Mountains of debris and rubble left by the tsunami disaster six years ago have long been removed amid efforts to rebuild the Tohoku region.
This coastal area of northeastern Japan was wrecked by towering waves generated by the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.
The devastated landscape has been cleared to make way for the construction of new buildings and roads to get local communities back to their feet.
Land has been elevated in the hope that new homes to be built there will not be touched by tsunami in the future.
Here, The Asahi Shimbun offers photos of stricken communities right after the 2011 disaster and images today showing their rebuilding.
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