See Inside Fukushima's Lethal Reactor

  • Photographer Dominic Nahr has been documenting Fukushima, Japan, since the 2011 tsunami. Japan, Okuma, 2014. Inside the central control room of reactor 1 and 2. Both reactors overheated, causing meltdowns. The meltdown in reactor 1 eventually led to a hydrogen explosion that released large amounts of radioactive material in the air.
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  • Japan, Okuma, 2014. Nuclear workers at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station removing their contaminated suits and masks.
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  • Japan, Okuma, 2014. TEPCO has made efforts to remove spent fuel rods from reactor 4. Reactor 4 did not melt down, but the 9.0 magnitude earthquake caused extensive damage to its foundations.
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  • Japan, Okuma, 2014. A TEPCO worker stands inside the central control room of reactor 1 and 2. Both reactors overheated, causing meltdowns. The melt down in reactor 1 eventually led to a hydrogen explosion that released large amounts of radioactive material in the air.
    Dominic Nahr for TIME
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  • Japan, Okuma, 2014. An external view of reactor building number 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Reactor 4 did not meltdown, but a 9.0 magnitude earthquake caused extensive damage to its foundations.
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  • Japan, Namie, 2014. A dozen cow remains are piled in a large pit among thousands of other cow carcasses buried inside the exclusion zone a few kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
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  • Japan, Tomioka, 2014. Bags containing radioactive material inside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone.
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  • Japan, Namie, 2014. A tunnel is lit by red lights inside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
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  • Japan, Namie, 2014. A public Geiger counter station displays recordings of dangerously high levels of radiation inside the 10- and 20-kilometer nuclear zone surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The area has been deemed unlivable.
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  • Japan, Koriyama, 2014. A woman washes her hair inside the apartment she was born and raised in. She is worried about what the radiation levels are doing to her body. She keeps a Geiger counter at home.
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  • Japan, Iwaki, 2014. Inside a bathhouse for nuclear and decontamination workers inside the exclusion zone.
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  • Japan, Fukushima City, 2014. Residents stand on the street while rescue teams try and break into a one bedroom apartment after a thirty year old decontamination worker locked himself into his apartment and committed suicide by deliberately breathing in carbon monoxide. Suicides in Fukushima have been on the rise since the nuclear disaster.
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  • Japan, Fukushima City, 2014. The landlord checks the outside window of a one bedroom apartment rented to a decontamination worker who committed suicide by deliberately breathing in carbon monoxide the night before. Suicides in Fukushima have been on the rise since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011.
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  • Japan, Fukushima City, 2014. A young waitress inside a bar. Fukushima City boasts an active nightlife with many bars and restaurants. Although the city has been decontaminated, hotspots of radiation have been found and some residents worry about the potential effects of radiation.
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  • Japan, Fukushima City, 2014. The sun is reflected on a poster in Fukushima City.
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  • Japan, Koriyama, 2011. A worker inside the Fukushima Agricultural Technology Centre in Koriyama prepares vegetables from Fukushima for examination. Radiation levels in vegetables are checked before the food is approved for trade and consumption.
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  • Japan, Namie, 2014. Water pooled in the plastic cover of a damaged roof inside a greenhouse owned and cared for by Mr. Yoshizawa. He decided to ignore government advice, and lives inside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone to continue caring for his cows.
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  • Japan, Namie, 2014. A memorial for cows inside the exclusion zone a few kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
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  • Japan, Ikata, 2014. Workers cut grass by hand at the Ikata Nuclear Power Station by Shikoku Electric Power Co., located on the southern coastline of Japan.
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  • Japan, Ikata, 2014. Ikata Nuclear Power Station by Shikoku Electric Power Co., located on the southern coastline of Japan.
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  • Japan, Ikata, 2014. Spent fuel rods pool room at reactor 3 inside Ikata Nuclear Power Station by Shikoku Electric Power Co., located on the southern coastline of Japan.
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  • Japan, Iwaki, 2014. A doctor checking a patient's thyroid. Check ups are organized by the Independent Mother's Network named “Tarachine” in Onahama, Iwaki city. Some families have expressed reservations about tests carried out at a government-linked hospital and prefer to undergo testing at other private clinics.
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  • Japan, Namie, 2014. Residents from Namie attend a memorial service on the third anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami, which hit the northeastern coast of Japan in March 2011. The ceremony is held inside the 20- kilometer exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
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  • Japan, Namie, 2014. Police officers stand in formation. They are tasked with finding the remaining bodies of victims of the earthquake and tsunami left inside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
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  • Japan, Minamisoma, 2014. A Japanese flag flies half-mast at a school on the third anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that hit the northeastern coast of Japan on March 11th 2011. The school is approximately 30 kilometers from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Many original residents have returned to their homes despite the high levels of radiation recorded in the area and the effect that exposure to it may have on their health.
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  • Japan, Iwaki, 2014. Young evacuees from Naraha in temporary housing units. Riku (3) and Sara (2) wait for their parents Takumi and Mayumi Kitazawa (not pictured) to arrive before going shopping.
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  • Japan, Iwaki, 2014. A temporary housing complex for evacuees of the tsunami in Iwaki. Tension has increased between evacuees—who receive government benefits —and the local population.
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  • Japan, Aizuwakamatsu, 2014. Ikuko Idogawa, 82 (right), sitting inside her temporary home, holds a picture of her old house located in Okuma before her and her husband, Tsuguo Idogawa, 85 (left) evacuated due to the meltdown and explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. They may never be able to live there again.
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  • In Namie, this year, a storm can be seen over the destroyed and empty landscape in the 20-kilometer exclusion zone near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
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  • Japan, Tokyo, 2014. Domae sits on his bed in a hospital in Tokyo where he has been fighting cancer since the nuclear meltdowns and explosions occurred. He used to be a member of the Yakuza and volunteered to help his friends at the Daiichi nuclear power plant. Currently, Domae’s main mission is to draw attention to children who are living in areas not far from the crippled plant.
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  • Japan, Minamisoma, 2011. A view of an area 40 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station a few weeks after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit Japan’s northeastern coastline in March 2011.
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  • Japan, Namie, 2011. A cherry blossom tree is reflected on a window of a destroyed house inside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Residents had to leave in a hurry as radiation reached dangerously high levels following the meltdown and explosion at the plant.
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  • Yaeko Watanabe, whose husband worked at the Fukushima plant after the accident and died of cancer in 2012, at her home in the almost abandoned and isolated Kawauchi village.
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  • Japan, Fukushima, 2014. Shigekiyo Kanno, a Fukushima farmer, hung himself in a barn on his farm, situated along the border of Fukushima and Miyagi, on June 10th 2011. His neighbor, a Miyagi farmer, was permitted to continue farming.
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  • Japan, Tomioka, 2014. A mannequin head lies on the dashboard of an abandoned car. Tomioka is 10 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The town is deemed unlivable due to high levels of radiation.
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  • Japan, Iwaki, 2014. A stuffed animal lies outside of a cheap housing block in Iwaki where nuclear and decontamination workers from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station live.
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  • Japan, Tokyo, 2011. Sachiko Masuyama holds her newborn baby in her home in Shinonome, Tokyo. She relocated to Tokyo after evacuating her previous home near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. She discovered she was pregnant two days before the earthquake and tsunami hit the northeastern coast of Japan.
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  • Japan, Minamisoma, 2012. A photograph damaged by the tsunami is preserved in a gallery for family members to find again near the city center in Minamisoma.
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By Hannah Beech

Two days after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan, photographer Dominic Nahr joined a TIME team roving the Tohoku countryside in a very compact car. Born in Switzerland and raised in Hong Kong, Dominic is not a short man. But somehow he squeezed his lanky frame between a jerrycan of gas, a portable stove, gallons of drinking water and a mountain of food I’d packed for our rations.

We came to cover the deadly wave that had overwhelmed fishing and farming communities in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, killing nearly 20,000 people. But the natural disaster quickly gained a surreal, manmade edge. The aging Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, perched on Japan’s coastline, had been inundated by the tsunami and lost the electricity needed to operate cooling systems. Three of its reactor cores began to overheat and then melt down, sending clouds of radiation spewing into the air.

Every day, as other news crews evacuated the area, we took stock of just how close we were willing to go to the crippled plant. Radiation is invisible, and we didn’t want to be foolhardy. Dominic eventually bought a dosimeter—its Cyrillic writing signifying another nuclear disaster at Chernobyl—to track his personal radiation. We ate dried seaweed in the hope that iodine might counteract any dangerous, unseen particles.

The months went by. Even as Fukushima Daiichi still leaked radiation and the haplessness of the plant’s operator, Toyko Electric Power Co., became ever more apparent, the world’s media moved on to the next natural disaster, the next epic scandal. Dominic, though, kept returning to Fukushima. This year alone, he has spent four months documenting the climate of fear and uncertainty that envelops the region more than three-and-a-half years after the tragedy of March 2011.

Around 125,000 people have been unable to return to their homes because of the lingering radiation, with some confined to aluminum-sided temporary housing – shacks, really. At ground zero, swathed in constricting haz-mat suits and gas masks, nuclear workers struggle to decommission the plant and contain radioactive emissions. Dominic and I braved this gear for only a few hours this summer and felt exhausted even after such a brief stint. “I feel a responsibility to document what these people are enduring, both mentally and physically,” says the photographer. “There is a lingering fear and anxiety that doesn’t let go of you. Sometimes people completely break down emotionally in front of me. It’s the unknown, brought about by the invisible dangers and the lack of transparency, that seems to wear down the spirits of the affected the most.”

One night, Dominic was staying with a family in Fukushima city when he was startled by the sound of emergency sirens. Rushing outside, he was confronted by the syrupy smell of gas. Firemen broke into a nearby home, only to find a man who had barricaded the door with chains before committing suicide. The deceased had been a part-time decontamination worker in the Fukushima area. “We were,” recalls Dominic, “the same age.”

Dominic Nahr is a TIME contract photographer. LightBox previously featured Nahr’s work on Somalia in Transition.

Hannah Beech is TIME’s China bureau chief and East Asia correspondent. Read her full story on the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster on TIME.com

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