Japan quake & tsunami, 1 year later

Photos by Nicolas Asfouri and Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images

This combination of pictures shows a tsunami hit area of Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture after the March 2011 disaster (top) and the same area earlier this year.

The ground has stilled and the sea has receded. The dead are buried and the missing have been mourned.

A year after the strongest earthquake to ever hit Japan spawned a catastrophic tidal wave and near-apocalyptic nuclear meltdown, the economy is bouncing back and a massive cleanup is in full swing.

But while much of the debris has been cleared away, red tape and political squabbling has hindered reconstruction: once-pastoral landscapes that were piled with rubble and random boats have become sad, barren wastelands.

And inside the nuclear plant near Fukushima City, doomed workers, called heroes by much of the world but shunned by their own countrymen, toil for low wages to clean up the world?s second worst nuclear accident.

?One year isn?t enough to heal,? said Fumiko Suzuki, a nurse in the town of Rikuzentakata who recounted to CNN how she survived only because she left bedridden nursing home patients to drown.

The 9.0 earthquake hit at 2:46 p.m. local time one year ago today, when kids were in school and breadwinners at work.

The shaking lasted six minutes. It was so powerful it shifted the Earth?s axis by 6.5 inches ? shortening the day by 1.8 microseconds ? and moved Japan 8 feet closer to the United States.

Within 20 minutes, it spawned a massive tidal wave that loomed 120 feet tall in places and rushed as far as 6 miles inland.

Most of Japan?s northeast coastline was wiped out and about 20,000 people died.

The World Bank called 3/11 the most expensive natural disaster in history, an estimated $235 billion economic hit.

A year on, more than 260,000 people ? many of them elderly ? still live in temporary shelters. Japan?s reconstruction agency says they may remain there another four years.

The Japanese Red Cross said a year has been wasted in bickering and disagreements over rebuilding between the central and local governments.

Even if homes and businesses are rebuilt, the psychological scars will take decades to fade.

Curt Welling, head of the Connecticut-based non-profit AmeriCares, sees parallels to the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, where the pain of the loss of homes and loved ones has lingered for years.

?While some progress has been made on the physical recovery ? clearing debris and wreckage from the streets ? it will take years to fully recover and help survivors cope with the trauma of loss,? Welling said.

The tsunami led to the world?s second worst nuclear accident when the wave knocked out emergency backup generators at seven reactors near Fukushima City.

Source: http://feeds.nydailynews.com/~r/nydnrss/gossip/rush_molloy/~3/ne-EiaKskvY/japanese-earthquake-tsunami-year-cleanup-world-expensive-natural-disaster-article-1.1036142

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