Japan is marking the 15th anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster on its northeastern coast as the government pushes for atomic energy use. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami ravaged parts of the region, caused more than 22,000 deaths and forced as many as 160,000 people to flee their homes, some of them still unable to return. The country observed a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. Wednesday marking the moment the quake occurred. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, at a ceremony in Fukushima, pledged to do the utmost to speed the region's recovery. She has been pushing to speed up restarts of reactors and bolster nuclear power even as the decommissioning of the plant wrecked by the tsunami continues.
