Police officers supply a silent prayer forward of their search operation for the lacking individuals in Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan Monday, March 11, 2024.

By Mari Yamaguchi | Associated Press

TOKYO — Japan marked the thirteenth anniversary of the huge earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear meltdown and left giant elements of Fukushima prefecture uninhabitable on Monday with a minute of silence and memorial occasions, the place officers pledged continued assist for rebuilding.

The 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami that ravaged elements of Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11, 2011 killed about 20,000 folks and drove 1000’s from their houses within the prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima.

At 2:46 p.m. — the time when the earthquake struck — folks throughout Japan stopped to watch a minute of silence. In Tokyo’s central Ginza purchasing district, folks stopped to wish on the sidewalk as a bell rang out, marking the second.

In the city of Minamisanriku in Miyagi prefecture, a crew of 10 uniformed law enforcement officials sifted although gravel and sand on the seashore in an annual seek for the stays of people who find themselves nonetheless lacking. Survivors prayed by the naked girders that was once the city’s catastrophe prevention middle, the place dozens died. In the city of Natori, about 400 folks prayed and launched balloons carrying messages of grief.

In Ishinomaki City in Iwate prefecture, residents gathered in a hilltop park the place a lot of them took shelter 13 years in the past, mourning as they stood going through the ocean. In Rikuzentakata, about 100 folks prayed atop an enormous concrete seawall.

And at a ceremony in Fukushima prefecture, the place some 20,000 folks nonetheless can not return to their houses due to radiation, Gov. Masao Uchibori vowed that rebuilding will proceed because the decades-long work of cleansing up the nuclear website continues.

“We will not give up,” he mentioned. “I pledge in front of the quake and tsunami victims that we will accomplish recovery at any cost.”

A wall of water over 15 meters (50 ft) tall slammed into the coastal Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant, destroying its energy provide and cooling methods, triggering meltdowns in three of its six reactors, and spewing radiation throughout the encompassing areas.

The catastrophe initially pressured greater than 160,000 folks to go away their houses. Work to take away extremely radioactive melted gasoline particles has nonetheless not begun on the plant, and the general decommissioning undertaking is predicted to final many years.

At the ceremony in Fukushima, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida renewed a pledge that the federal government will assist safe jobs, livelihoods and the protected decommissioning of the plant so the previous residents can return residence.

“We will continue to do utmost for the full-fledged recovery and rebirth, as well as the recovery of the northeastern region,” he mentioned.

Most deaths from the tsunami and earthquake happened in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, north of Fukushima, however they’ve been in a position to recuperate sooner as a result of they weren’t uncovered to nuclear waste. The reconstruction of roads, seawalls and different infrastructure has been largely accomplished in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, however many former residents haven’t returned as a result of lack of communities.