Google Preserves Memory of Tsunami and Street View of Affected Areas

By Ken Aichi

Google's Mirai e no Kioku (memories for the future) project is full of pre-tsunami and post-tsunami photos and videos. It aims to preserve memory of what a beautiful place Tohoku was (and hopefully will be!), as well as memories of disaster itself.

The photos themselves are crowd-sourced; anyone can upload their photos and videos. Some of the pre-tsunami photos are absolutely amazing.

The March and April photos are difficult viewing as they display the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. From then on, the photos take on a more hopeful tone as the areas slowly start to be cleaned up, and life begins to return.

For their part, Google spent July 2011 using their street view cars to take 360º photos of the affected areas. You can now view "before and after" street views - there is also a tool to compare them easily.

Have a look at miraikioku.com - the site itself is in Japanese, but it's easy enough to understand.

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