On a cold February day, the northeastern Japanese city of Sendai is a snow-covered wasteland. It might pass for out-of-season farmland were it not for the chunks of grey concrete arrayed in rectangles, reminders that houses once stood here.
The signs of devastation are all around, although eerily tidied up. Inside one abandoned house that is missing its first-storey walls, dishes have been neatly stacked on a shelf, perhaps by a compassionate rescue worker. The remnants of cars - 240,000 were washed away or destroyed - and other metallic wreckage are compressed into neat blocks and stacked. Nearby lie piles of uprooted trees that were supposed to provide protection against a tsunami, but instead became lethal battering rams in the raging water. A solitary street sign lies on the ground by the beach, warning of the risk posed by such events. (nature.com)