SHIOGAMI, Japan — It was a bitterly cold afternoon, and there were moments when the hospitality tent was almost ripped from the ground by fierce gusts of wind.

But the fishermen of the Urato Islands were not going to let the weather spoil what for them was a huge step in the recovery of their community — the handover of a fleet of boats donated by the U.S. charity, Operation Blessing International.

After a brief ceremony, they took the boats for a spin, in circles around the small windswept bay, children lining up to take a ride.

There were plenty of smiles, but none broader than that of 37-year-old Yoshimasa Koizumi, the architect of the recovery here.

"We'll soon be able to support ourselves again," he predicted.

Koizumi is not your archetypal fishermen. For starters he's a good deal younger, and he arrived on the Urato Islands only in 2011, shortly before the tsunami struck. His was a rare move, since most migration had been away from these areas, leaving a barely viable and elderly community, just 400 strong.

But he was attracted by the pristine environment of the islands and joined the oyster business, taking delivery of a boat just one day before the tsunami struck. That boat was swept away, together with most of the local fishing fleet.

The islands, which sit close to the city of Sendai, acted as a sort of shock absorber, which was good news for some of the mainland coastal districts but not for the islands, which were devastated. Incredibly, nobody on the islands died.

A simple request
When, soon after, Koizumi was asked what he most needed, he replied: "Wi-Fi and a laptop. I just need the Internet."

The tech-savvy oyster farmer then began a Web-based campaign, the Children of the Sea, using the Internet and Twitter to rebuild the local oyster industry. Under the scheme, supporters were offered 10,000 yen ($105) shares to help the rebuilding of the industry. He soon had 14,000 shareholders and also attracted the attention of Operation Blessing.

Shareholders are really donors. They don't make a profit, but they are kept abreast of the recovery -- and also receive oysters as a kind of dividend.

Koizumi says that other, mostly elderly, fishermen were a little puzzled at first, and not at all sure about all that Internet stuff. But they soon rallied round as the shares were snapped up.

The islands benefit from sitting astride nutritious areas for raising oysters regarded as among the best in Japan. In fact, the oysters harvested there are so good they serve as "seeders" for other areas, making them not only critical to the local economy but important to the greater Japanese oyster industry. And Koizumi is confident Urato Islands oysters will soon be profitable again, thanks in part to the help of the many donors.

Government help has been slower, and like 200,000 other tsunami survivors Koizumi is still living in a temporary home.

"I never expected I'd still be living like this after two years," he said.

Much of the coastline here is now a vast, wind-swept wasteland. Rebuilding has hardly started, bogged down in bureaucracy. According to a study late last year by the Board of Audit of Japan, half the $150 billion tsunami relief fund has yet to be allocated.

Millions of tons of debris have been cleared and sorted, but it will take years to dispose of it.

"Some places are picking up, but there's still a lot more that needs to be done" said Don Thomson, the director of Japan operations for Operation Blessing.

For his part, Koizumi said he believes that communities themselves need to take the lead, demonstrating the can-do attitude that has provided inspiration to his neighbors.

"Rather than just wait for government aid, we have to do it ourselves," he said.

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Kyodo / Reuters file

The tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant No.3 reactor building is seen from atop of No.4 building in Fukushima prefecture on Oct. 7.

Nearly two years after a massive earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan is failing to keep a pledge to tap global expertise to decommission its crippled reactors, executives at nuclear contractors from the United States and Europe say.

The result, they warn, is that a process expected to take more than 30 years and cost at least $15 billion could take longer and cost more as contracts are channeled through domestic heavyweights such as nuclear reactor makers Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd, and general contractors such as Taisei Corp.

A review of bidding records by Reuters shows companies from outside Japan have failed to win any of the 21 contracts awarded this year to develop technologies crucial for the unprecedented job of scrapping the four damaged reactors at Fukushima.

"There appears to be a desire to treat this as a science project and reinvent the wheel," Jeffrey Merrifield, senior vice president of U.S. nuclear engineering firm Shaw Group Inc's power division told Reuters.

Contracts awarded since January represent only the initial work at Fukushima. But a half-dozen executives at companies with nuclear industry experience raised questions about the Japanese government's and Tepco's oversight of the process.

Some executives worry that being shut out now risks their ability to tap a growth market, since Japan could scrap dozens of reactors over the coming decades. Most asked not be named for fear of jeopardizing their ability to win future work in Japan.

Takuya Hattori, president of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, a group representing the nuclear industry in Japan, said the government has not been responsive to complaints about the bidding process. "They are shutting that criticism out incredibly deftly," said Hattori, a 36-year veteran of Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc, the operator of the Fukushima plant.

Fukushima: Before, during and after

Slideshow: Then and now: The 2011 Japan tsunami

A 9.0 earthquake on March 11 triggered a 45-foot tsunami that smashed into the 40-year-old seaside Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, setting off a series of events that caused its reactors to start melting down.

Hydrogen explosions scattered debris across the complex and sent up a plume of radioactive steam that forced the evacuation of more than 80,000 residents near the plant about 150 miles northeast of Tokyo.

The repeated failures that dogged the government and Tepco in the months after the disaster undercut confidence in their response to the disaster and dismayed outside experts, given corporate Japan's reputation for relentless organization.

After that, Japan promised to accept more outside assistance.

Cold Shutdown
The Fukushima plant was declared to be in "cold shutdown" a year ago, a stable phase when water used to cool fuel rods remains below its boiling point. That marked the start of a decommissioning process that could take 40 years.

Under a roadmap drafted by Tepco, radioactive fuel rods will be removed from Reactor No. 4 starting next November. After that, melted fuel inside three other reactors damaged by meltdowns and hydrogen explosions would be extracted. The work is projected to take more than a decade.

A government oversight panel has estimated it will cost $15 billion to decommission the reactors, not counting the costs of disposing of radioactive waste.

But large uncertainties hang over the overall cost of the disaster. Tepco recently said compensation for evacuated residents and decontamination of areas outside the boundary of the Fukushima plant could double from previous estimates to almost $125 billion.

Louisiana-based Shaw Group worked on clean-up projects after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents and in decommissioning eight U.S. commercial reactors.

"There seems to be a real desire to rely on Japanese contractors to do this work," Merrifield said. "You can try and do it all yourself, which takes a lot more time without benefit of prior experience, making a lot of mistakes along the way."

But an executive with a Japanese nuclear firm said that given the long-term nature of the clean-up project, it makes sense to go with firms at home.

"Foreign firms simply sell their product without providing back-up services or maintenance. We can't sign a contract with a company that we can't get in touch with immediately and one that will rush to deal with any problems right away," the executive said.

Transparency: 'No. 1 priority'
The majority of contracts for Fukushima have been awarded directly by Tepco, which outsources decontamination and debris-clearing to general contractors. Decontamination contracts outside of the plant site are handled by Japan's environment ministry and local governments.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has so far allocated about $11 million to Toshiba Corp, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hitachi GE Nuclear to fund technology development for the year to March. That includes a project to develop sensing robots that can enter highly radiated areas to pinpoint the site of the meltdown.

"This is a project we are pursuing with taxpayer funds, so we believe it is our No. 1 priority to be transparent," said Kentaro Funaki, director of the ministry's nuclear accident restoration office.

Funaki said METI was pushing to double the bidding period to four weeks and pointed to a recent contract offered by Japanese radiation management firm Atox Co Ltd specifically to foreign contractors as a sign of increased openness.

METI and the heavy manufacturers held workshops in March and April to gather information on foreign technology that could be used at Fukushima.

British Amec PLC, Areva, Westinghouse and the Idaho National Laboratory pitched technologies that can be used to remotely inspect and repair damaged reactors.

Japan's three major nuclear companies say they post notices of bids on their websites.

Hitachi GE Nuclear posts bid notices on its website in both English and Japanese. The company said it was working as quickly as possible to restore and rebuild Fukushima and the short bidding periods were not designed to shut out foreign firms.

Toshiba said it posted contracts on its website, but deletes them after a vendor is selected. Contracts are awarded by an outside panel of experts with the highest score given to technology and cost. Toshiba declined to comment on the lack of foreign involvement in research contracts.

Mitsubishi Heavy recently posted a notice on its website that it would soon invite bids for equipment to investigate the pressure containment vessels at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

'Doors are open'
Japan's government and Tepco have emphasized the importance of international involvement in the Fukushima clean-up. In an interview with Reuters in October, Tepco president Naomi Hirose said the utility was seeking expertise from all over the world.

To be sure, U.S. and European companies have had some success.

California-based Kurion and French nuclear giant Areva designed the first water purification systems at Fukushima. That was followed by equipment supplied by Toshiba and Shaw that doubled Tepco's ability to process contaminated water. The latest water purification equipment made by Toshiba and Utah-based Energy Solutions was installed earlier this year.

"I would tell you that if the roles were reversed, Americans would want American firms leading the way," said John Raymont, president and CEO of Kurion. "For companies that have the special know-how that is transferable, the doors are open."

Shaw's Merrifield said his company was no longer working on any projects in Fukushima. Shaw sold its stake in nuclear plant company Westinghouse Electric Co to Toshiba for $1.6 billion in October.

Many of Japan's 50 nuclear plants are expected to be decommissioned in the coming years. The Japanese government has pledged to eliminate nuclear power from the energy mix by the 2030s and popular opinion is turning against the industry.

"At the end of the day, it's not about just Fukushima," said one executive at an overseas engineering company, who asked not to be named because of the company's business interests in Japan. "You get in now, establish a relationship and build trust and there is a lot of work that you can do."

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Oregon Parks And Recreation Dept / AP file

Mitch Vance, left, and Steve Rumrill, with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, inspect the bottom of a section of the Japanese dock that washed up on Agate Beach in Newport, Ore. in early August.

The Japanese man’s request wasn’t unreasonable. After all, Japan’s tsunami had already swept a Harley-Davidson and a 66-foot concrete dock to U.S. and Canadian shores.

Still, the mayor of a small Washington state city told The Daily World newspaper that he was surprised when he received a postcard from a 77-year-old man in Japan asking him to look out for items he lost in the tsunami a year and a half ago.

“This man felt compelled to write us, looking for what he lost,” Mayor Bill Simpson told The Daily World, based in Aberdeen, Wash. Aberdeen, a working-class coastal town known as the birthplace of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, welcomes visitors with a sign that reads, “Come As You Are.”

The postcard was addressed simply, in impeccable cursive, to the mayor’s office in Aberdeen. The letter writer, named Mr. Saito, hails from the Sapporo ward, which is 300 miles north of the epicenter of the 8.9 earthquake that devastated parts of Japan in March 2011.

Mr. Saito wrote the mayor that he had lost his “collected surveyed amounts’ library cards.”

“To your seashore areas, have you been observing the floated materials?” Mr. Saito asked. “If you find some, please let me know any news.”

Harley-Davidson motorcycle swept away by Japan tsunami to be preserved in museum

In Washington state, the Department of Ecology estimates that 5 million tons of debris was swept into the Pacific Ocean -– 70 percent of which immediately sank.

That still leaves 1.5 million tons, most of it mundane plastic, Styrofoam and junked refrigerators. The Daily World reported that garbage from one cleanup effort in June filled the beds of 70 pickup trucks.

The Guardian of London reported that a research vessel that journeyed into the debris this summer returned predicting that it was bound for the West Coast. The garbage plume was dispersed and measured between 1,000 and 2,000 miles wide.

Rachel La Corte / AP file

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, right, listens as Lynn Albin of the Department of Health describes the Geiger counter readings she's getting from a piece of Styrofoam found on the beach in Ocean Shores, Wash. in June. Officials say that there has been no radiation detected from items that have washed ashore.

There have been remarkable finds, such as a 20-foot fiberglass boat that washed ashore in Washington, the motorcycle still in its crate from the Miyagi prefecture, the ghost ship that appeared, unmanned and unmoored, off the coast of Alaska. A soccer ball belonging to a teenager whose family had lost everything arrived in Alaska. The ball, on which was written the 16-year-old’s name, had been a gift from his teacher and his classmates when he switched schools seven years ago.

Rachel La Corte / AP

Common marine debris from Japan's 2011 tsunami include plastic and Styrofoam.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency is collecting data on the debris; the agency website says that radiation experts do not believe the debris is radioactive.

There’s more debris to come, according to The New York Times; oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer said he expects most of the debris to make landfall in October.

What washes ashore may also serve as a grim reminder of the 3,000 people who went missing in the tsunami, Ebbesmeyer said at a symposium in Port Angeles, Wash., according to the Peninsula Daily News.

“We’re expecting 100 sneakers with bones in them,” he said. “That may be the only remains that a Japanese family is ever going to have of their people that were lost.”

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Updated at 11:45 a.m. ET: An earthquake of 7.6 magnitude struck off the Philippines on Friday, destroying roads and bridges and sending people fleeing to higher ground in fear of a tsunami, authorities said.

The quake was centered 91 miles off the town of Guiuan in Samar province at a depth of about 20 miles, The U.S. Geological Survey said.

It was initially recorded as having a magnitude of 7.9, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

Warnings that were in effect for several Pacific islands and Taiwan and Japan were canceled. Watches for several other coastal areas in the region including Hawaii were also later lifted.

The tsunami warnings remained for parts of the Philippines and Indonesia, the center said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties. 

People urged to evacuate to high ground
"Strong earthquake here in Taft, Eastern Samar! And it lasted very long too!" Samar congressman, Ben Evardone, told reporters via text message. 

"We are in a wait and see situation, some bridges and roads were damaged and people panicked and are now on higher ground," he told local radio later.

"If you are anywhere near the coast I recommend that you head to higher ground," Paul Caruso of the USGS told Sky TV by telephone when asked about a threat of a tsunami hitting the coast of the Philippines. 

Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine seismology agency, said residents should get to a 10-meter (30-foot) elevation until the tsunami alert was lifted.

Small waves of about 16 centimeters (6 inches) had hit a southern Philippine island, the  agency said, and warned that bigger ones could follow.

A radio reporter in Leyte province, near Samar, said people had run out of their homes when the quake struck. "It felt like we were being rocked," he said. 

The region has been hit by devastating quakes in the past decade. At least 230,000 people in 13 Indian Ocean countries were killed in a quake and tsunami off Indonesia in 2004.

Last year, an earthquake and tsunami off Japan's northeastern coast killed about 20,000 people and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years after waves battered a nuclear power station. 

This is a breaking news story. Check back for more updates.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Updated at 2:56 a.m. ET: A strong magnitude-7.4 earthquake struck off the coast of El Salvador late Sunday, temporarily sparking a tsunami warning.

The earthquake was followed an hour later by a second, magnitude-5.4 temblor, authorities said.

However, the tsunami warning covering Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico was later canceled. 

There were no immediate reports of damages or injuries.

David Walsh, an oceanographer with the Pacific Tsunami Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, said a minor, 7.8-inch swell was registered off Acajutla, El Salvador.

The earthquake struck 74 miles south of Usulutan, El Salvador, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on its website.

The temblor took place at a depth of 32.9 miles at 10:37 p.m. Sunday.

On Sunday, dozens of small to moderate earthquakes struck southeastern California, knocking trailer homes off their foundations and shattering windows in a small farming town east of San Diego. The largest quake registered at a magnitude 5.5 and was centered about three miles (five kilometers) northwest of the town of Brawley, according to the USGS. Another quake about an hour and a half earlier registered at magnitude 5.3. No injuries were reported.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Joji Otaki / EPA

This handout photo, released Tuesday, shows a healthy adult pale grass blue butterfly (top) and a mutated variety (bottom). Severe mutations were found in butterflies collected near Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

TOKYO -- Researchers in Japan have found signs of mutation in butterflies, signaling one of the first indications of change to the local ecosystem as a result of last year's nuclear accident in Fukushima, according to one of the first studies on the genetic effects of the incident.

Joji Otaki from the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, who led the research, collected 144 commonly-found pale grass blue butterflies two months after the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

Initial results indicated that roughly 12 percent of the butterflies showed signs of abnormalities, such as disfigurement in their antennas, smaller-sized wings, change in color patterns and indented eyes, Otaki said.

Even more alarming, when he collected another 238 samples six months later he found that those abnormalities had increased to 28 percent and the mutations had doubled to 52 percent in their offspring.

To see the effects of internal exposure to radiation, unaffected clean butterflies were also fed cesium-coated leaves collected from Fukushima. The result was a reduction in the size of those butterflies, as well as a lower survival rate.

In Japan, a nuclear ghost town stirs to life

The Fukushima disaster occurred after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake knocked out a power line at the plant and generated a tsunami that flooded the facility's emergency generators, destroying the plant's cooling system. Catastrophic meltdowns occurred in three reactors, releasing radiation that has tainted the surrounding environment.

Five nuclear plants in total suffered some level of damage from the earthquake and tsunami; all but Fukushima Dai-ichi were shut down safely.

Story: What are the odds? US nuke plants ranked by quake risk

'Something has gone wrong'
Otaki, who has been studying these butterflies for 10 years to analyze the effects of global warming, said that butterflies are the best environmental indicators because they are widely found in almost any environment.

"But since we've seen these effects on butterflies, it’s easy to imagine that it would also have affected other species as well. It’s pretty clear that something has gone wrong with the ecosystem,” he said.

Slideshow: Then-and-now: Tsunami cleanup

AP

View side-by-side the progress that Japan has made since the tsunami and earthquake in March 2011.

Launch slideshow

However, at the same time, he also warns that because each species’ sensitivity to radiation varies, it was too early to immediately apply these finding to humans.

NYT: For new nuclear chief, concerns over plant safety

But what is clear, said Otaki, is that the genetic changes found in these butterflies indicate a disruption in Fukushima's ecosystem and that more study is needed to learn the full scope of the effects of the radiation released into the environment.

At Hiroshima memorial, Japan leaders vow to listen to citizens in revamp of nuke policy

"Effects of low level radiation is genetically transferred through generation, which suggests genetic damage. I think it’s clear that we see the effects passed on through generations," Otaki added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Kyodo News via AP

The rubble is removed Thursday from the damaged No. 4 reactor building at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan.

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant meltdowns were a “manmade disaster,” a parliamentary panel of experts concluded Thursday, when it issued a final report 15 months after the nation’s nuclear accident.

The scathing dossier based on over 900 hours of interviews with 1,167 participants blamed the operators of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co., and also the government's nuclear regulatory agencies for their opaque relationship and their tendency to collude with one another for self-protection.

Asahi Shimbun via Reuters

Medical staff use a Geiger counter to screen a woman for possible radiation exposure at a public welfare centre in Hitachi City, Ibaraki, March 16, 2011, after she evacuated from an area within 12.4 miles of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The woman was tested negative for radiation exposure.

In particular, the panel said that even though both Tokyo Electric and the regulatory agencies recognized as early as 2006 the potential dangers of a giant tsunami causing a complete loss of power at the Fukushima plant, no safety measures were adopted out of fear that a renovation might disrupt the reactors' operation.

Japan returns to nuclear power after shutdown

Also, the experts accused the government of then Prime Minister Naoto Kan of failing to inform local residents in a timely manner of the severity of the nuclear accident, causing panic and confusion during the evacuation 150,000 people from their homes after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and ensuing tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant. Three nuclear reactors went into meltdown and spewed radiation.

While the panel recommended a complete restructuring of the nation's disaster management policies, it also recommended a new regulatory agency that is transparent and independent of both the government and the nuclear industry.

The details for this new agency are being debated in the parliament and are expected to be inaugurated later this year.

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TOKYO -- Japan on Saturday approved the resumption of nuclear power operations at two reactors despite mass public opposition, the first to come back on line after they were all shut down following the Fukushima crisis. 

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, his popularity ratings sagging, had backed the restarts for some time. He announced the government's decision at a meeting with key ministers, giving the go-ahead to two reactors operated by Kansai Electric Power Co at Ohi in western Japan. 

The decision, despite public concerns over safety after the big earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant, could open the door to more restarts among Japan's 50 nuclear power reactors. 

But the decision risks a backlash from a public deeply concerned about nuclear safety. As many as 10,000 demonstrators gathered outside Noda's office on Friday night amid a heavy police presence to denounce the restarts, urging the premier to step down and shouting "Lives matter more than the economy." 

"Prime Minister Noda's rushed, dangerous approval of the Ohi nuclear power plant restart ignores expert safety advice and public outcry and needlessly risks the health of Japan's environment, its people and its economy," environmental group Greenpeace said in a statement. 

The decision is a victory for Japan's still-powerful nuclear industry and reflects Noda's concerns about damage to the economy if atomic energy is abandoned following the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. 

The restart is being closely watched as an indicator of how aggressively the government will act to approve operations at other reactors. It has been pushing hard to bring some reactors online as soon as possible to avert power shortages as demand increases during the summer months. It says the reactors in the town of Ohi are particularly important because they are in an area that relied heavily on nuclear before the crisis, and have passed safety checks.

"Safety is our main concern," said trade and industry minister Yukio Edano. "We have approved the beginning of the restarting process. It will take some time for the reactors to begin generating electricity." 

But officials acknowledged that a completely fail-safe disaster prevention plan was impossible. 

Will Japan build a backup Tokyo?

"There is no such thing as a perfect score when it comes to disaster prevention steps," Trade Minister Yukio Edano told a news conference after the announcement. 

"But, based on what we learned from the Fukushima accident, those measures that need to be taken urgently have been addressed, and the level of safety has been considerably enhanced (at the Ohi plant)," he said. 

Edano, who holds the energy portfolio, said the government policy to reduce Japan's dependence on nuclear energy in the medium- to long-term was unchanged despite the decision. 

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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