For 43 years, Nobukiki and Sakiko Araki lived in a farmhouse about three miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. They raised two children there and tended to their rice paddies and vegetable and flower gardens, just down the road from one of the prettiest beaches in Japan, Nobukiki said.

But on March 11, a 20-foot tsunami swallowed their house and washed away their neighborhood. The nuclear disaster that followed chased the Arakis, both nurses, off the land their families have tilled for generations.

"I feel I may never set my foot back on the soil," said Nobukiki, 61, wearing a tired expression and a donated jacket. He and his wife are living in a shelter with 1,200 former neighbors, all of whom lost their homes and community in a single afternoon.