This morning I was watching some of the news and documentaries on the NHK channel about the people who survived and what is currently happening in the Tohoku region which was hit by the tsunami on March 3, 2011. Today is the 9th memorial anniversary of the most devastating “perfect storm” of natural disasters, where a magnitude 9.1 earthquake triggered a huge tsunami that would destroy and result in a nuclear plant meltdown in Fukushima. 22,000 people have died or gone missing and the lost and damage of property costs run into the billions of dollars. I remember very clearly where I was on March 9, 2011. It is one of those events in your life that like any major disaster or tragedy that is close or related to you, you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on that day. Most people cannot imagine a tsunami wall of water as high as 30 meters, traveling as fast as 800 kilometers and severely pulverizing over 1,000 kilometers of the northeastern coast of the Tohoku area. After the disaster during the first year, TV and video footage of the Tohoku disaster and reconstruction were on the news daily. But I always believed that if you did not see such type of devastation for yourself, you could not really understand or feel to what extent the people of the region have suffered and struggled with the unimaginable loss of life and property. Eight months after the horrific disaster, I decided to go and see with my own eyes the Tohoku region and what had happened after the tsunami.
Since Tohoku is in a very outlying, remote area of Honshu, to get to Tohoku from Kyoto where I live is very far and inconvenient, and cost quite a bit. The first time we took an all night bus for 13 hours from Kyoto Station to Fukushima Station and then rented a car to get to the Tohoku coast. On the return, we took the Tohoku Shinkansen to Tokyo and then transferred to the Tokaido Shinkansen to Kyoto (total about five hours). The transportation just to and from Fukushima is very costly. And once you get to Fukushima Station, you have to rent a car and drive to the coast since at that time the trains were not running and the areas hit by the tsunami were inaccessible except by car. Two years after, I also visited a second time to see the northern coast of Iwate Prefecture that on the first trip we were unable to get to due to the lack of time. Even two years later, there were still some towns that had nothing built. There was nothing but soil in the places where buildings once stood.
Today as I watched the documentary stories on the Tohoku disaster and what is happening there now on TV, I teared up when hearing some of the survivor’s stories. They were talking about the word “fukkou” in Japanese which would translate as “reconstruction,” “recovered,” or “revival.” Everyone in the media keeps talking about if the area has recovered from the 3/9/11 disaster. The people from the area were saying that it is not only about physical buildings and things being replaced, it is about the feeling of returning home and that many of the people who once lived in their towns have either relocated or moved out from the area and most did not feel that after nine years, the reconstruction and revival has healed this feeling of loss and despair. There was also a Tsunami Memorial Museum in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture featured in one of the stories that I one day hope to visit as well as some other towns and cities in the Tohoku region have set up memorial museums or sites of the tsunami disaster so future generations will never forget what happened. One town has even left one large tsunami-ravaged building untouched, as it was after the tsunami as a memorial and reminder to people who visit of what happened on March 9, 2011. The tsunami severely hit 500 kilometers coastline. Towns along the coastline are connected by long, narrow, winding country roads. These roads were heavily damaged, some destroyed completely which made getting help and supplies to them very difficult right after the tsunami hit. My hope is to be able to visit the area again after so many years have passed. I feel a connection to the area because I personally went to the area soon after the disaster occurred and with my own eyes saw what had happened and how it had affected the people and businesses of the region. I strongly recommend that if you really want to have a good perspective of what happened in an area of a major event or disaster, is to visit the area after a few months have passed. But please be mindful, if you visit too soon, you will be in the way and people will not appreciate you looking around when they are still in recovery mode and grieving. But by actually visiting, you will give life to the stories and people that you watched and heard about on TV and in the news. In addition, you can help the area economically with your hotel, meal and rental car costs. Every little bit helps. I will attach some of the photos below that I took on that first visit to Tohoku in November 2011.
I will also attach my article that was published in the Hawaii Herald on March 16, 2012 at the bottom of this post. Click on the turquoise colored button called “Japan’s Perfect Storm.”
This area was in Iwaki-cho. Eight months later, clean up and rebuilding was in full swing, but there were still many lots for homes that were once there but completely gone except for the cement base of the house.
Minamisoma City was once an active residential area. When we drove out to this area, it was a bit eerie as all that was left were tall mounds of rock and dirt. You would have never known that this was once a residential area with hundreds of homes.
This is was what was left of what I believe to be the train tracks.
In Ishinomaki City, at that time there were these huge mountains of rubble and debris from the tsunami. It was amazing how much debris they had collected in many sites throughout the city.
A closer look at the size of the mountain of debris.
The people in the yellow vests along the side of the street were volunteers. But the work was overwhelming. You can see behind them another mountain of debris. The large red metal container in the middle of the road was from a whale canning company and sat on the top of a building before the tsunami.
This was in a small coastal town which I don’t recall the name.. They were clearing and cleaning up the debris into piles. Look what is on the building on the right side.
The tsunami was so high and strong that it carried the bus and left it on the second floor of the city hall.
This is another collection of debris out in the country area. Mangled iron rods and all the industrial and manufacturing materials all collected and put into large piles.
Hundreds of cars were no longer functional after the tsunami completely swallowed them and left them completely for dead, thus, a car graveyard.
This was in Ishinomaki, residential homes that were once built here, were completely gone. Just a few withstood the tsunami and remain, at least the shell of the house remains.
Click on the link below to get to the article “Japan’s Perfect Storm”
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