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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).

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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.

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Members of the Japanese community gather in New York on Saturday night for a vigil to mark the first anniversary of the Japanese tsunami.

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A couple walk in an area devastated by the 2011 tsunami in Minamisanriku, Miyagi prefecture, on Sunday.

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People join hands facing the sea to mourn victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, on Sunday.

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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.

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Passersby admire an ice sculpture for the victims of the 2011 earthquake in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, on Sunday.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Residents in Ofunato, Iwate prefecture, hang lanterns at a memorial site in an area damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

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Journalist who covered the tsunami memorial in Okuma town are scanned for radiation inside the no-entry zone in Fukushima prefecture on Sunday.

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