Japan marks two years since tsunami

Japan is marking the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami which left nearly 19,000 people dead or missing and more than 300,000 people still displaced.

At memorial observances in Tokyo and in barren towns along the north-eastern coast today, those gathered bowed their heads in a moment of silence marking the moment, at 2.46pm local time on March 11 2011, when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake - the strongest recorded in Japan’s history – struck off the coast.