On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake off Japan triggered a huge tsunami along the Tohoku coast. The waves killed thousands and caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Coastal towns, farms, fisheries, and ideas of technological safety were transformed at once.

Japanese poets responded through haiku, tanka, print anthologies, and digital forms such as Wago Ryoichi's post-Fukushima Twitter poems. The disaster fused ancient tsunami memory with nuclear anxiety, creating poetry of salt water, sirens, radiation, and vanished home towns.