In the Hot Zone [Back Story]

Reporting in a nuclear fallout zone is not easy, as Associate Editor Eliza Strickland discovered during a trip to Japan\´s Fukushima Prefecture. Strickland [at left] visited the region??s evacuated ghost towns while on assignment for "Fukushima\´s Next 40 Years," in this issue. The article describes the monumental task of decommissioning the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which experienced meltdowns in three of its six reactors after a tsunami in March 2011.