The renowned British newspaper ‘The Independent’ recently reported that the robots sent into Fukushima for cleanup are “dying” at a rate five times higher than expected. Although designed to survive in highly contaminated areas, large amounts of radioactive material are eating away at the robots wiring – rendering them useless. Read the full article here.

Six years ago, on March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by one of the most severe earthquakes in recorded history. In the subsequent tsunami the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant suffered serious damage that led to several meltdowns in the nuclear reactor releasing large amounts of radioactive materials. It was the largest nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The news of the robots’ malfunction reminded me of the several times I went into the ill-fated Chernobyl reactor – deeper than any Western still photographer. I had described the harrowing experience in a Proof post on National Geographic a couple of years ago, read it here.

My 20 years covering the aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe resulted in the book and iPad App ‘The Long Shadow of Chernobyl’. The app is available from the iTunes store here.

To order a signed copy of my award-winning book The Long Shadow of Chernobyl, go to the store on my website here.

You can also follow me on IG @gerdludwig, where I quite frequently publish images from my forays into Chernobyl.