Five years ago a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan’s northeastern shore—the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to have hit Japan—generating enormous tsunami waves that spread across miles of shoreline, climbing as high as 130 feet (40 meters). The powerful inundation of seawater tore apart coastal towns and villages, carrying ships inland as thousands of homes were flattened, then washed tons of debris and vehicles back out to sea. Damage to the reactors at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant then caused a third disaster, contaminating a wide area that still forces nearly 100,000 residents to live as evacuees. The March 11 earthquake and subsequent disasters cost tens of billions of dollars, and nearly 16,000 lives.

1. A tsunami reaches Miyako City, overtopping seawalls and flooding streets in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the area March 11, 2011.
Mainichi Shimbun / Reuters
2. People take shelter as a ceiling collapses in a bookstore during the earthquake in Sendai, northeastern Japan, on March 11, 2011.
Kyodo / KYODO Kyodo / Reuters
3. Quake-damaged, natural-gas storage tanks burn at the Cosmo oil refinery in Ichihara city, Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, on March 11, 2011.
Asahi / Reuters
4. Tsunami waves hit the coast of Minamisoma in Fukushima Prefecture, photographed on March 11, 2011 by Sadatsugu Tomizawa and released via Jiji Press on March 21, 2011.
Sadatsugu Tomizawa / AFP / Getty
5. Houses are swept by a tsunami in Natori City in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
6. A destructive tsunami rolls ashore in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011.
Mainichi / Nippon News
7. Streets are flooded after a tsunami and earthquake in Kesennuma city, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 11, 2011.
Yomiuri / Reuters
8. Sendai Airport is swept by a tsunami on March 11, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
9. Toya Chiba, a reporter for local newspaper Iwate Tokai Shimbun, is swept by a tsunami at Kamaishi port, Iwate Prefecture on March 11, 2011, in a photograph released by Kamaishi Port Office via Kyodo on April 14, 2011. Chiba managed to survive the tsunami by grabbing a dangling rope and climbing onto a coal heap around 8 meters high after being swept along for about 30 meters, Kyodo News reported.
Kamaishi Port Office via Kyodo / Reuters
10. This picture taken by a Sendai city official, Hiroshi Kawahara on March 11, 2011, shows muddy tsunami water swallowing vehicles and houses at a bridge in Sendai city in Miyagi Prefecture.
Hiroshi Kawahara / AFP / Getty
11. Hirono Power Station is seen as a wave approaches after an earthquake in Hirono Town, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 11, 2011.
Yomiuri Yomiuri / Reuters
12. People watch the aftermath of tsunami waves after an earthquake at the Kessennuma port, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 11, 2011.
Yomiuri / Reuters
13. Fishing boats and vehicles are carried by a tsunami wave at Onahama port in Iwaki city, northern Japan, on March 11, 2011.
Fukushima Minpo / AFP / Getty
14. Whirlpools are seen following a tsunami and earthquake in Iwaki city, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 11, 2011.
Yomiuri Yomiuri / Reuters
15. Houses, some ablaze, are swept by seawater following a tsunami and earthquake in Natori city in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
16. People are stranded on the top of a building in Minami Sanriku, Miyagi, Japan, following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
Naoki Ueda / Yomiuri Shiimbun / AP
17. Sendai Airport is surrounded by swirling seawater after a tsunami following an earthquake in Sendai, Japan, on March 11, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
18. Cars and airplanes swept by a tsunami sit among debris at Sendai Airport on March 11, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
19. Houses burn at night following the earthquake, in Natori city on March 11, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
20. Houses lie flattened after a powerful earthquake in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 11, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
21. Smoke rises from burning buildings in Yamadamachi in Iwate Prefecture, on March 12, 2011, a day after the earthquake and tsunami.
Kenji Shimizu / Yomiuri Shimbun / AP
22. A wrecked sports car sits in flood waters in Soma city, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, on March 14, 2011.
Wally Santana / AP
23. A destroyed landscape is pictured in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture on March 14, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
24. Firefighters search for victims on March 14, 2011, in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, three days after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck.
Wally Santana / AP
25. Cargo containers lie toppled and scattered after the earthquake in Sendai on March 12, 2011.
Itsuo Inouye / AP
26. A patient is evacuated from a destroyed hospital in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, on March 13, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
27. Debris covers a huge area in Natori, near Sendai, on March 13, 2011.
Mike Clarke / AFP / Getty
28. Ships washed ashore by the tsunami sit on the land near a port in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 13, 2011.
Itsuo Inouye / AP
29. Rescuers walk among collapsed houses and ships that were smashed together on the shore by the tsunami in Miyako on March 15, 2011.
Koichi Kamoshida / ZUMA Press / Corbis
30. An aerial view of tsunami-devastated Kamaishi, Iwate prefecture, on March 13, 2011.
EPA
31. Rescue workers hold a girl they rescued from a building after the tsunami and earthquake in Kesennuma on March 12, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
32. A man walks in a destroyed street in the devastated city of Ishinomaki on April 15, 2011.
Hitoshi Yamada / NurPhoto / Corbis
33. In this image made from Japan's NTV/NNN, a news program, smoke ascends from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's Unit 3 in Okumamachi, northern Japan, on March 14, 2011. The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken nuclear plant, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding 11 workers.
NTV / dapd / AP
34. Burned-out cars in earthquake-damaged Hitachi Harbour in Ibaraki Prefecture on March 12, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
35. A ferry stranded atop a building in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, on March 13, 2011.
Yomiuri Shimbun / dapd / AP
36. The hand of a man killed in the earthquake and tsunami, discovered among concrete sea barriers, on March 14, 2011, in Toyoma, northern Japan.
Gregory Bull / AP
37. Rescue workers search through rubble in an area hit by the earthquake and tsunami in Otsuchi on March 15, 2011.
Aly Song / Reuters
38. A woman looks at the damage caused by a tsunami and an earthquake in Ishimaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 13, 2011.
Yomiuri Shimbun / Reuters
39. A vehicle sits half-submerged at a crossroad after the earthquake and tsunami in Sendai on March 12, 2011.
Jo Yong-Hak / Reuters
40. The interior of a restaurant is strewn with debris after the recent tsunami, close to the airport in Sendai on March 14, 2011.
Philippe Lopez / AFP / Getty
41. Buildings destroyed by a tsunami are pictured in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 13, 2011.
Kyodo / Reuters
42. Officials in protective gear check for signs of radiation on children from the evacuation area near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Koriyama, on March 13, 2011.
Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters
43. A Japanese home is seen adrift in the Pacific Ocean on March 13, 2011. The structure was spotted as ships and aircraft from the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group were searching for survivors in the coastal waters near Sendai, Japan.
Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dylan McCord / U.S. Navy
44. Five years later, on February 25, 2016, TEPCO employees work at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The decontamination and decommissioning process at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s embattled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant continues in Okuma, Japan. Quake and tsunami damage to the nuclear reactors in 2011 caused a nuclear disaster which still forces 99,750 people to live as evacuees, housed away from contaminated areas.
Christopher Furlong / Getty
45. On February 26, 2016, five years after the disaster, a lone house sits on the scarred landscape, inside the exclusion zone, close to the devastated Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Namie, Fukushima, Japan. The area is now closed to residents due radiation contamination from the Fukishima nuclear disaster.
Christopher Furlong / Getty
46. Personal items are strewn around a tsunami damaged home inside the exclusion zone close to the devastated Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on February 26, 2016, in Minamisoma, Fukushima, Japan.
Christopher Furlong / Getty
47. A graveyard stands in the tsunami scarred landscape, inside the exclusion zone, close to the devastated Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on February 26, 2016 in Namie, Fukushima Japan. Thousands of homes used to stand here.
Christopher Furlong / Getty
48. The passing of five years shows in a parking lot, as vegetation and the elements begin to take their toll on vehicles, homes, and businesses inside the deserted exclusion zone close to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on February 26, 2016 in Tomioka, Fukushima, Japan.
Christopher Furlong / Getty