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March 11 marks the first anniversary of the Great East Japan earthquake and the tsunami it spawned.The terrifying waves left 19,000 dead and missing and tens of thousands homeless.
The tsunami, along with government and corporate complacency, also triggered the biggest nuclear crisis in 25 years when three reactors at Fukushima melted down.
The fall-out from Fukushima sparked mass evacuations, leaving entire communities as ghost towns.
Mark Willacy of Radio Australia has the report.
With the melted reactors of Fukushima just a couple of kilometres down the road it's time to zip up the protective suits.
I'm with Kazuo Okawa, a former worker at the nuclear plant. He's been given permission to travel from his evacuation centre three hours away to come back to his now-abandoned hometown to collect a few belongings.
That hometown is Futaba. A community that once thrived because of the Fukushima plant it's now a ghost town because of it.
"After picking up these things today I don't think I'll ever be allowed back. I want to return here but because of the high levels of radiation I don't think we can ever live here again.”
Kazuo Okawa's apartment hasn't been touched since he fled the place 12 months ago. Pots and dishes still sit by the sink, things knocked over by the magnitude nine earthquake remain on the floor.
After rummaging through boxes and piles of clothes for 15 minutes Mr Okawa finds what he's been looking for - his toolbox.
He needs it if he's to find a new job because after 20 years working at the Fukushima nuclear plant he quit after the meltdowns.
"While I was working at the Fukushima plant for TEPCO I was thanking the company. But since the quake and tsunami I think it's the worst company. Their handling of this disaster has been awful.”
And with that Kazuo Okawa closes the door on his apartment, not to mention the door on his hometown and the nuclear plant.
A year on and it's still not known if the thousands of residents of Futaba and other towns close to the reactors will ever be allowed to return.
But others lost much more than homes or jobs on March 11 last year.
Every day Keitaro Fukuda kneels before the altar in his living room.
It's decorated with stuffed toys, kids' artwork, and photos of his two dead children.
"Whenever I have a meal I realise they are not here. I miss them so much. Because it's just my wife and me now, it's so very quiet. We used to have such a cheerful and noisy home with our children here.”
I first met Keitara Fukuda in March last year as he searched frantically for a trace of his children outside their obliterated primary school.
His nine year old son Masa'aki and 12-year old daughter Risa had evacuated from the school after the earthquake and were standing outside with fellow students when a mass of black churning water rushed down the river valley from the ocean six kilometres away.
They were swallowed by the tsunami, along with 10 teachers and 72 other students.
It took the education department 10 months to admit that the kids of the Okawa School hadn't been given proper guidance about what they should do.
"Their apology means nothing to me. They ignored our feelings for months.”
I take a stroll around the mangled shell of the Okawa School with the grieving father.
Walls have been torn from foundations, revealing row after row of gutted classrooms.
Once these rooms echoed with the sound of kids laughing and learning but seven out 10 children who went to this school are dead.
Now there's very little sound here at all here other than the chanting of a lone Buddhist monk and the occasional icy blast of wind sweeping up the same river valley the tsunami did.
Even if they were to rebuild this school there wouldn't be enough children left in the district to fill the classrooms.
