By TATSUYA SHIMADA/ Staff Writer
March 11, 2024 at 18:25 JST
Scenes of devastation from the Tohoku region stunned the world after the tsunami generated by the Great East Japan Earthquake slammed into the northeastern coast on March 11, 2011.
But now, 13 years after Japan’s worst postwar natural disaster, signs of destruction continue to disappear.
“Before and after” aerial photos taken by The Asahi Shimbun show how far reconstruction and preparations for future disasters have progressed in areas that once appeared irrecoverable.
In Yamada, Iwate Prefecture, around 40 percent of the houses were destroyed by the tsunami and fires, and more than 800 people in the town were killed or listed as missing.
After the disaster, a 9.7-meter-high tide embarkment was completed in Yamada and damaged areas were raised.
The Arahama district of Sendai’s Wakabayashi Ward was hit by a tsunami about 10 meters high. The former Arahama Elementary School, where 87 students, teachers and 233 residents took refuge on the roof, has been preserved as a relic of the disaster.
An eastern reconstruction road, which also serves as a levee, has been built next to the school site.
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Left: Large vessels are washed up on shore and the center of a bridge in the upper part of the photo is knocked down in the Omagari district of Higashi-Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 12, 2011; right: Fishing boats are lined up at the Omagari fishing port on Feb. 24. (Shimada Tatsuya)
