—Alex Newman contributed to this article.