TOKYO (AP) — Japan marked the 15th anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster on its northeastern coast Wednesday as the government pushes for more use of atomic energy.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, ravaged parts of the region, caused more than 22,000 deaths and forced nearly half a million people to flee their homes, most of them due to tsunami damage.
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Prayers join their hands in Sendai, Miyagi prefecgture, northern Japan Wednesday, March 11, 2026, as the country marked the 15th anniversary of the massive earquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. (Natsumi Yasumoto/Kyodo News via AP)
Bystanders pray at 2:46 p.m., Wednesday, March 11, 2026 in Tokyo, as Japan marked the 15th anniversary of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that devastated the northeastern coast. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Peopel mourn in front of former Okawa Elementary School where lots of children and teachers from the school lost their lives by the massive tsunami in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan Wednesday, March 11, 2026, as the country marked the 15th anniversary of the massive earquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. (Mizuki Sakai/Kyodo News via AP)
Bystanders pray at 2:46 p.m., the moment the earthquake struck, Wednesday, March 11, 2026 in Tokyo, as Japan marked the 15th anniversary of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that devastated the northeastern coast. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People observe a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m., the moment the earthquake struck with a backdrop of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Namie, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan as the country marked the 15th anniversary of the massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. (Kyodo News via AP)
Some 160,000 people fled their homes in Fukushima because of the radiation spewed from the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. About 26,000 of them haven't returned because they resettled elsewhere, their hometowns remain off-limits or they have lingering concerns about radiation.
Japan observed a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m., the moment the quake occurred 15 years earlier.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, at a ceremony in Fukushima, pledged to do the utmost to accelerate the region's recovery within the next five years and reinforce “the valuable lessons we learned from the huge sacrifice of the disaster.”
Takaichi has pushed to accelerate reactor restarts and sought to bolster nuclear power as a stable energy source, in line with the major reversal of policy in 2022 that ended a decade-long nuclear phase-out plan.
Some residents in the tsunami-ravaged areas walked down to the coast early morning to pray for their loved ones and others whose remains are still missing.
More than 1 million homes, offices and schools were damaged or destroyed in the quake and tsunami in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima and other coastal areas. Key infrastructure has been rebuilt, but communities and local economies have been slow to recover.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant lost its power and cooling functions, causing meltdowns in three of its six reactors. The three reactors contain at least 880 tons of melted fuel debris, but details of the state inside them are little known due to the still-dangerous radiation levels.
Fuller-scale removal of melted fuel debris has been delayed until 2037 or later. At Unit 1 which just got a new roof, workers will shortly start taking out top-floor debris ahead of the planned spent fuel removal from its cooling pool, which will begin around 2027-2028.
There's also a massive amount of slightly radioactive soil, enough to fill 11 baseball stadiums, from the decontamination efforts across the area.
The government has pledged to move the soil and has sought to use some for road construction and other public works projects but has faced public resistance.
Prayers join their hands in Sendai, Miyagi prefecgture, northern Japan Wednesday, March 11, 2026, as the country marked the 15th anniversary of the massive earquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. (Natsumi Yasumoto/Kyodo News via AP)
Bystanders pray at 2:46 p.m., Wednesday, March 11, 2026 in Tokyo, as Japan marked the 15th anniversary of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that devastated the northeastern coast. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Peopel mourn in front of former Okawa Elementary School where lots of children and teachers from the school lost their lives by the massive tsunami in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan Wednesday, March 11, 2026, as the country marked the 15th anniversary of the massive earquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. (Mizuki Sakai/Kyodo News via AP)
Bystanders pray at 2:46 p.m., the moment the earthquake struck, Wednesday, March 11, 2026 in Tokyo, as Japan marked the 15th anniversary of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that devastated the northeastern coast. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People observe a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m., the moment the earthquake struck with a backdrop of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Namie, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan as the country marked the 15th anniversary of the massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. (Kyodo News via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran attacked commercial ships on Wednesday across the Persian Gulf and targeted Dubai International Airport, escalating a campaign of squeezing the oil-rich region as global energy concerns mounted and American and Israeli airstrikes pounded the Islamic Republic.
Two Iranian drones hit near Dubai International Airport, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates and the world’s busiest for international travel. Four people were wounded but flights continued, the Dubai Media Office said.
Iran's joint military command announced it would start targeting banks and financial institutions in the Middle East, a threat that would put at risk particularly Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, which is home to many international financial institutions, as well as Saudi Arabia and the island kingdom of Bahrain.
Earlier, a projectile hit a container ship off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, setting it ablaze and forcing most of the crew to abandon the vessel, the British military said. Kuwait said its defenses downed eight Iranian drones and Saudi Arabia said it intercepted five drones heading toward the kingdom’s Shaybah oil field.
Iran has effectively stopped cargo traffic in the narrow strait through which about a fifth of all oil is shipped from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean. It has also targeted oil fields and refineries in Gulf Arab nations, aiming at generating enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to end their strikes.
The U.N. Security Council was to vote later Wednesday on a resolution sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council demanding Iran stop attacking its Arab neighbors.
Israel said it renewed attacks on Tehran, Iran's capital, following multiple strikes Tuesday that residents described as some of the heaviest during the war. Explosions were also heard in Beirut and in southern Lebanon after Israel said it was hitting targets connected to the Iran-linked militant Hezbollah group.
The attacks set a building ablaze in central Beirut's densely populated Aicha Bakkar area, engulfing the top two floors. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Other Israeli strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon killed 14 people, and a Red Cross worker also died Wednesday of wounds sustained Monday, when his team was hit by an Israeli strike while they were rescuing people from an earlier attack.
More than 500 people have been killed so far in Lebanon since Hezbollah triggered the latest round of fighting with Israel after the American and Israeli attacks on Iran started.
Israel warned of three Iranian attacks early Wednesday, with sirens heard in Tel Aviv and elsewhere but no immediate reports of casualties.
Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed six ballistic missiles launched toward Prince Sultan Air Base, a major U.S.- and Saudi-operated facility and intercepted two drones over the eastern city of Hafar al-Batin.
In the Strait of Hormuz north of Oman, a cargo ship was hit with a projectile and set on fire, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, run by the British military.
The center also reported an attack on a container ship off the United Arab Emirates, saying the “extent of the damage is currently unknown but under investigation by the crew.” Another ship was hit by a projectile in the Persian Gulf, it said. The crew was reported safe.
The ship attacks follow intense American airstrikes targeting Iranian navy assets and the port city of Bandar Abbas on Tuesday.
Air defenses in the UAE worked to intercept incoming Iranian fire since early Wednesday morning. Iranian attacks have killed six people and wounded 122 others there so far. Bahrain also reported incoming Iranian fire early in the morning.
The Iranian threat against financial institutions did not identify any specifically, and came after a Tehran location of Bank Sepah, the state-owned financial institution sanctioned by the U.S. over funding its armed forces, came under attack early Wednesday, killing staffers there, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
At the United Nations, the Security Council was to vote Wednesday afternoon on the Gulf Cooperation Council resolution, according to three diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.
The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, condemns Iran’s attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan. The measure calls for an immediate end to all strikes and threats against neighboring states, including through proxies.
It would be the first Security Council resolution considered since the start of the war on Feb. 28.
Oil prices remained well below Monday's peaks but the price of Brent crude, the international standard, was still up some 20% Wednesday from when the war began, and consumers around the world are already feeling the pain at the pump.
The spike in oil prices has been rocking financial markets worldwide because of worries that the war could block the global flow of oil and natural gas for a long time.
The U.S. military said Tuesday it had destroyed 16 Iranian minelayers near the Strait of Hormuz, though U.S. President Donald Trump said in social media posts that there were no reports yet of Iran mining the passage, a prospect that experts warned of preceding the war.
If the strait is mined, it could take at least weeks to clean it up once the conflict is over.
Some tankers, believed linked to Iran, are continuing to get through the strait making so-called “dark” transits -- meaning they aren’t turning on their Automatic Identification System tracks, which show where vessels are. Vessels carrying sanctioned Iranian crude often turn off their AIS trackers.
The security firm Neptune P2P Group said Wednesday there had been seven ships pass through the strait since March 8. Of them, five were linked to Iranian-associated shipping, it said. In ordinary times the strait typically sees 100 ships or more transit daily from the Persian Gulf into the Gulf of Oman.
Meanwhile, the commodity-tracking firm Kpler said Iran has restarted crude exports through its Jask oil terminal on the Gulf of Oman. A tanker loaded roughly 2 million barrels at Jask on March 7, it said.
Concerns are growing over the health of Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei after comments about him “being injured.”
The 56-year-old Khamenei — the son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — has not been seen since since becoming supreme leader on Monday. His father and wife both were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the conflict.
In addition to the more than 500 killed in Lebanon, Iran has said that more than 1,300 people have been killed there and Israel has reported 12 people dead.
The U.S. has lost seven soldiers while another eight have suffered severe injuries.
Many foreign nationals have been getting out of the Persian Gulf region since the war began, including over 45,000 U.K. citizens, the British Foreign Office said. Some 40,000 people returned to the United States, according to the State Department.
Magdy reported from Cairo, and Rising from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Sally Abou AIJoud in Beirut, Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami, Julie Watson in San Diego, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this story.
FILE - A plume of smoke rises after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohsen Ganji, File)
Rescue workers gather at the site where Israeli airstrikes hit apartments in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People take shelter in an underground metro station as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strike, in Ramat Gan, Israel, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A man passes in front of a destroyed building that housed a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a non-bank financial institution run by Hezbollah, which was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People walk past closed shops at the nearly empty traditional main bazaar in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Motorbikes drive past a billboard depicting Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, handing the country’s flag to his son and successor Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, as the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stands at left, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
