People in the News, 1st prize
Tsunami
Yasuyoshi Chiba
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
28 March, 2011
Fisherman Yutaka Watanabe sits on the roof of a destroyed house, while looking for missing family members.
Yasuyoshi Chiba
Yasuyoshi Chiba is Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) Chief Photographer for East Africa and Indian Ocean, currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. After studying phot...
Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture, Japan
Fisherman Yutaka Watanabe sits on the roof of a destroyed house, while looking for missing family members. On 11 March, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck 70 kilometers off the Tohoku coast, in northeastern Japan. The quake triggered a tsunami that swept inland over an area of some 500 square kilometers, destroying buildings, crippling infrastructure, and resulting in the displacement of more than 340,000 people. The earthquake was the most powerful ever to hit Japan, and one of the most forceful documented in the world. Flooding and damage to transport connections, power stations, and other vital facilities severely hindered recovery operations.
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