This combination of pictures shows a handout photo taken by a Miyako City official on March 11, 2011 of the tsunami breaching an embankment and flowing into the city of Miyako, and the same area nearly 10 years later, on January 28, 2021. #

(1 of 2) This photo, taken on April 16, 2011, shows a catamaran sightseeing boat that was carried by the tsunami onto a two-story building in the town of Otsuchi. #

Police conduct operations to search for clues on the people missing since the 2011 disasters, on the shores of Watari in Miyagi Prefecture on March 10, 2021. More than 2,500 people are still listed as missing due to the disaster, and identifiable remains are still being discovered to this day. #

An aerial view shows Sakae Kato walking Pochi, his dog, which he rescued four years ago, on an empty road between restricted zones in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, on February 20, 2021. A decade ago, Kato stayed behind to rescue cats abandoned by neighbors who fled the radiation clouds belching from the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant. He won't leave. "I don't want to leave; I like living in these mountains," Kato said. #

Sakae Kato lies in bed next to Charm, a cat who he rescued five years ago and infected with feline leukemia virus, at his home in a restricted zone in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, on February 20, 2021. Kato looks after 41 cats in his home and another empty building on his property. "I want to make sure I am here to take care of the last one," Kato said of the cats. "After that I want to die, whether that be a day or hour later." So far he has buried 23 cats in his garden. The most recent graves were disturbed by wild boars that roam the depopulated community. The 57-year-old, a small-construction business owner in his former life, says his decision to stay as 160,000 other people evacuated the area was spurred in part by the shock of finding dead pets in abandoned houses he helped demolish. #

Hazuki Sato, a Futaba town official, visits a playground where she used to play when she was little, until she was evacuated due to a nuclear scare following the 2011 earthquake, in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, on February 28, 2021. Sato is now preparing for her coming-of-age ceremony, which is typical for Japanese 20-year-olds, hoping for a reunion in town so she can reconnect with her former classmates who have scattered. #

In this aerial view from a drone, large swaths of land remain empty after the area that was once a thriving town was destroyed by the 2011 tsunami, in Rikuzentakata, Japan, on March 8, 2021. #

Mika Sato, 46, who lost her daughter Airi in the 2011 earthquake, reacts as she stands in front of a memorial monument built for Airi and her kindergarten classmates in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 1, 2021. #

In this picture taken on February 27, 2021, Reverend Akira Sato, wearing a protective suit, poses outside the empty Fukushima First Bible Baptist Church inside the exclusion zone in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture—an area declared a no-go zone after the 2011 nuclear disaster. #

Hisae Unuma wears a protective suit as she walks past an incinerator used to burn debris collected in the Fukushima cleanup, which was built in a rural village near Unuma's home where she lived before being evacuated, in a restricted zone in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, on February 23, 2021. Unuma said she won't return even if the government scrapes the radioactive soil from her fields. Radiation levels around her house are around 20 times the background level in Tokyo, according to a dosimeter reading carried out by Reuters. Only the removal of Fukushima's radioactive cores will make her feel safe, a task that will take decades to complete. #

A bamboo tree grows inside Hisae Unuma's collapsing home, where she lived before being evacuated in 2011, near the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, in a restricted zone in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, on February 23, 2021. Unuma fled as the cooling system at Tokyo Electric Power Company's nuclear plant failed and its reactors began to melt down. Her home withstood the earthquake a decade ago but is now close to collapsing after years of being battered by wind, rain, and snow. "I'm surprised it's still standing," she said. #

Hisae Unuma wears a protective suit as she prays at her family's graveyard near her home during a visit of her house, on the anniversary of her husband's passing in a restricted zone in Futaba on February 23, 2021. #

In this picture taken on February 26, 2021, construction workers build a new seawall in the Taro district of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture. A decade after the deadly waves unleashed by one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history, the lesson learned in many coastal towns was to build higher. #

Fumio Ito, the head of public relations at Minami Sanriku Hotel Kanyo, recounts his experience of the 2011 tsunami disaster to participants during the Kataribe, or storytelling, bus tours in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 6, 2021. For nearly a decade, the Japanese hotel has been giving bus tours to show visitors the history of the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan’s Northern Pacific coast in 2011. #

Yoshihito Sasaki, 70, who lost his wife, Mikiko, and his younger son, Jinya, in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, looks at photos of his family that were damaged in the disaster and recovered by volunteers at his home in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, on February 26, 2021. #

A woman from Ofunato, who lost her junior high-school classmates in the 2011 earthquake, calls her late friends inside Kaze-no-Denwa, a phone booth set up for people to speak with their deceased loved ones, at Bell Gardia Kujira-yama, ahead of the 10th anniversary of the disaster, in Otsuchi town, Iwate Prefecture, on February 28, 2021. #

Kazuyoshi Sasaki, 67, who lost his wife, Miwako, in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, reacts as he calls his late wife inside Kazo-no-Denwa, a phone booth set up for people to call their deceased loved ones, in Otsuchi town, on February 27, 2021. Sasaki dialed his wife's cellphone number. He explained to her how he had searched for her for days. "It all happened in an instant, I can't forget it even now," he said, weeping. "I sent you a message telling you where I was, but you didn't check it. When I came back to the house and looked up at the sky, there were thousands of stars, it was like looking at a jewel box," he added. "I cried and cried and knew then that so many people must have died." #

Kazuyoshi Sasaki looks out over the former residential area that was devastated by the disaster, near the grave of his late wife Miwako, ahead of the 10th anniversary of the disaster, in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, on February 28, 2021. #