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Japan marks 2 years since tsunami with silence
Japan on Monday marked the second anniversary of a ferocious tsunami that claimed nearly 19,000 lives and sparked the worst nuclear accident in a generation.
Japan on Monday marked the second anniversary of a ferocious tsunami that claimed nearly 19,000 lives and sparked the worst nuclear accident in a generation.
The government will host a national ceremony in Tokyo, attended by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, to mourn 15,881 people who died and 2,668 others who remain unaccounted for.
They and the rest of the nation will observe a moment of silence at 2:46 pm (05:46 GMT), the moment a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck on March 11, 2011, in waters off the northeastern Pacific coast.
The jolt unleashed a killer tsunami that swallowed coastal communities and battered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which went through meltdowns and explosions in what was to become the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
Efforts to rebuild the disaster-hit region have been slow. Figures show 315,196 people are still without a permanent home, many in cramped temporary housing units.
"Unless spring comes to the Tohoku region, a real spring won't come to Japan. We are determined to accelerate reconstruction work," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in video posted on YouTube Monday, referring to Japan's northern region devastated by the disaster. Read how Japan was lost in a ferocious tsunami
