Google Street View captures reconstruction efforts of Japan earthquake, 4 years after

On the four-year anniversary of the Tōhoku earthquake, also known as the Great East Japan Earthquake, that caused tsunamis and widespread havoc across Japan, Google has revealed a partnership with Japan’s Urban Renaissance Agency (URA) to capture some of the reconstruction work that’s been going on in the affected areas.

The resulting imagery has been added to Street View, revealing some of the effort taking place within the Tōhoku’s Iwate Prefecture, an area that saw tsunami waves reach more than 40 metres in height. Google and its partners have also captured indoor panorama pictures of facilities contained within Fukushima’s evacuation areas, as well as views from the ocean.

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You can even see the huge conveyor belt in Rikuzentakata that’s been constructed to transport 20,000 cubic meters of soil a day to help regenerate the area.

It’s estimated that some 16,000 people lost their lives in the disaster on March 11, 2011, with more than 2,000 listed as missing and 250,000 still displaced.

While Street View has traditionally been about capturing, well, views of streets to include in Google Maps, the Internet giant has increasingly been taking its cameras into more and more unusual places, including underwater at the Great Barrier Reef, earlier this month it revealed it entered the Amazon rainforest on a zipline through the treetops.