Discontent over Fukushima nuclear disaster response casts shadow over Tokyo Olympics

Japan has plans to release more than a million tons of wastewater into the sea.

Some 150 miles from Tokyo's Olympic venues, calendars that line the walls of empty classrooms remain frozen on a date more than a decade in the past: March 11, 2011. Images from an abandoned elementary school in Futaba, Japan, are an eerie reminder of the uneven recovery efforts 10 years after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a catastrophic tsunami and caused the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. About 164,000 people were forced to evacuate in the aftermath of the meltdown at the now-infamous Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Many never returned home. As the Japanese government doggedly forges ahead with the delayed and beleaguered Olympic Games this year, some advocates say initial promises that the situation in Fukushima is "under control" are false. Some also say the "Recovery Olympics" branding exploits residents who feel forgotten, and cleanup of the Dai-ichi power plant will take decades longer than government estimates.