• A moment for Japan

  
  

  Earthquake - Tsunami Disaster & Nuclear Crisis on 11 March 2011. A year  has passed,  heavy spiritual pain still remains, serious damage is still seen everywhere and hefty task  of rebuilding in Japan looms large.
  
  Tsuname: One year later, Before and after pictures
  
  The whole world is still directed towards beloved Japanese. We admire your moral strength and wish for you a prosperous future! Please take a view of recovery activities in Japan after the disaster in Mar 2011(from Vietnam airlines)

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  OFUNATO, Japan (Reuters) - With a moment of silence, prayers and anti-nuclear rallies, Japan marked on Sunday one year since an earthquake and tsunami killed thousands and set off a radiation crisis that shattered public trust in atomic power and the nation's leaders.

  The magnitude 9.0 earthquake unleashed a wall of water that hit Japan's northeast coast, killing nearly 16,000 and leaving nearly 3,300 unaccounted for, and the country is still grappling with the human, economic and political costs.

  In the port of Ofunato, hundreds of black-clad residents gathered at the town hall to lay white chrysanthemums in memory of the town's 420 dead and missing.

  "We can't just stay sad. Our mission is to face reality and move forward step by step," said Kosei Chiba, 46, who lost his mother and wife in the disaster.

  "But the damage the town suffered was too big and our psychological scars are too deep. We need a long time to rebuild."

  The country observed a minute of silence at 2:46 p.m. (1.46 a.m. EDT), the time the quake struck.

  Residents of Ofunato gathered before a makeshift altar with a calm, sun-flecked sea behind them. Ofunato paused again 33 minutes later -- the time when a year ago a 23-metre (75-foot) tsunami engulfed the town of 41,000.

  Just a kilometer (half a mile) from Tokyo Electric Power Company's (Tepco) wrecked Fukushima plant, where reactor meltdowns triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, residents of the abandoned town of Okuma were allowed back for a few hours to honor the dead.

  "It was a wonderful place. If it wasn't for all that has happened, I'd be able to come back. But thanks to Tepco, I wasn't even able to search for the bodies of my relatives," said Tomoe Kimura, 93, who lost four members of her family in the tsunami, two of whom were never found.

  Authorities have imposed a 20-km (12 mile) no-go zone around the plant and residents may never be allowed back.

  Along the northeast coast, police and coastguard officers, urged on by families of the missing, continue their dogged search for remains despite diminishing chances of finding any.

  The Japanese people earned the world's admiration for their composure, discipline and resilience in the face of the disaster while its companies impressed with the speed with which they bounced back.

  

  A mother and her daughter offer prayers for victims of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster at a seaside which was damaged by the disaster in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, March 11, 2012, to mark the first anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon