GHOSTS OF THE TSUNAMI: DEATH AND LIFE IN JAPAN'S DISASTER ZONE

GHOSTS OF THE TSUNAMI: DEATH AND LIFE IN JAPAN'S DISASTER ZONE by Richard Lloyd Parry

The Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011 triggered an enormous 120-foot-high tsunami that slammed into the coast of northeast Japan, washing out villages and leaving eighteen thousand people trapped, drowned, and engulfed in the inferno of destruction. The aftermath set off a national crisis and subsequent meltdown of a nuclear power plant in Fukushima. And although the immediate emergency had ebbed, the trauma caused by the catastrophe continued to manifest in queer and mysterious ways.

Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, was in Tokyo when the earthquake struck. Having lived through the worst disaster since the atomic bomb hit Nagasaki, Richard spent the next six years reporting from the disaster zone. He found himself bewitched to a village that had suffered the greatest loss, forever haunted by baffling events in the aftermath of the quake. He had heard stories of ghosts and hauntings. He also met a priest who exorcised the spirits of the dead – evil, dark, and unforgiving of their untimely passing.
What really happened in the moments before the tsunami hit as the local children waited in the schoolyard? Why they were not evacuated to safety? And why was the disturbing truth being covered up?

Ghost of the Tsunami is an intimate account based on harrowing tales from those who managed to escape alive - a story of how a nation faced an epic tragedy, and the struggle to find consolation in the soul-wrenching ruins.