TOKYO: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led a sombre ceremony Sunday as Japan marked the seventh anniversary of a deadly earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that devastated its north eastern coast and left around 18,500 people dead or missing. The killer tsunami also swamped the emergency power supply at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, sending its reactors into meltdown as cooling systems failed in what was the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. The 70-year-old woman from Fukushima was hit by tsunami waves right after she began preparing to leave the area with her husband and uncle. "I grabbed a pine tree but I was swamped by the tsunami... My husband got away from me and he shouted 'Hideko' three times," she said. The total of dead or missing from the earthquake and the tsunami stood at 18,434 people, according to the National Police Agency.

Source: The Star March 11, 2018 07:41 UTC