Photo of Japan After Earthquake and Tsunami - Photographs

Photo of Japan After Earthquake and Tsunami - Photographs - NYTimes.com

March 14, 2011 - March 28, 2011

March 14, 2011

Passengers filled a train station in Tokyo while service was suspended because of a planned blackout.

Customers waited in line to buy supplies outside a supermarket in Kagamiishi.

Doctors checked residents for radiation exposure in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture.

Ships capsized by the tsunami leaked oil in Fudai Village, Iwate Prefecture.

An aerial view of Rikuzentakata, Miyagi Prefecture.

Evacuees woke up at a shelter in a school gymnasium in Sendai.

A photo album was among the rubble in Natori, Migagi Prefecture.

Police officers searched for missing people amid the rubble in Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture.

Residents of Toyoma carried belongings from their homes on Monday.

An emergency worker spread disinfectant in a damaged area in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture.

A woman walked by a destroyed house in Daigasaki, near Sendai.

A woman wiped tears as she found no remains of her home in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture.

People walked through street rubble to a water supply in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture.

Minamisanriku was a scene of devastation and rubble on Monday.

A man walked amid debris in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture.

Members of the Japanese Self-Defense Force stood by a body in Nobiru, Miyagi Prefecture, on Monday.

Rescue workers carried an elderly man found alive in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture.

A father took his daughter to safety after she was rescued in Ishinomaki, Japan.

Emergency crews worked to free a body sitting among concrete sea barriers in Toyoma, in northern Japan.

A mother and son were checked for radiation exposure in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.

Smoke from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Okuma, Japan, on Monday.

March 15, 2011

Vehicles passed through the ruins of the leveled city of Minamisanriku.

Japanese soldiers searched damaged areas of Ofunato for trapped survivors on Tuesday.

A child in Kesennuma on Tuesday.

Evacuees at a school gymnasium in Minamisanriku.

Survivors searched for names of missing people on a list of registered evacuees at a temporary shelter at Kesennuma city hall.

Soldiers and a rescue worker carried the body of a resident through Kesennuma on Tuesday.

The burning remains of Kesennuma.

Residents of Ishinomaki cooked on a makeshift grill in front of their damaged home on Tuesday.

The tsunami devasted Kesennuma, and desperate survivors continued to search for signs of missing friends and relatives.

In the port town of Kesennuma, north of Sendai, huge fishing trawlers were brought to land by the force of the tsunami.

An American rescue worker and his dog searched for survivors amid debris in Ofunato, a city with a seawall built specifically to withstand tsunamis. The tsunami crashed over it before moving a few miles inland, carrying houses and cars with it.

People walked through the destroyed port town of Minamisanriku, in northeastern Japan, where a senior police official estimated that the number of dead would "certainly be more than 10,000." The town's population is just 17,000.

March 16, 2011

In Kesennuma, the six-mile inlet that nurtured the town also proved its undoing, channeling and compressing the tsunami’s power until, at the end, the wave towered nearly 50 feet high.

Rescue teams from 13 nations continued to search for survivors, and more nations were preparing to send teams. Helicopters shuttled back and forth, part of a mobilization of 100,000 troops, the largest in Japan since World War II, to assist in the rescue and relief work.

Chieko Chiba looked for the remains of her house in the Shishiori township of Kesennuma on Wedneday.

The death toll climbed inexorably. More than 3,600 people were confirmed dead and more than 7,800 remained unaccounted for by Wednesday afternoon. The authorities say the number of dead is likely to exceed 10,000.

Japanese soldiers searched through flooded lowland areas in Natori in northeastern Japan on Wednesday.

Evacuees in a shelter in Ofunato on Wednesday. An estimated 440,000 people are living in makeshift shelters or evacuation centers, officials said. Bitterly cold and windy weather compounded the misery as survivors endured shortages of food, fuel and water.

Weather forecasters predicted that a cold front moving into the region would send the overnight temperatures in northeastern Japan below freezing, and the government said the cold posed a health risk for evacuees. People at a shelter in Yamada on Wednesday huddled around a heater.

People shopped amid nearly empty shelves at a supermarket in Tokyo.

People watched from an electronics shop as Emperor Akihito of Japan, in an unprecedented television address to the nation, said on Wednesday that he was "deeply worried" about the ongoing nuclear crisis.

A man was screened on Wednesday as authorities announced that a second reactor unit at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan may have ruptured and appeared to be releasing radioactive steam.

Medical workers screened a woman for possible radiation exposure in Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Wednesday after she was evacuated from an area within about 12 miles of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. She tested negative.

Workers are struggling to avert meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, seen in a satellite photo taken at 9:35 a.m. Wednesday.

March 17, 2011

An older Japanese woman walked through a destroyed residential area in Rikuzentakata.

People looked through messages posted on notice boards at the Kesennuma city hall on Thursday.

Empty shelves at a grocery store in Ichinoseki city on Thursday.

Rescue workers prayed over a body retrieved from the rubble in Rikuzentakata on Thursday.

Earlier, helicopters and water cannons were deployed in a race to prevent perilous overheating in the spent rods of the No. 3 reactor. Those efforts to cool the rods failed, Japanese officials said.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, where military fire trucks began spraying cooling water on spent fuel rods on Thursday.

A woman sifted through the rubble of her home on Thursday in Kesennuma.

Miwako Onodera, third from left, fed her daughters Hiyori, 8, and Yuine, 4, as her sick father, Tetsuo, second from right, was helped by his wife, Hitomi, at a shelter in Kesennuma.

Evacuees waited for food at a temporary shelter in Kesennuma on Thursday.

A Japanese soldier prayed before removing a body from rubble in the town of Otsuchi.

A man rode a bicycle through an area hit by the earthquake and tsunami in Kesennuma.

Yoshikatsu Hiratsuka grieved in front of wreckage where the body of his mother was buried in Onagawa, in northern Japan, on Thursday.

March 18, 2011

A woman cried after her mother's body was found in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture.

Australian rescue workers and a dog searched for bodies in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture.

Another day of frantic efforts to cool nuclear fuel and spent-fuel pools in the troubled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant resulted in little or no progress, according to United States government officials. Fire trucks converged in Iwaki in preparation for spraying water at the plant.

Japanese firefighters checked a damaged hospital in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture.

Kikuo Nomura walked past destroyed houses in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture.

The first readings from American data-collection flights over the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan showed that the worst contamination had not spread beyond the 19-mile radius of highest concern established by Japanese authorities. People waited to be scanned for radiation exposure in Fukushima.

Firefighters searched among the ruins of Rikuzentakata.

The body of a tsunami victim lay in the rubble at Rikuzentakata.

An aerial view of Rikuzentakata on Friday.

A photo album amid the ruins of Rikuzentakata.

A woman rummaged through her damaged home in the town of Yamamoto, in northeastern Japan, on Friday.

Minako Oikawa, left, who lost her husband in the earthquake and tsunami which struck Japan last week, cried as she met family members at an evacuation center in in Rikuzentakata.

Survivors prayed for victims at the devastated city of Miyako, in northeastern Japan, on Friday, just one week after the massive earthquake and resulting tsunami.

Shinobu Sugimoto, 29, returned to his home in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, to collect belongings. He picked up a basketball, a jacket, a pair of glasses, a pair of sneakers and some photos.

March 19, 2011

Tayo Kitamura, 40, mourned over the body of her mother. Japanese firemen discovered the dead woman inside the ruins of her home in Onagawa.

Residents shopped for food in a near-empty grocery store in Senmaya on Saturday, as food shortages continued.

In this image, taken from footage released by the Japanese Defense Ministry, a fire engine from the Japan Self-Defense Forces sprayed water toward Unit 3 of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex on Friday.

Members of Japan's Self-Defense Force carried the body of a victim found in the ruins of Kesennuma.

A tank lay on a house amid piles of debris in Yamada.

A man went through the names of displaced people at the main hall of a primary school of Yamada on Saturday.

Evacuees shared a plate of Japanese pickles and ate hot soup at an evacuation center in coastal city of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture.

In the town of Yamada, residents cleaned debris from their home.

A survivor peered into her destroyed home in the debris of Yamada in Iwate prefecture.

Volunteers at the Saitama Super Arena near Tokyo helped carry the belongings of evacuees from Futaba, a town near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, on Saturday.

People visited the devastated neighborhood of Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture.

March 20, 2011

Construction workers built 200 temporary houses in Rikuzentakata.

A man looked for his missing son at a makeshift morgue in Rikuzentakata.

Hiori Okazawa, 4, sat by her favorite dress, which was retrieved from the ruins of her home in Ofunato.

People checked gravestones outside a tsunami-damaged Buddist temple in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture.

A student volunteer held a sign offering instant noodles for evacuees from Futaba, a city near the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant, in the evacuees' new shelter at Saitama Super Arena, near Tokyo.

These signs at a grocery store in Misaki, Chiba Prefecture, said that milk products were not being delivered because of the earthquake and nuclear reactor crisis.

A man looked at a package of spinach on sale at a supermarket in Tokyo. The government said it found new cases of above-normal levels of radioactive elements in milk and several vegetables, including spinach, from prefectures near the troubled nuclear reactors.

Ms. Abe's grandson, Jin Abe, 16, was carried by rescue workers. Reports said he crawled out of the debris of their family home and alerted rescuers to his grandmother's location.

Sumi Abe, 80, was helped by emergency workers after being rescued along with her 16-year-old grandson in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, on Sunday, nine days after the earthquake.

A search and recovery team in Rikuzentakata, in Iwate Prefecture. Japan's official death toll was raised to more than 8,100 on Sunday.

Rescue workers removed bodies on Sunday from a highway in Rikuzentakata, Japan, that was washed out by the March 11 tsunami.

March 21, 2011

Devastation in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture. The final toll in Japan is expected to reach nearly 20,000. More than 13,000 people are listed as missing.

Harue Ishikawa, 61, cried over her son's coffin after learning about his death at a makeshift morgue in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture. The official death toll in Rikuzentakata stood at 775, with 1,700 missing.

From left, the father and brother of Hiroki Sugawara as his body arrived at Takata Junior High.

Workers prepared for a mass burial in Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture. NHK said Monday that the official death toll had been raised to more than 8,600.

Rescue teams on Monday were still searching through communities devastated by the tsunami. Firefighters carried a body in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture.

Residents prayed at the graves of their ancestors at a cemetery in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture.

Akiko Hatareyama dug mud out of what was left of her house in Kesennuma. A grounded ship was nearby.

An evacuee received haircut at a shelter in Miyagi Prefecture.

An elderly man read a newspaper in his small space at a shelter in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture.

Gray smoke rose from Reactor No. 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Monday. A team of workers trying to repair the reactor was temporarily evacuated from the site.

March 22, 2011

On Tuesday, the government raised the official death toll upward to 9,079, and said more than 12,600 were missing, although officials cautioned there could be overlap between the figures. The final death toll is likely to reach 18,000, the government has said.

Soldiers lowered a coffin at a temporary mass grave site in Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture.

A woman prayed in front of a kindergarten bus in which five children died in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.

A soldier walked down a path in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture.

A man warmed himself by a fire after trying to clean up the remains of his store in Kesennuma, in Miyagi Prefecture. Medical teams are treating large numbers of cases of hypothermia and pneumonia, as well as illness from swallowing polluted water.

Soldiers put an identifying tag on a body in Natori.

Japanese soldiers searched for the bodies of tsunami victims in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, on Tuesday.

A boat sat atop a building in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture.

A woman watched as searching continued at Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. Only 24 of 84 schoolchildren and 13 teachers have been confirmed as alive by the school.

People walked down a road amid the destruction in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, on Tuesday.

March 23, 2011

United States Navy crew members mopped up the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan to remove radioactive contamination. The carrier is in the Pacific Ocean, off the Japanese coast, after 10 days of rescue missions to transport supplies to survivors.

Relief supplies were stored at a community gym in Minamisanriku.

Yoshiko Goto, left, visited a temporary clinic on Wednesday to have her 8-month-old granddaughter, Kokona, examined at a refugee center in Hadenya.

Flowers were placed on a coffin during the service.

People paid their last respects to family members during the mass burial.

Ekuko Kimura, 58, cried over her dead son, Taishi Kimura, 31.

Members of the Japan Self-Defense Forces carried a coffin during the burial ceremony.

Mourners gathered for a mass burial on Wednesday in the coastal city of Higashi Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture.

Japanese soldiers searched for bodies in Nobiru on Wednesday. The Associated Press reported that the official death toll from the disaster had been raised to more than 9,500, with more than 16,000 people still missing, although officials said there could be overlap between those two categories.

March 24, 2011

Asuka Oyama, 10, prayed over the coffin of Katsuko Oyama during a cremation ceremony on Thursday in Minamisanriku. The family lost three family members in the tsunami.

Men rested after collecting floats that were washed away by the tsunami in the port town of Kyubun.

Noriko Sugawara received treatment from Dr. Masanori Yoshida, left, at a makeshift dental clinic inside the shelter.

Syoichi Yanashita, left, and his son Noriaki, right, cut evacuees' hair at the shelter.

Missing persons signs are posted at the shelter at Takata Daiichi junior high school in Rikuzentakata.

A shelter at Takata Daiichi junior high school in Rikuzentakata. Hundreds of thousands remain homeless, squeezed into temporary shelters without heat, warm food or medicine in communities along the coast of Japan.

Snow fell over the rubble in Rikuzentakata, a town of 23,000 where more than one in 10 people is either dead or has not been seen since a tsunami flattened three-quarters of the city in minutes.

March 25, 2011

A woman paused as she cleaned her house, which was destroyed by the tsunami, in Kamaishi.

A man cleaned his bicycle at an area destroyed by the tsunami in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture.

A vehicle destroyed by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that followed is seen transported into a car dump in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture.

United States Marines based in Japan started to clear rubble in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture.

Members of Japan's Self Defense Forces searched for earthquake and tsunami victims in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture.

Evacuees take a bath at a makeshift public bath set up outside a shelter in Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture.

A house sits upside-down in an open field near the coast near Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture, in northeastern Japan.

Earthquake survivors identified family members at a temporary burial ground in Higashi Matsushima. Under Buddhist practice, cremation is the traditional way of dealing with the dead. But now, with the death toll so high, crematoriums are overwhelmed.

In the town of Kamaishi, a man pushed a wheelchair loaded with his belongings.

Japan's Self Defense Forces prepared to transfer workers who had been exposed to radiation at the Fukushima nuclear power plant to a hospital.

March 26, 2011

A car hung from a damaged building in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture.

Evacuees who lost their home visited a makeshift city hall to apply for temporary housing in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture.

Japan Self Defense Forces searched for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Miyako City, Miyagi Prefecture.

A farmer stood in front of a mountain of spinach that was thrown out in Fukushima Prefecture.

Evacuees performed morning exercises at a shelter in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture.

A resident looked for anything she could salvage next to a destroyed building in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture.

Policemen seen through the window of a destroyed house searched for bodies in Kirikiri.

Volunteers, comprising mainly of local residents, helped clean earthquake victims' houses in Higashi-Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture.

A fishing boat beached along with devastated buildings in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture.

Local residents scavanged for usable items at a dump under a bridge in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture.

Desperate municipalities such as Kesennuma dug mass graves, unthinkable in a nation where the deceased are almost always cremated and their ashes placed in stone family tombs near Buddhist temples.

Mourners stood around flimsy wood coffins buried at a hastily prepared cemetery in Keseunnuma, Miyagi Prefecture.

March 27, 2011

A second video image looking inside Unit 4 at Fukushima Daiichi.

This video image released by the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force via Kyodo News shows the inside of Unit 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Sunday. A series of explosions destroyed the outer portion of the building in the days after the earthquake and tsunami struck two weeks ago.

Technicians in the control room of reactor No. 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Saturday, in this photo released by the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Protesters marched in an anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo on Sunday. The sign on the left reads, “Change energy policy.” The sign on the right reads, “Do not sprinkle radioactive material.”

A dairy farmer emptied raw milk onto his pasture in the city of Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture. Radiation above the legal limit has been detected in raw milk in the area close to the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

A store mannequin was perched among the debris in the town of Yamada.

Yukiko Umehara, center, reacted with delight after finding her cousin's childhood diary in the ruins of her house in Tanohata, Iwate Prefecture.

Hiro Ono, 70, collected salvagable items in the tsunami-devastated village of Noda, Iwate Prefecture. Winter weather continued to hamper recovery efforts in the north of Japan.

A child and his mother rested on the floor of a gymnasium that serves as an evacuation center in Yamagata.

Evacuees from Fukushima, where the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is located, received dinner at an evacuation center in Saitama on Sunday.

Cremation of the dead is traditional in Japanese Buddhist practice, but crematoriums are overwhelmed and fuel for the process is scarce. Local municipalities are burying the tsunami victims in mass graves as a temporary solution.

Family members prayed over the coffin of Masami Takahashi at a temporary burial site in Kesennuma, Japan, on Sunday.

March 28, 2011

A woman prayed for Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims at Bouddhanath Stupa in Katmandu, Nepal, on Monday.

A survivor at a shelter in Yamamoto was resting during the day on Monday.

Family members retrieved photographs that belonged to their missing grandparents from debris in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, on Monday.

A group of women examined an article found near Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, where roughly 80 percent of the students and teachers were killed or are missing after the earthquake and tsunami.

Reiko Kikuta, right, and her husband, Takeshi Kikuta, watched workers attempting to attach ropes to pull their home ashore on Oshima Island in Miyagi Prefecture.

Police officers in protective suits searched for victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in Minamisoma City, Fukushima Prefecture.

Ryota Sasaki, 10, checked his haircut in a mirror after a trim at an evacuation center in Saitama, near Tokyo. Ryoto was evacuated from Minamisoma, near the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Despite the fear that radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is pouring into waters off the west coast of Japan, a fisherman collected seaweed near Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture, south of Fukushima.

A survivor of the earthquake and tsunami cut firewood used for heat at a shelter for those who lost their homes in Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture.

Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims received food and clothing distributed by the Japanese Self Defense Force in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, on Monday.

Unidentified tsunami victims were buried in a mass grave in the coastal city of Ishinomaki on Monday.

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