Devastation: James Nachtwey’s Pictures from Japan

When the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck Japan at 2:46 p.m. local time on March 11, 2011, TIME photographer James Nachtwey was at home in Thailand. Within 48 hours, he traveled to Japan and made his way north of Sendai to Kesennuma, where he began documenting the catastrophe while under threat of possible nuclear contamination. Nachtwey describes what he saw:

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