It's a relatively minor incident that gets me. I'm at a gymnasium in central Ishinomaki photographing members of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) as they unload dozens of corpses from a truck. Each is wrapped in blankets, some with flowery designs far too cheerful for this occasion.
There is only one stretcher available, so the process is painfully slow. The bodies are trundled away one by one past forlorn racks of volleyballs and basketballs and a reception area for surviving family members of those killed who had been brought to a makeshift morgue in the large hall. Inside, around 200 bodies have been cleaned, identified and lined up in neat rows then covered from head to toe with crisp white sheets.
As the body of one elderly man is lifted by GSDF members, whose job of searching for the thousands who perished in the March 11 megaquake and tsunami must rank as one of the world's worst, a shoe falls, exposing a mud-caked woolly sock and a white, grimy ankle.