Memories thought lost in last year's disaster miraculously resurface and are restored by volunteers, bringing untold joy to survivors. Here are images of the heroic effort to save photographs from Japan's earthquake and tsunami ravaged regions.
Photographs, washed away by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, are hung to dry after cleaning in Ofunato, February 20, 2012. The massive tsunami leveled buildings and flattened towns along a wide swathe of northern Japan, including Ofunato, but also took a more subtle toll, with hundreds of thousands of photographs lost to the churning waters.
(Reuters / Toru Hanai)
A volunteer cleans a family photo that was washed away by the tsunami as baby photos are placed to dry at a volunteer center.
(Reuters / Toru Hanai )
(Reuters / Toru Hanai)
(Reuters / Toru Hanai)
