AP PHOTOS: Legacies of a disaster dot Japan's tsunami coast

An elementary school where more than 70 students and teachers perished.

The skeleton of the three-story disaster prevention headquarters in Minamisanriku, where 43 workers died as the tsunami washed over it, sticks up amid ongoing work around it to raise the city's ground level.

Mayor Jin Sato, who survived by clinging to a railing on the disaster center's rooftop as waves washed over it, said recently that citizens are being given 15 more years to decide the building's fate.

A small but steady stream of visitors climbs "Weather Hill" to pay respects at a memorial for about 1,000 residents killed by the tsunami.