FEATURE: Fukushima communities work to preserve disaster sites despite hurdles

Efforts to preserve buildings damaged by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and open them to the public are gaining traction, as residents seek to pass on the memory of the unprecedented damage caused by the accident.But restrictions on entry and other obstacles mean making the sites freely accessible to visitors remains a challenge.A magnitude-9.0 earthquake and the massive tsunami that followed struck northeastern Japan shortly before 3 p.m. on March 11, 2011.At the now-closed Kumamachi Elementary School in the town of Okuma, some of the roughly 330 students enrolled there were still at …READ FULL ARTICLE