On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the northeast coast of Japan and triggered a tsunami that devastated coastal communities. One of the hardest hit was the city of Rikuzentakata. At the end of a narrow inlet, the city of roughly 8,000 households lost 75 percent of its homes. On March 14, 2011, The Mainichi Daily News declared: “Rikuzentakata has been erased.”
The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite observed dramatic changes at Rikuzentakata from March 1, 2007 (lower image) to March 14, 2011 (upper image). ASTER combines infrared, red, and green wavelengths of light to make false-color images that distinguish between water and land. Water is blue; buildings and paved surfaces appear blue-gray. Agricultural fields range in color from brown to beige to pink. Vegetation is red, and brighter shades indicate more robust vegetation.
In the wake of the tsunami, the coastline of Rikuzentakata has been totally reshaped. A long barrier beach with well-vegetated land, visible in 2007, is almost completely gone from the waterfront in 2011. North of that, flood water sits on agricultural fields.
East of Rikuzentakata, a large mass of peach-colored floating debris appears in 2011. Debris, both floating and resting on land, extends eastward to Otomo, much of it lying over what had been farms. The debris mass very likely contains material swept out of Rikuzentakata. If you open the larger image (6MB download) from 2011, you also see what are likely beige debris streams well off the Japanese coast.
On March 17, 2011, Kyodo News reported 4,255 deaths, while 8,194 people remained missing. The death toll was expected to climb after water levels receded and people could access the devastated areas. On March 11, 2011, however, The New York Times reported that strict building codes and routine earthquake and tsunami drills throughout Japan had likely prevented the death toll from being higher.
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