A month after the earthquake and tsunami obliterated cities along the Tohoku coast, Japan is struggling to limp back to some semblance of normalcy while coming to grips with the unprecedented disaster.
But critics say the country could have done more to mitigate the catastrophe.
"The tsunami and the earthquake were bigger than anything I have experienced," said Ryohei Morimoto, an honorary member of the Association for Earthquake Disaster Prevention and a retired professor of volcanology at the University of Tokyo.