Striking Photographs from Japan, Six Months After the Disaster

The Atlantic has some great photos of Japan, from shortly after the double whammy of a tsunami & earthquake, and six months later.  Did you know that this past Sunday was not only the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, but also the six month anniversary of what happened in Japan?  Neither did I.  But the Japanese probably did not oversee that day.  I am no expert, but I was impressed by how much the Japanese were able to accomplish, judging on the before/after photos.  While it's still obvious that a major calamity occurred, this was met with major cleanup efforts, and a lot of the mess and the debris in the "before" photos is not present in the "after" photos.  I wonder how these same locales in the pictures will look, say, 10 years from now.  It will be interesting to contrast a "10 years after" compilation of photos from northeastern Japan with photos from the WTC site (which still has not been replaced) or photos from post-Katrina New Orleans.