
Toshifumi Kitamura / AFP - Getty Images
Police officers search for tsunami victims at a mud-covered field near the Okawa elementary school in Ishinomaki city, Miyagi prefecture, on March 11, 2013.

Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP - Getty Images
A police officer searches for missing people in a wrecked vehicle at a beach in Namie, near the striken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, on March 11, 2013.

Kyodo via Reuters
A man prays to mourn victims of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami as a ship brought ashore by the disaster is seen in the background, in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 11, 2013.
The 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster that struck Japan is remembered across the country with memorial services and protests. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
By Arata Yamamoto, Producer, NBC News
TOKYO -- Japan marked the second anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that swept through northern Japan, damaging more than one million homes and killing almost 19,000 people.
A moment of silence was observed at 2:46 p.m. local time on Monday at various locations where the scars of the disasters still remain.
While most of the debris has been cleared, progress has been extremely slow in redeveloping areas affected following the tsunami-triggered explosion at Fukushima Daicihi nuclear power plant. Read the full story.

Shizuo Kambayashi / AP
Women take part in a moment of silence in front of what is left of a disaster control center in an area devastated by earthquake and tsunami, in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 11, 2013.

Kimimasa Mayama / EPA
Two women take a moment to offer a prayer for the victims killed by the tsunami on the sandy shore at Arahama in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 11, 2013.

Kyodo News via AP
Two pictures of a so-called 'miracle pine tree', on March 27, 2011 (left) and March 11, 2013 (right). The 88-foot-tall tree, a single survivor among 70,000 trees in a forest along the coast in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, has been artificially restored in a project to preserve it.
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