HIGASHIMATSUSHIMA, Miyagi Pref. — Where do you even start?
Do you start by carting away the Chokai Maru, the 45-meter ship that was lifted over a pier and slammed into a house in this port town? Do you start with the thousands of destroyed cars scattered like discarded toys in the city of Sendai? With the broken windows and the doorless refrigerators and the endless remnants of so many lives that clutter the canals?
In the first days after a tsunami slammed into the Tohoku region coast on March 11, killing well over 10,000 people, it seemed callous to worry about the cleanup. The filth paled beside the tragedy. Now, nearly two weeks later, hundreds of communities are finally turning to the monumental task ahead.