![]() “I knew from everyday experience that LGBT+ friends and folks in those communities would be especially isolated and in need of support,” Azusa explained in an interview with me, as a part of my research on LGBT+ disaster vulnerability and resilience. Yet, for Yamashita Azusa, and other Tohoku LGBT+ activists, this question was top of mind. ![]() All told, nearly half a million people had to be evacuated out of the tsunami inundation zone in a very short time, to some 2,400 emergency shelters across the region.Īs the disaster was unfolding on news channels and streaming across screens throughout the world, the last thing on many people’s minds was how individuals in the local LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other gender and sexual minorities) community might be faring. Homes that remained standing were cut off from power, gas, and water, and structural damage made people’s living spaces uninhabitable for weeks and even months after the initial earthquake. The tsunami killed nearly 19,000 people and smashed into the Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing one of the worst nuclear meltdowns in human history.įor hundreds of miles the damage sprawled across towns dotting the Tohoku coastline, in some cases washing away entire communities. On March 11, 2011, a powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a deadly tsunami that struck Japan’s northeastern region of Tohoku.
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