New Year’s Day quake in Japan revives the trauma of 2011 triple disasters

The powerful earthquake that shattered the peace of New Year’s Day in central Japan did not spur the kind of tsunamis that scoured the northeastern Pacific coast in 2011. The tsunamis that did roll in along the Sea of Japan coast were mostly just a few feet, rather than waves of up to 15 feet tall predicted in alerts issued just after the magnitude 7.6 quake struck on Monday afternoon. But the dire tsunami and dozens of strong quakes that came before and after the main jolts summoned memories of the triple disasters nearly 13 years ago that forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and left more than 20,000 people dead or missing.