GHOSTS OF THE TSUNAMI

The definitive account of what happened, why, and above all how it felt, when catastrophe hit Japan—by the Japan correspondent of The Times (London) and author of People Who Eat Darkness.

On March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than eighteen thousand people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned.

It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways.

Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo and spent six years reporting from the disaster zone. There he encountered stories of ghosts and hauntings, and met a priest who exorcised the spirits of the dead. And he found himself drawn back again and again to a village that had suffered the greatest loss of all, a community tormented by unbearable mysteries of its own.

What really happened to the local children as they waited in the schoolyard in the moments before the tsunami? Why did their teachers not evacuate them to safety? And why was the unbearable truth being so stubbornly covered up?

Ghosts of the Tsunami is an intimate account of an epic tragedy, told through the accounts of those who lived through it. It tells the story of how a nation faced a catastrophe and the struggle to find consolation in the ruins.

Relatarea definitiva a ceea ce s-a intamplat, de ce si mai presus de tot ce s-a simtit, cand catastrofa a lovit Japonia - de corespondentul japonez al The Times (Londra) si autorul cartii People Who Eat Darkness. La 11 martie 2011, un cutremur puternic a trimis un Un tsunami de 120 de metri inaltime care a lovit coasta nord-estului Japoniei. In momentul in care marea s-a retras, mai mult de optsprezece mii de oameni au fost zdrobiti, arsi pana la moarte sau inecati. A fost cea mai mare pierdere de vieti din Japonia de la bombardamentul atomic din Nagasaki.