March 2016 marks the five-year anniversary of Japan's Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster — a series of nuclear power plant explosions that were the biggest since Chernobyl.
The string of devastating events left 18,000 people dead, and 300,000 people had to be evacuated from the area around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
Below are 10 before-and-after images of the areas affected not only by the power plant accident, but by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami. The images shown on one side were taken shortly after the earthquake and tsunami, while those on the other were taken more recently, after five years of cleanup.
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On March 11, 2011, the earthquake started at 2:46 p.m. local time. The city of Kesennuma was completely wrecked by the resulting tsunami — bringing many large fishing boats ashore.
It was less than an hour after the earthquake that the tsunami began wrecking havoc on the coast.
Source: Live Science
The city of Natori in Miyagi prefecture was one of the worst-hit cities. Although Japan's scientists had forecast a smaller quake, there were no predictions made of a tsunami to follow.
Source: Live Science
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