Five years to the day of the catastrophic Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, ceremonies were held throughout Japan on March 11 to remember the victims.
Survivors, including those forced to evacuate after the subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster, attended services at locations throughout Japan because many are still unable to return to their wrecked hometowns.
Although the government had designated the period ending in March this year as one for concentrated rebuilding from the disasters, many hard-hit municipalities have a long way to go before they return to any semblance of the past.
Only about half of the government-funded rental housing units for disaster victims have been completed in the three hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.
That may be one reason why more than 174,000 residents still live as evacuees five years on. Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures account for about 70 percent of the evacuees.
Perhaps one positive is that the number of evacuees has decreased to about a third of the 470,000 or so left homeless, or forced to leave home, immediately after the disasters.
Statistics relating to the disasters were released by the National Police Agency on March 10.
A total of 15,894 people died and 2,561 are still reported as missing.
As of the end of September 2015, a total of 3,407 people have died due to a deterioration of health, suicide or other reasons related to the disasters--a figure compiled by the Reconstruction Agency.
An NPA report as of the end of 2015 found 202 evacuees from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures died alone in temporary housing.
About 54,000 households in the three prefectures continue to reside in temporary housing. The prefectures have plans to construct a total of 29,573 rental units for disaster victims, but so far only 14,042 have been completed, or 47.5 percent of the planned total.
A lack of construction workers is the main reason for the delay.
Other areas of construction have progressed much faster. More than 90 percent of roads and river levees have been restored to their former state.
Seventy-four percent of the farmland inundated by the tsunami five years ago has also been restored. The volume of the catch brought into major fishing ports has also returned to about 90 percent of the predisaster level. However, only 24 percent of seafood processing companies--a major local industry--have seen sales return to predisaster levels.
About 70,000 residents of Fukushima Prefecture continue to live as evacuees because they resided in areas where evacuation orders were issued due to the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
While such evacuation orders have been lifted for Tamura, Naraha and part of Kawauchi, not all residents who lived in the areas covered by those orders have returned home. The ratio of those who have returned is 69 percent for Tamura, 20 percent for Kawauchi and only 6 percent for Naraha.