Japan observed a national moment of silence Thursday at 2:46 p.m., exactly a decade after a devastating earthquake and tsunami rocked the eastern part of the country and triggered the one of the world s worst nuclear disasters.
The magnitude 9.0 quake was the largest ever to strike the quake-prone nation. The tsunami it triggered drove a surge of water as high as 90 feet in some areas, washing away entire towns along Japan s northeast coast.
The catastrophe killed 18,000 people and left almost 500,000 homeless. Nearly 4,000 more people died later from illness and stress-induced suicide. More than 40,000 people still have not returned to their hometowns.