Post thoughts ....

Being in Japan, I was reminded of the devastation north of Tokyo in the Sendai region.  For a very somber reminder of the destruction take a look at this.

Further, if you zoom into the maps along the coast, Goggle's current images are updated to post tsunami as have the street view images.  You can literally take a self guided tour of the area.  The difference in time between the satellite and the street view images shows you how aggressively they are cleaning the area up.  Even still, there are vast swaths of leveled areas, and boats and debris litter the fields.

Take a look at this.

Chris