Japan marks the anniversary of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the country last year, leading to one of the worst nuclear crises in history.
Japan Pauses to Remember on Disaster's First Anniversary
Live television images of the Emperor and Empress being beamed into the memorial ceremony in a gymnasium in Onnagawa, March 9, 2012. (VOA - S. L. Herman)
Lighting candles in Matsushima to remember those killed, March 9, 2012. (VOA - S. L. Herman)
Sunday's edition of the Kahoku Shimpo newspaper carried the names of the 19,000+ dead and missing, March 12, 2012. (VOA - S. L. Herman)
Piles of tsunami debris along the northeast Japanese coast, March 9, 2012. (VOA - S. L. Herman)
A house damaged by the tsunami remains on March 9, 2012 at it was on March 11, 2011. (VOA - S. L. Herman)
A building toppled by the tsunami still on its side in Onnagawa, March 9, 2012. (VOA - S. L. Herman)
Anti-independentist Catalans hold a giant banner with a Catalan flag and a Spanish flag during a demonstration at Catalunya square in Barcelona, Spain. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Barcelona for the unity of Spain and against the independence of Catalonia on the occasion of the National Day.
Sign at entrance of Ishinomaki City has yet to be uprighted, March 9, 2012. (VOA - S. L. Herman)
Ian-Benjamin Sasaki Herman, 13, ringing a memorial bell for the quake and tsunami victims in Ishinkomaki, March 9, 2012. (VOA - S. L. Herman)