THROUGH SILENCE AND prayers, people across Japan on Sunday remembered the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck the nation one year ago, killing just over 19,000 people and unleashing the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a quarter century.
A moment of silence was observed at 2.46 pm – the exact time the magnitude-9.0 quake struck on March 11, 2011.
In the devastated northeastern coastal town of Rikuzentakata, a siren sounded and a Buddhist priest in a purple robe rang a huge bell at a damaged temple overlooking a barren area where houses once stood.
At the same time in Tokyo’s National Theatre, Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda stood in silence with hundreds of other people dressed in black at a memorial service.
The quake was the strongest recorded in Japan’s history, and set off a tsunami that towered more than 20m in some spots along the northeastern coast, destroying tens of thousands of homes and wreaking widespread destruction.
Naomi Fujino, a 42-year-old Rikuzentakata resident who lost her father in the tsunami, was in tears recalling last March 11.
With her mother, she escaped to a nearby hill where they watched the enormous wave wash away their home. They waited all night, but her father never came to meet them as he had promised. Two months later, his body was found.
“I wanted to save people, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even help my father. I cannot keep on crying,” Fujino said. “What can I do but keep on going?”
The tsunami also knocked out the vital cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, causing meltdowns at three reactors and spewing radiation into the air. Some 100,000 residents who were forced to flee remain in temporary housing or with relatives, and a 20km area around the plant is still off limits.
All told, some 325,000 people rendered homeless or evacuated are still in temporary housing. While much of the debris along the tsunami-ravaged coast has been gathered into massive piles, very little rebuilding has begun.
A year after the disaster, police and other experts continue to search for the bodies of 3,155 people listed as missing, adding to the sense of loss for mourning relatives.
Anti-nuclear protesters at a downtown Tokyo park also held a moment of silence Sunday before marching toward the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Public opposition to atomic power has grown in the wake of the nuclear disaster, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.
Prime Minister Noda has acknowledged failures in the government’s response to the disaster, being too slow in relaying key information and believing too much in “a myth of safety” about nuclear power.
In Rikuzentakata, 37-year-old Mika Hashikai, who lost both her parents in the tsunami, went around Sunday leaving flowers at the former homes of her friends and neighbors. Her brother also lost his wife and daughter in the tsunami.
“I only wish for my brother’s happiness now that he’s lost everything and is alone,” she said. “Maybe one day he can remarry and have children again.”
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