tsunami

Some people on Indonesia’s Simeulue island relied on folklore to escape the 2004 tsunami

Natural disasters

The majority of deaths from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami were in Indonesia. But the island of Simeulue was largely spared. Researchers say this was partly due to folklore passed down through the generations that residents are now trying to keep alive.

Survivors in Indonesia grapple with trauma as they rebuild their lives 20 years after devastating tsunami

Development
In this Nov. 12, 2011 file photo, workers in protective suits and masks wait to enter the emergency operation center at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Okuma, Japan.

Author Yoichi Funabashi on Fukushima crisis 10 years later: Nuclear energy was and still is ‘unforgiving’

New Orleans trumpet player Travis "Trumpet Black" Hill helped link New Orleans to the many jazz fans and musicians of Japan.

In New Orleans, Marco explores Japan’s jazz links to the Big Easy

Music
Children play near a Geiger counter that monitors radiation at a kindergarten about 30 miles from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The government is increasingly pushing families displaced by the disaster to return to their home

Some of Japan’s ‘nuclear refugees’ can finally go home — but they don’t want to

Environment
Rasen kaigan (Spiral Shore) 45 from the series Rasen kaigan (Spiral Shore), 2012.

These artists remember the Fukushima disaster through their photography

Arts

On the fourth anniversary of the tsunami and nuclear disaster, a museum displays photographers who not only recorded the event’s physical effects but interpreted the tragedy’s overarching significance.

Shelter Communities in Post-Tsunami Japan

How one man leads in crisis to become the de facto “mayor” of his shelter.