Tsunami which hit japan

Dunbar, and N. Arcos Honolulu: International Tsunami Information Center. Satake, K. On an idyllic Monday night in , the palm-lined coasts of the American Samoa, Samoa, and Tonga Islands looked peaceful and.

On July 17, , a 7. But the terror. Tsunamis—huge ocean waves generated by sudden movements in the seafloor, landslides, or volcanic activity—have killed hundreds. How It Happened The event resulted from thrust faulting on the subduction zone plate boundary between the Pacific and North America plates, according to the U.

High Costs In Japan, the event resulted in the total destruction of more than , houses and damage to almost a million more. From Peril to Preparedness To learn from the tragedy in Japan, researchers collected extensive data on tsunami wave forces and building performance.

References Kong, L. Published March 11, Tsunami Sources Poster. Article Tags Tsunamis. But a memorial concert at the nearby Hibiya park, which has drawn many people in past years, was held online this year due to the pandemic and attracted only a small audience. Some anti-nuclear groups also held a protest in Tokyo.

Beyond Tokyo, many marked the day by raising awareness for disaster prevention. In Kyoto, authorities conducted emergency drills. But no-go zones remain in parts of Fukushima, where shops and houses were abandoned and cordoned off and massive amounts of radioactive waste from decontamination pile up. Swaths of empty land remain in coastal towns farther north in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, which were already seeing people move away before the disaster and have seen that trend accelerate.

In Otsuchi town in Iwate prefecture, where the tsunami destroyed the town hall, killing about 40 employees, families in dark suits gathered on a piece of empty land where the building used to stand.

In Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, dozens of residents prayed at a cenotaph carrying the names of more than 3, victims. In Rikuzentakata, another Iwate city where a tsunami as high as 17 meters 56 feet killed more than 1, residents, dozens of police officials wearing orange life vests combed the coastline in search of remains of those who have not been found — an effort that is still repeated in many towns every month.

The remains of a woman found in February were returned to her family on Tuesday. No deaths have been confirmed directly from the radiation, but Fukushima has fallen behind in the recovery efforts, with pieces of land totaling 33, hectares 81, acres in seven towns near the nuclear plant still classified as no-go zones. Sato and other parents kept asking the school for an explanation of what exactly happened on the day of the tsunami.

Five months after the disaster, Sato and three other families filed a lawsuit against the operator of the kindergarten. Sato and other plaintiffs reached a settlement with the school in Though the school has sent flowers, Sato said she has never received a formal apology.

A lawyer who represented the school, which is now closed, said it continued to send flowers to the families involved in the case every year. He declined to comment further on the matter, referring questions on the details of the settlement to the plaintiffs. Sighing, Sato walked to a memorial built along a busy coastal road, close to where she had found her daughter. After reminiscing about the disaster, the man told her it was shameful that people went to court for money after the disaster.

Civil lawsuits like the one filed by Sato are much less common in Japan compared to in the United States. She wondered aloud how the man would react if he had lost his own child or grandchild in such a devastating disaster. Hurry and come back to me as you were then … This disaster messed up our life completely.

I hate, hate it. From Sachiko. At these meetings, police officers take down identifying details about the missing and sometimes collect DNA samples from family members. The lack of remains and the difficulty of the search have prolonged the sense of limbo for some families.

Three months after the tsunami, Sachiko Kumagai began writing letters to Migaku, her husband, a beloved local fisheries worker who went missing after he left his hillside home on the day of the disaster. He was 71, and she was Her letters, hundreds of them, usually written with a magic marker, start with the weather and a description of the breakfast she had set out for him, and are interspersed with her gnawing questions about where he might be.

Hitoshi Tsurizaki, 71, first met Kumagai when he was volunteering after the disaster in Rikuzentakata. Kumagai died a year later. In one of her final letters, she seemed resigned to her loss.

Not many days left in the year. After the Wave. Follow Reuters Investigates. Other Reuters investigations.