Tohoku children overcoming the March 11 disaster

Smiles have returned to the faces of children in the Tohoku region, six months after their lives were surrounded by death, destruction and despair from the magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Asahi Shimbun reporters visited temporary housing, schools and other places to check on the progress of children they met soon after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The children are shown in two photographs: one at present and the other shortly after the disaster.