A
Five years after a deadly earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, recovery remains years away.
More than 16,000 people died in the disaster and more than 470,000 were displaced (移动) from their homes, says the Japanese Red Cross Society. Over 2,500 people are still missing and presumed (推测) dead. After pressure from survivors, the Japanese Coast Guard began underwater searches for the missing.
In Fukushima, more than 100,000 families still cannot return home, says the Red Cross Society. This is because of radioactive contamination (污染) from the damagedDaiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
In Japan, the disaster is known as＂ 3-1-1＂, marking the date five years ago.
It was really three disasters rolled into one.
＂It started with an earthquake devastating (毁灭；破坏) in itself, then the tsunami, and then the radiation from the nuclear plant,＂said Shioko Goto, a Japan expert at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Goto said the disaster showed the world,＂Japanese resilience (快速恢复的能力) and Japanese unity.＂
But it also showed shortcomings. Among the most notable, the long time it took to stabilize the Fukushima DaiichiNuclearPower Plant after it was flooded from the tsunami, Goto said. That process took eight months. Another, Japan’s dependence on nuclear power, she said. The disaster forced Japan to close all of its nuclear power plants, leaving parts of the country without electricity.
Goto offered up one major difference from the last major Japanese disaster, the 1995 Kobe Earthquake. In 2011, social media was everywhere, she said. Social media offered up plenty of＂unfounded rumors and fear-mongering (制造恐慌),＂Goto said.
But it also kept pressure on Japanese authorities to do more. Chikara Yoshida lost his only son, a 43-year-old volunteer fireman, on March 11, 2011. He and his daughter posted a petition (请愿书) on Facebook to restart underwater searches. It drew over 28,000 signatures, according to the Associated Press.
The Japanese Coast Guard announced that it would resume searches this week.
There have also been complaints that reconstruction efforts in hard-hit northern Japanese communities have been too slow. This week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government will respond.