anna maria barry-jester, journalist

photography: in the wake

A glimpse at the aftermath of an earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the Tohoku coastline of Japan on March 11, 2011.  

  • A boy runs between paper lanterns lit to commemorate the one year anniversary of an earthquake and subsequent tsunami that left more than 19,000 people dead or missing. March 12, 2011, Natori, Japan.
  • Akira Sugawara, 56, walks through a massive car pile where he works as a security guard. Vehicles destroyed or left behind in the chaos of last years tsunami are piled high, waiting for their owners to come and claim them in Ishinomaki, Japan.
  • Iroha Kodama, age 8, plays a video game in the temporary housing where she lives with her family in Ishinomaki, Japan.
  • Yoshitake Abe, 60, an oyster farmer and local council member, drives his boat to visit newly repaired oyster beds in Ishinomaki, Japan. The area's oyster farms were destroyed by the 2011 tsunami, but the cove where seeds are cultivated remains intact, allowing for a quick recovery compared to other areas along the coast. Local oyster farmers were also helped by French colleagues who sent supplies to help the industry recover.
  • A woman visits a memorial at Okawa Elementary School, near Ishinomaki, Japan, where 77 of 108 students were killed when a tsunami struck the school on March 11, 2011. Japanese citizens traveled from all over the country to visit memorial sites in the tsunami affected region during the one year anniversary.
  • Film strips unearthed from the wreckage of the 2011 tsunami hang in a school gymnasium used as a collection site for lost possessions in Natori, Japan. A year after the tsunami hit, hundreds of thousands of posessions remain unclaimed in the gym, which recieves daily visitors looking for personal effects.
  • Eight year old Hikari Oyama blows bubbles with her Grandmother after visiting a memorial at Okawa Elementary School. Seventy seven children were killed when a tsunami struck the school on March 11, 2011 near Ishinomaki, Japan. {quote}I thought bubble suits better for children rather than incense sticks [for a memorial]...and it always makes people laugh and relax,{quote} Oyama's grandmother said.
  • Elderly Japanese residents of a temporary housing complex gather at a community center to drink tea and socialize. Aid workers believe the community centers are vital for helping the elderly deal with loneliness and trauma after their homes were destroyed; most families in the area have lived in the same homes for generations and lost the social networks they relied on.
  • Brazilian massage school students give free treatments to residents of a temporary housing shelter in Ishinomaki, Japan.
  • Residents walk in front of a temporary housing site near Minimisanriku, Japan. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese are still displaced one year after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku coastline.
  • Two young boys finish their homework at a community center in a temporary housing complex near Minamisanrku, Japan.
  • Mitsuhiro Abe's kindergarten teacher saved the boy and fellow students from the devasting tsunami that killed thousands in his community last year by leading the class from their elementary school to higher ground. He recieved counseling after the event for trauma symptoms, and is doing much better according to his grandmother. One year after the event, he lives in temporary housing with his grandmother and parents in Minamisanriku, Japan.
  • Japanese tourists photograph buildings in Minamisanriku destroyed by the 2011 tsunami during a bus tour of the decimated city. The city was almost completely leveled, killing many of its residents; only a few metal skeletons of buildings remain.
  • A wave crashes on a beach near Nakayama, Japan where several oyster and fish processing factories were located before the 2011 tsunami ravaged the area.
  • Workers sort debris in Kesennuma, Japan a year after a tsunami destroyed much of the city. The area's main industry, fishing, was gutted, so many local fishermen have taken jobs sorting through the mountains of rubble that remain. The garbage is sorted into seven kinds of material, and sent for recycling or burial.
  • Tires lie beneath a blanket of freshly fallen snow in Minamisanriku, Japan.
  • Pine trees lay strewn across the beach of Rikuzentakata, Japan nearly one year after a tsunami struck and destroyed the area. The 2 km stretch of coastline once held some 70,000 pine trees, but the beach and city were almost entirely destroyed when a wave more than 40 feet high struck the city.
  • A policeman guards one entrances to a 20 km evacuation zone that surrounds the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Minamisoma, Japan. Radiation is still emitted from the plant, which was damaged during an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Doctors at the nearby Minamisoma City General Hospital claim some 20,000 people, mostly children, are on a waiting list for a newly acquired whole-body counter that can measure their radition levels.
  • Students attend a graduation ceremony at Shizukawa Junior High School in Minimasanriku, Japan on March 10, 2012, one day before the anniversary of an earthquake and tsunami that almost completely wiped out the town. The school was a tsunami evacuation zone, and one of only a few buildings that remain intact in the city.
  • Flowers, candles and paper cranes memorialize local victims in Natori, Japan on the one year anniversary of an earthquake and tsunami that left more than 19,000 people dead or missing on March 11, 2011.
  • A father leads her daughter down the steps of a memorial site at Hiyoriyama in Natori, Japan, a small hill used by locals attempting to flee the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
  • Paper lanterns illuminate a boat carried far onto shore during an earthquake and tsunami that left more than 19,000 people dead or missing on March 11, 2011. Image taken on the one year anniversary in Natori, Japan.
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