Five years ago on this March 11th, Japan was hit by a tragic trifecta: an earthquake, tsunami...
and then a nuclear meltdown.
Bells rang all across Japan...
at 2:46 p.m. local time, the exact moment the 9-point-oh quake was detected.
People across the country took a moment of silence... bowed their heads as a mark of
respect for the nearly 20-thousand people who died that day.
The Japanese government also marked the fifth anniversary in a national ceremony along with
residents from the affected regions.
On March 11th, 2011 the powerful offshore earthquake spawned a monster tsunami... along
the country's northeastern coast and sparked the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl
in 1986.