A photo essay on post-tsunami Japan submitted for the Deeper Perspective category (please see text below).
Japan was rocked by the strongest earthquake in its recorded history on March 11, 2011. Yet it was the ensuing tsunami that brought the most devastation.
With train and most bus service to Tohoku (the northern area of Japan’s main island of Honshu) stopped, I enlisted the support of my Tokyo-based colleague Yoshi Ohkuma to get into the coastal areas most affected by the tsunami.
We covered more than 1200 miles by car, driving from Tokyo through Fukushima to Sendai (where waves up to 23 feet engulfed the coastline and traveled at points five miles inland), then to Miyako, Taro, Jodogahama, Kamaishi, Kesennuma, Ofunato, Otsuchi (where half of the town’s 15,000 residents are either dead or missing), and Rikuzen Takada (documenting a recovery team using dogs). Driving from one coastal town to another, it became obvious that the difference between life and death was often a matter of a few feet. For the most part, those who did not get beyond the reach of the tsunami waves disappeared.
In spite of the devastation, when I contacted my friends in Japan to say that I wanted to document post earthquake/tsunami Tohoku, without exception they mentioned that I would be there in time to witness the cherry blossoms make their annual south to north pilgrimage.
Perhaps there is something in the innate understanding of the cycles of nature that give the people of Japan the strength to dig themselves out of disasters of epic proportions with a quiet dignity.