For me the most enduring images of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami have not been the larger-than-life pictures of nature’s all-too destructive forces. These, certainly, are breathtaking in their scale and horror. Few will soon forget the footage of a 30ft wave, churning like an angry beast up the shore – cars, boats and even entire houses, some of them aflame, tossed in its muddy intensity. Nor will they quickly erase the image of the seaside town of Rikuzentaka in the tsunami’s silent aftermath, its wooden houses shredded into rough-hewn matchstick, a graveyard for the drowned.
在日本地震和海啸中，给人留下最难以磨灭印象的，并非反映大自然无与伦比的毁灭力量的非凡画面。这些画面就其声势和恐怖程度而言自然是令人惊心动魄。人们不会很快忘记这样的镜头：30英尺高的巨浪就像一头愤怒的野兽奔腾上岸，汽车、船只乃至整幢房屋（其中有的正在燃烧）被混浊的泥水抛来抛去。人们也不会很快忘记海啸过后海边小镇陆前高田市的死寂：木房子被撕成了碎木条，像是胡乱砍成的细木棍，整座城镇变成了溺毙者的墓地。