Former All Blacks player recalls the day Kamaishi was washed away
March 11, 2011, is a date that will stick long in the memory of former All Black Pita Alatini, and not just because it was his birthday and he was in Japan. Alatini, who played for the Kamaishi Seawaves rugby club, was finishing up a ...
JR East shinkansen ALFA-X prototype hits 320 kph in test run in northeastern Japan
A prototype of Japan's new shinkansen conducted a trial early Thursday, reaching 320 kilometers per hour, the maximum speed for existing shinkansen models. The prototype, dubbed ALFA-X, is designed to travel at 360 kph when it is put into service by the spring of 2031, ...
Japan pitches safety of food from Fukushima and Tohoku in wake of WTO ruling for South Korea
Japan will seek to reassure other countries about the safety of food produced in areas affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, officials said Friday, after the World Trade Organization supported South Korea's import ban on some Japanese seafood. Fishermen in Tohoku, the region hit ...
Fugu grow faster and without deadly toxin at hotelier's hot spring farms in Tohoku
A hotel operator in the Tohoku region is one of a small number of companies that have launched businesses in depopulated rural areas to raise torafugu, a high-quality variety of the poisonous puffer fish prized as a delicacy in Japan, using tanks filled with ...
Eight years on, Abe says 3/11 recovery nearing 'final stages,' though half of public unconvinced
Japan pauses at 2:46 p.m. to observe a moment of silence and reflect on all that has happened since that fateful day.
Tohoku residents still haunted by memories of devastating 3/11 triple disaster
Despite the passage of time, their stories are still heart-wrenching.
Waste not, want not: Temporary housing units for 3/11 finding new roles across Japan
Fukushima and the city of Tono, Iwate Prefecture, have turned some of their temporary units into permanent public housing for those still displaced.
Tohoku tours shed light on life in the aftermath of the 3/11 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster
This is the second in a series examining how the northeast and the nation are progressing with efforts to deal with the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. For the disaster-hit coastal areas of Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, tourism is more than just ...
Many residents in the hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima are struggling to repay emergency relief loans that they received in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, a Jiji Press survey of related municipalities showed. In the three prefectures, a total ...
'Reconstruction Olympics' theme said not to have gathered momentum
The heads of 21 local governments in Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures said in the survey that the “reconstruction Olympics” theme has yet to fully catch on among the public.
Last public school in Iwate wrecked by 3/11 quake and tsunami rebuilt in Rikuzentakata
A ceremony marking the reconstruction of an elementary school — the last public school in Iwate Prefecture heavily damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami to be rebuilt — was held Friday in the city of Rikuzentakata. Kesen Elementary School's new building stands on higher ...
The Michinoku Coastal Trail: Tohoku's recovery in action
The Michinoku Coastal Trail is a 2013 initiative by Japan's environment ministry to rejuvenate disaster-stricken Tohoku through ecotourism. At 700-kilometers long, it winds through protected forest, bucolic villages and along dramatic coastlines.
