The catfish of DOOM

In 1855 an earthquake struck Tokyo causing considerable amounts of damage and killing 7,000 people. Popular legend held that giant catfish, who lived underground, caused earthquakes. After the 1855 earthquake a number of prints circulated with a catfish theme.

These few examples, and those after the jump, are from the Pink Tentacle post, Namazu-e: Earthquake catfish prints. At that link are many more examples of those prints as well as captions explaining each print.

View the large set of full sized pictures at The Frame

The Frame, the Sacramento Bee's photo section, has an article Japan marks 6 months since earthquake, tsunami that shows a large number of photographs, taken from the same angle, showing the damage immediately after the earthquake/tsunami struck, 3 months later and 6 months later (the above sample only shows the immediate aftermath and 6 months later). 

It is a remarkable set of photographs and a sobering reminder of the scale of damage Japan experienced and the size of the cleanup they've done in the last half of year. It is heartening to see the progress they've made.