Japan remembers tsunami victims

For 70-year-old Toshiko Murakami, memories of the terrifying earthquake and tsunami that destroyed much of her seaside town and swept away her sister brought fresh tears, exactly a year after the disaster.

“My sister is still missing so I can’t find peace within myself,” she said as she attended a ceremony in a tent in Rikuzentaka marking the anniversary of the March 11, 2011, disaster that killed more than 19,000 people and unleashed the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a quarter century.

Across Japan, people paused at 2.46pm — the moment the magnitude-9.0 quake struck a year ago — for moments of silence, prayer and reflection about the enormous losses suffered and the monumental tasks ahead.