The earthquake and subsequent tsunami which hit northern Japan on March 11 might have killed as many as 20,000 and left an estimated half a million people without a permanent place to live.
Over a week has passed; yet in the areas hit by the natural disaster many still need to deal with lack of water, food and electricity, while keeping a nervous eye on the news from Fukushima, where the leak of radioactive gases from the damaged nuclear plant has already polluted the nearby environment.
