Fukushima

Scorching heat across the Northern Hemisphere threatened to break records and whip up wildfires on Monday as the dire consequences of global warming take shape.

Parts of Europe, Asia and North America were preparing for historic heat with health warnings and evacuations.

Japan fell silent on March 11 to mark 10 years since the worst natural disaster in the country's living memory: a powerful earthquake, deadly tsunami and nuclear meltdown that traumatized a nation.

A minute's silence was observed across the country at 2.46 pm local time (0546 GMT), the precise moment a 9.0 magnitude quake hit off the northeast coast on March 11, 2011.

The Tokyo Olympic flame has been taken off public display in Japan. And it's not clear when it will reappear again or where - or under what conditions.

The Olympic flame will be on display until the end of April in Japan's northeastern prefecture of Fukushima.

Tokyo Olympic and prefecture officials held an official "handover ceremony" on Wednesday at the J-Village National Training Center in Fukushima.

A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan early on Nov. 22, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a small tsunami that hit the same Fukushima region devastated by a 2011 quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Reuters reported. 

When Atsushi Hoshino set out to revive a group representing atomic bomb survivors in the rural northeast Japanese prefecture of Fukushima 30 years ago, one topic was taboo - criticising the nuclear power industry upon which many relied for jobs.