An overview of respiratory medicine during the Tsunami Disaster at Tohoku, Japan, on March 11, 2011

A 9.0-magnitude earthquake, with an epicenter 150 km east of the Tohoku area of Japan in the deep Pacific Ocean, triggered an unexpectedly huge tsunami and caused 19,000 casualties along 500 km of the Pacific coast in northern Japan, as documented by Ozawa et al. [1]. This brief review provides an overview of the tsunami disaster and ensuing respiratory medical conditions, from emergency rescue conditions to chronic stage diseases, leading to a series of reviews, original articles, and case reports. Successive mega-earthquakes in the previous decade around the world may suggest a shift in the Earth's geological state from the stable to the active stage. The “tsunami lung” term is not limited to the near-drowning lung; inhalation of the sandy wave or of the sludge and slime near industrialized areas can cause inflammation and rare semi-acute phase fungal infections. Although the long-term outcomes of tsunami-related respiratory medicine need further analysis, determining how to reduce the extent of damage is a critical and central issue.