Fukushima's surfers riding on radioactive waves

Fukushima, Japan - On 11 March 2011, at 2:46 pm, Japan was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake which generated a tsunami along the coast. The casualties of the disaster included 18,500 dead, 90 percent of whom drowned in the tsunami wave. The bodies of 2,561 people were never recovered.

The tsunami hit the Daaichi nuclear power plant as well, a level-7 catastrophe that was the equivalent of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown disaster.

Over the course of five years, nearly 50,000 people have worked to decontaminate the plant and stop leaks according to government press releases. They remove between 5 and 30 cm of contaminated soil every day and place them in plastic bags, which are stored on the outskirts of town, pending a better solution.

In Tairatoyoma beach, a prefecture of Fukushima and some 50km from the nuclear plant, was among the most popular areas for Japanese surfers prior to the nuclear accident.

Surprisingly, despite the presence of radiation in the sand and water, some dedicated surfers continue to come here to catch some waves. They are aware of the risks, and the hundreds of bags of contaminated sand piled up on the beach serve as a constant reminder of the health risks to them. 

"I put on sunscreen against the sun, but I haven't found anything against radiation," said one surfer. "We will only know the true consequences of our time in the water 20 years from now."

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China Red Alert warns of air pollution danger

Zou Yi's Beijing skyline photos show the variation in pollution levels on a daily basis.There were only 4 pollution free days in November. [Zou Yi]

Beijing residents carry on with life as government signals serious anti-pollution efforts in issuing Red Alert for smog.

Beijing, China 

It is Tuesday morning, 8am in the financial centre. Streets ordinarily choked with traffic are strangely quiet. The usual crowds of office workers congregating outside building entrances are missing, and the sidewalks are mostly empty - empty save for a few pedestrians briskly walking through the street, most with faces half-covered in masks.

It is Day One of the capital's first issued "Red Alert", but unlike the phrase suggests, this isn't a city under siege. This is a city under smog - dangerous levels of it.

The highest-level air pollution warning was given the evening before, triggered by three forecasted days of severe haze.

Residents received text messages from Beijing's municipal government warning them that all schools would be closed, construction halted and car restrictions put in place."Stay indoors," was the instruction, and most happily obliged.

With an air quality index (AQI) of over 250, more than twenty times the level recommended by the World Health Organization, the city was shrouded in thick sepia-toned air.

From street level the tops of skyscrapers seemed to disappear, blurring into the dull grey sky. In some areas visibility reportedly dropped to only 200 metres. But while this was the capital's first declared Red Alert, it wasn't the worst smog it had seen. Just days before the AQI levels soared to more than 1,000, and the city had seemed to disappear entirely.

Air pollution

Beijing air pollution Red Alert 

For Margaret Zhu, a mother of two, Beijing's severe smog is nothing new. "It's like gambling, a lucky draw. Every day you wake up and look up at the sky and see how it goes. We're powerless," she says.

The public relations professional had been getting ready to put the kids to bed on Monday evening when she received the first Red Alert text message.

"It was so sudden and we didn't have time to plan anything," she says.

Like thousands of other parents in the city, she was told that the schools of her 10-year-old son Yoyo and daughter Ann, aged three, would not be open the next day, and alternative last-minute arrangements would need to be made. On the first of the three days, Zhu took time off work and scrambled to organise a day-trip out of the city for the second."With the smog, it's difficult to keep kids at home and not allow them to play outside," says Zhu."So we invited some of my son's friends to come with us to a forested area in the countryside where the air is much better. Other families I know packed up and drove even further to the mountains for the entire week to escape the pollution."

China shifting away from heavy polluting industries

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Katrina Yu | 05 Jan 2016 14:24 GMT

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Bird of Dawn

A composer struggles to host a concert featuring female singers as public performances by women are banned in Iran. In 2011, Sara Najafi, a young composer from Tehran, decides to try and make her dream become a reality: hosting a public concert featuring the best contemporary Iranian and French female singers. But public performances by solo female vocalists in front of men have been banned in Iran since 1979. To stage such a concert, Sara has to coordinate the busy schedules of the performers as well as secure the agreement both of the Iranian culture ministry and the religious authorities. Over three years, the camera traces her progress, the highs and lows as agreements are issued then revoked, permits offered then declined, forcing Sara to start the process all over again. But she is tenacious and firmly believes that eventually the concert will take place. Bird of Dawn is a fascinating and dramatic film, giving deep insight into modern Iranian voices and views and exploring with tact and sensitivity Iran's musical heritage and the issues of censorship and prohibition. more in Al Jazeera