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Gallery|Fukushima

Tsunami scars linger a decade later in Japan

A decade after triple disasters, Japan faces immense challenges in returning to what was previously considered normal.

In this combination photo, from top left to bottom right, vehicles pass through the ruins of the leveled city of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, on March 15, 2011, top, four days after the tsunami, and vehicles pass through the same area under construction on February 23, 2012, on March 7, 2016 and Saturday, March 6, 2021. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder and Eugene Hoshiko)
Published On 10 Mar 202110 Mar 2021
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Dazed survivors walk beneath huge sea tankers deposited amid an expanse of rubble and twisted metal that was once a busy downtown, the ships toppled onto their sides like children’s toys. Grieving survivors pick through the flattened debris where their homes used to be. Deserted farms stand in the shadow of the Fukushima nuclear plant, where a catastrophic meltdown still reverberates.

These arresting images were captured by The Associated Press in 2011 after a massive wall of water levelled part of Japan’s northeastern coast, washing away cars, homes, office buildings and thousands of people.

Ten years later, AP journalists returned to document the communities that were ripped apart by what is referred to here as simply the Great East Japan Earthquake. The urge to rebuild in a land that has been wracked by millennia of disaster – volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, war and famine – is powerful, and there are areas where there is little or no trace of the devastation of 2011.

But this triple disaster in the Tōhoku region of Japan – earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown – has been unlike any Japan has faced before, and the challenges of returning to what was normal a decade ago have been immense.

Half a million people were forced from their homes; tens of thousands have not returned yet, emptying towns that were already struggling to keep their young people from leaving for Tokyo and the other megacities. Radiation fears linger. Government incompetence, petty squabbling and bureaucratic wrangling have delayed building efforts.

Despite the setbacks and uneven progress, the Tōhoku of 2021 is a testament to a collective force of will – national, local and personal. A closer look shows that even the most breathtaking transformations carry the residue of what happened in 2011, the scars of that deep wound to the region’s psyche.

These AP images, then and now, raise a fundamental question: How do you mark change after great trauma?

In one way, it is the simplest thing in the world to describe. The removal of tonnes of rubble here, the absence of toppled tankers there. The repaved roads where there had been cracked and buckled piles of asphalt before. The gleaming new buildings that now rise above what had been cleared dirt patches.

But the starkness of this physical change also carries the idea of something that is much less clear cut, something about the people who live in these places. Their resilience, their stoicism, their grief and anger and stubborn refusal to bow to forces outside their control, whether natural or bureaucratic.

All of that, and more, is present in these powerful scenes of before and after, then and now.

The pictures tell the story – of great change and the people who made it happen.

Vehicles pass through the ruins of the levelled city of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, four days after the tsunami devastated the area in this March 15, 2011, file photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
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Construction works in the levelled city of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, almost five years after the tsunami in this March 7, 2016, file photo. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
Vehicles pass through the streets in the city of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, on March 6, 2021, nearly 10 years to the day after the 2011 tsunami. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
A survivor of the earthquake and tsunami rides his bicycle through the levelled city of Minamisanriku, in northeastern Japan, four days after the tsunami in this March 15, 2011, file photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
A car passes through the levelled city of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, almost one year after the tsunami in this February 23, 2012, file photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
Trucks and cars pass through the levelled city of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, nearly five years after the tsunami in this March 5, 2016, file photo. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
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A woman walks through the city of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, Saturday, March 6, 2021, nearly ten years after the Tsunami. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
Two officials walk along a street in the tsunami and earthquake destroyed town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan in this February 22, 2012, photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
Residents of the tsunami and earthquake-destroyed town of Onagawa in Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, walk down an empty street in this March 19, 2011, photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
Trucks line up in a queue to dump soils in the tsunami and earthquake-destroyed town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, in this March 5, 2016, photo. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
Ten years after the disaster, on March 4, 2021, some new buildings are seen in the tsunami and earthquake-destroyed town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
A ship sits in a destroyed residential neighbourhood in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, after a powerful tsunami hit the area in this March 28, 2011, photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
A ship sits in a destroyed residential neighbourhood in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, almost a year after an earthquake and tsunami ravaged the country's coastline in this February 23, 2012, photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
Reconstruction can be seen in the 2011 tsunami-destroyed residential neighbourhood in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, in this March 6, 2016, file photo. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
A tsunami-destroyed residential neighbourhood in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan on March 5, 2021. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
Residents pass through a road that was cleared by bulldozer through the ruins of the city of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, six days after the March 11 tsunami in this March 17, 2011, photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
Japanese residents are seen on a road in the destroyed part of the city of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, almost one year after the 2011 tsunami in this February 23, 2012, photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
A worker checks the construction site in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan in this March 7, 2016 photo. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]
Vehicles pass through the ruins of the levelled city of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan, almost one year after the March 11, 2011 tsunami in this February 23, 2012, photo. [David Guttenfelder/AP Photo]
Nearly 10 years after the 2011 tsunami disaster, recovered streets are seen in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan on Friday, March 5, 2021. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]


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