Japan fell silent on Sunday to honour the 19,000 people killed a year ago when a huge earthquake sent a tsunami barreling into the coast, sparking a nuclear crisis at Fukushima.
Tearful families gathered in the still shell-shocked towns and villages across the country’s northeast to remember those lost when the towering tsunami smashed ashore.
At 2.46 pm (0546 GMT) much of the nation paused to mark the moment nature’s fury was visited on Japan, when the 9.0-magnitude quake set off a catastrophic chain of events.
At a national ceremony of remembrance in Tokyo, Japan’s mournful national anthem rang out before the prime minister and the emperor led silent prayers for those who lost their lives in the country’s worst post-war disaster.
Small rural towns along the coast that were turned to matchwood when the tsunami rolled in, wrecking whole neighbourhoods and wiping out communities, held their own emotional ceremonies.
In Ishinomaki, home to fully a fifth of those who died in the disaster, tsunami warning sirens wailed to mark the moment the quake hit, sending a wall of water into the city where it claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 people.
Residents, who held small community ceremonies all over the wrecked city, had been warned on Saturday that the sirens would be raised.
In the badly-hit Watanoha district, around 80 tearful people gathered including Hitomi Oikawa, 37, who lost her father in the disaster.
“It’s been a year since my father died. I am going to pray that I can get over my grief and that my children can feel better,” she told AFP.
In Okuma, home to the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, displaced residents arrived by bus to pay their respects to lost loved ones.
Television footage showed sobbing relatives wrapped up against the radiation in protective suits, gloves and shoe covers, holding a ceremony for those who perished in the town.
An elderly woman, whose grandchild is still listed as missing, wept as she laid flowers at a makeshift alter.
“I want my grandchild to be found,” she told reporters.
In the nearby city of Koriyama, monks banged drums and offered prayers ahead of an anti-nuclear protest rally, where numbers overwhelmed the seating available at a baseball stadium.
Organisers opened up parts of the stadium that have not yet been cleansed of radioactive fallout, asking participants with small children not to use the area, an AFP journalist said.
“We demand all children are evacuated from Fukushima now,” said organiser Setsuko Kuroda.
“Some experts say one third of children in Fukushima were affected by radiation,” she said. “Leaving the situation like this is like they are committing a murder every day.”
Among those demonstrating were some of the nuclear refugees forced to flee their homes in the shadow of Fukushima Daiichi as it began venting toxic radiation over homes and farmland.
The government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) announced in December “a state of cold shutdown” for three runaway reactors that went into meltdown when their cooling systems were swamped by the tsunami.
But with radiation having leaked from the crippled plant for months, many parts of a 20-kilometre (12-mile) exclusion zone around it are likely to remain uninhabitable for years — perhaps decades — to come, scientists warn.
At TEPCO’s Tokyo headquarters near the Imperial Palace, around 50 protesters unfurled banners demanding the shuttering of all nuclear plants in Japan.
Akihito and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda were joined by around 1,200 people at the national theatre in Tokyo.
A single pillar symbolising the souls of those who died stood in the middle of the stage, decorated with white chrysanthemums and lilies.
The emperor, who three weeks ago underwent heart bypass surgery, said Japan would “never forget” the tragedy.
Noda pledged Japan would recover from its tragedy.
“Our forebears, who led our country to prosperity, stood up with brave resolution in times of crisis,” he said.
“While offering our support for the daily struggles of those people in the disaster-affected regions, we will join hands as we seek to fulfill our historic mission of “the rebirth of Japan through reconstruction.”
