In March 2011, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami plunged the nation of Japan into its worst crisis since World War II. The magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake about 43 miles off the peninsula of Tohoku killed some 16,000 people, injured more than 6,000 and left nearly 3,000 missing. It destroyed or damaged more than one million buildings. A great deal of that damage was from the tsunami generated by the quake, inundating areas as far as six miles inland, with waves as high as 133 feet.

Estimates of insured damage from the earthquake alone approach $35 billion on the high side and total economic losses are estimated at $235 billion, making this the most costly natural disaster in history—without even taking into account the long-term effects of the multiple nuclear accidents the event caused.

One of the very few "good" things to come from this horrific event was that it occurred in an age when just about anybody affected by the disaster had the ability to video it and upload the footage online. The entire globe could bear witness to the tragedy, and many did in the weeks and months that followed. But the clips stopped after a while, and the event slipped into the realms of Something That Happened Somewhere Else & Could Never Happen Here.