Update:Adds quotes, background and byline. Most memorial ceremonies timed to mark moment quake struck at 2:46 p.m. (12:46 a.m. EST, 0546 GMT).
Madoka Sato, Hiroko Sato, Haruka Tsubonuki and her husband, Kazuhiro, pray early Sunday for their grandmother Fumiko Mori, who was killed in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Members of the Japanese community gather in New York on Saturday night for a vigil to mark the first anniversary of the Japanese tsunami.
A couple walk in an area devastated by the 2011 tsunami in Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture, on Sunday.
People join hands facing the sea to mourn victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, on Sunday.
Tomoe Kimura is an evacuee of Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, who lost her grandchild in the 2011 tsunami. She wears a white protective suit and holds flowers as she offers prayers for the victims in the 20-kilometre exclusion zone that now includes Okuma on Sunday.
Passersby admire an ice sculpture for the victims of the 2011 earthquake in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, on Sunday.
Silent protesters wear face masks and wave anti-nuclear flags at a candlelight vigil in New York for the victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The disaster set off a nuclear crisis in Japan at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.
Anti-nuclear protesters hold a banner reading 'give us back Fukushima' in front of the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co. in Tokyo on Sunday.Reuters
Shizuko Ohashi throws flowers toward the sea to mourn her friends who died in the 2011 quake, as friend Toshio Ishikawa looks on in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, on Sunday.
Residents in Ofunato, Iwate prefecture, hang lanterns at a memorial site in an area damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Journalist who covered the tsunami memorial in Okuma town are scanned for radiation inside the no-entry zone in Fukushima prefecture on Sunday.