It’s amazing and disheartening that over 3800 are still missing. Gut-wrenching videos.
Sadly, the people along the coast had gone a long time without a big tsunami, and forgot about the terrible power behind those waves. We were watching a show about the earthquake a few months ago, and a Japanese man mentioned a stone marker up on a rise above the ruins of one of the towns. He said that the marker was placed as a warning, after the last big tsunami had reached that level, for people NOT to build below that marker. This tsunami reached that marker, as well, and if the people had heeded the warning, many wouldn't have died.
Many of these missing, or at least parts of them, will soon begin washing up on beaches from British Columbia to South America thanks to ocean currents as the huge 'islands' of tsunami debris out in the ocean are pushed ashore by currents.