Miyagi was the Japanese prefecture most affected by the 2011 tsunami. Located on the Pacific coast of northeastern Honshu, Miyagi faced some of the highest waves and suffered the greatest number of deaths among Japan’s prefectures.
The tsunami inundated extensive coastal areas, including Sendai, Japan’s largest city in the Tōhoku region, as well as Ishinomaki, Kesennuma, Natori, and Higashimatsushima. Ishinomaki was among the worst-hit communities, with thousands of people killed or missing. Miyagi also recorded the largest number of destroyed and damaged buildings.
Iwate and Fukushima were also devastated, so the answer is sometimes confused with the broader term Tōhoku. Tōhoku is a region, not a prefecture. Fukushima is widely associated with the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, but the tsunami’s largest overall human impact was in Miyagi. The earthquake’s strongest recorded shaking occurred in Miyagi’s Kurihara area.