DUSHANBE, July 4, 2013, Asia-Plus — Embassy of Japan in Dushanbe in cooperation with National Library of Tajikistan and Japan Foundation are conducting a photo-exhibition “Tohoku — Through the Eyes of Japanese Photographers.”
The exhibition that is being held at the National Library of Tajikistan from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm was launched on July 3 and runs through July 21.
Japan’s Embassy in Dushanbe notes that the great earthquake that assaulted Japan on March 11, 2011 devastated the Tohoku region. Everyone has vivid memories of the riveting photo and video images that were quickly broadcast around the world by the mass media, and were quickly answered by waves of sympathy and support for the recovery effort.
The exhibition of photographs of Tohoku does not show the damage or recovery but instead uses photography to show the natural and cultural environment of Tohoku along with its people and their way of life.
The exhibition composed of the work of nine individual photographers and one photographers’ group who belong to a variety of generations and stylistic tendencies but all from Tohoku. By presenting the viewpoints of highly individualistic photographers who represent the past, present and future, this exhibition aims at introducing fascinating aspects of Tohoku to the people of the world, Japan’s Embassy said.
The Great East Japan Earthquake, as it is named by the Japanese, was extraordinarily devastating to a country long used to and well prepared for natural disasters.
On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m., an unprecedented earthquake hit the eastern half of Japan. In less than ten minutes, the first waves of a tsunami arrived on a scale that no one in Japan ever dreamed of. The magnitude of the earthquake was first said to be 8.4 and then changed into 9.0 on the Richter scale, the largest in the recorded history of Japan and the fourth highest in the world.
The maximum reach of the tsunami was more than 40 meters above sea level – at least three to four times higher than most experts had anticipated. Successive waves of seawater washed away almost everything within one to six kilometers from the coastline, affecting over 30 cities and towns in six prefectures, spanning more than 500 kilometers along the coastline. As of 5 August,2011, the death toll had reached 16,050-plus, and the number of missing more than 7,780. A total of more than 23,800 people were killed in the end, the highest loss from any disaster since World War II in Japan.
