Tsunami revisited photo gallery
Flattened towns, floating cars and fallen buildings: images from the Japanese tsunami shocked the world. Now, as Channel 4 News returns, follow the team’s journey, in pictures here.
The initial quake was so powerful it moved the earth on its axis.
The tsunami which followed on 11 March 2011 killed more than 15,000 people and displaced almost half a million.
Channel 4 News Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson was one of the first foreign reporters to reach Minamisanriku – a town utterly devastated by the wave. His Japanese colleagues made comparisons to the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima.
More from Channel 4 News: Watch Alex Thomson's original report from Minamisanriku
Eight months on Alex and the Channel 4 News team return to Japan to chart the nation’s recovery.
They are spending ten days revisiting Minamisanriku, the coastal fishing port of Kesennuma and other areas of north east Honshu obliterated by the tsunami.
Read more: Kesennuma hit by quake, tsunami and fire
You can follow their progress on our live blog and see the photos they take above on our Flickr page.
Just click on the gallery to slide through the shots. You can also find photos taken by Alex Thomson in March when covering the tsunami.
