Japan marks quake, tsunami anniversary

Amid growing dissatisfaction with the slow pace of recovery, Japan marked the second anniversary on March 11 of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that left nearly 19,000 people dead or missing and displaced more than 300,000.

Pictured: People bowed their heads in a moment of silence marking the moment, at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake — the strongest recorded in Japan’s history — struck off the coast.

Read more | Japan two years later

Aya Sugaya threw a bouquet of flowers into the sea for her husband, who was never found.

A man prayed for the victims killed by the tsunami on the sandy shore at Arahama in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan.

Transportation officials held an evacuation drill to prepare for a major earthquake in Tokyo. Participants acted as if they were not been able to return home due to a strong earthquake, during a disaster drill at Yurakucho subway station in Tokyo on March 11.

A man walked in front of a destroyed former town government office in Ootsuti, Iwate prefecture, Japan.

Police officers wearing protective suits and masks searched for people missing from the earthquake and tsunami in Okuma town, inside the no-go zone around the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Fukushima.

Japan has struggled to rebuild communities and to clean up radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

Pictured: A sign warned people to say out of an area where piles of radiation-contaminated soil sit on the sports field of a school in the abandoned town of Yamakiya, outside the exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan.

A solar-powered radiation meter indicated radiation levels beside the sports ground of a school in the abandoned town of litate, outside the exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan on March 3.

Antinuclear activists gathered together and displayed a “No Nukes’’ sign during a protest on March 10 in Kobe, Japan.

Sumiko Yoshida (right) and her sister Katsue Nagano (left) prayed at the tomb for five of their family members who were killed in the tsunami in Rikuzentakata city.

Bags of radiation-contaminated waste sat next to playground in the abandoned town of Naraha, just outside the exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan. Decontamination efforts have begun in the town but resident have not been allowed to return for more than brief visits.

Photos taken March 13, 2011, (top) and March 2, 2013, showed the frames of the Disaster Prevention Office building and its surrounding area in Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture.

Photos taken April 10, 2011,(left) and March 1, 2013, showed an aerial view of Kamaishi Port in Kamaishi, Iwate prefectutre.

Photos showed a street in Miyako, Iwate prefecture, on March 12, 2011 (left) and March 1, 2013.

Photos taken April 12, 2011, (top) and March 1, 2013, showed a street in Futaba in the exclusion zone around the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

Photos showed taken March 22, 2011, (top) and March 1, 2013, of a bridge in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture.

Photos taken March 12, 2011, (left) and March 1, 2013, showed a street in Miyako, Iwate prefecture.

Photos taken March 17, 2011, (top) and Feb. 28, 2013, showed the luggage claim area at Sendai Airport in Natori, Miyagi prefecture.

Photos taken March 11, 2011, (top) and Feb. 27, 2013, showed the harbor area of Kamaishi, Iwate prefecture.

Photos taken on March 12, 2011, (top) and March 4, 2013, showed an aerial view of Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture.

Photos taken March 11, 2011, (top) and Feb. 27, 2013, showed a view of Kamaishi, Iwate prefecture.

A worker walked past bags of radioactive waste at a temporary storage site in Naraha.

A police officer searched for missing people on the coast in Namie, near the striken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

Volunteers cleaned pictures found in debris at the Tsukidate elementary school in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture .

A devastated area was still left within the former exclusion zone, about 10 miles away from Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

Police officers searched for tsunami victims two years after the devastating disaster in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture.