So we are holding events-even simple things, like drinking tea together-so people can get to know each other.” They are building on higher ground, but that also means that they have to build new communities of people. “Now, homes are being built in other parts of the town that are in less danger if there is another disaster. “I have used a piece of the foundation in the garden of my new house,” he says. But people recover, communities rebuild and life goes on, he insists. “When the water had gone down again, I could not find a single photograph, a dish or a piece of clothing as a memory from before the disaster,” he says. ![]() Today, 72-year-old Haga is a volunteer working for the town’s tourism association and giving presentations about the impact of the tragedy on his home town. “My house was close to the hospital in the center of the town, but when I got back there some time later, only the foundations were left,” says Haga Choko, who was a member of the Miyagi fishing cooperative at the time but retired in 2016. The tsunami scoured Minamisanriku from the map and local estimates put the number of dead and missing from this community alone at 1,206. Today, bitterly cold winds tinged with snow are again blowing into the bay where the Suijiri River flows into the Pacific, but the town that stood on this spot in 2011 will not be rebuilt. ![]() Minamisanriku: Rebuilding on Higher Ground Residents of towns and villages that were under the plume of radioactivity were evacuated and their homes declared off-limits.Īfter the waves receded, the clear-up and reconstruction began. The quake and tsunami also badly damaged four of the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, causing meltdowns of three reactors and the release of large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Inevitably, there was great loss of life, with nearly 20,000 people killed or still listed as missing. Residents of these communities were in many instances only given a few minutes’ warning to take shelter. In places, experts have calculated that the tsunami reached heights of more than 40 meters and were traveling at speeds up to 700 km an hour when they came ashore, with some traveling as much as 10 km inland. The fourth most powerful earthquake anywhere in the world since accurate records began being kept in 1900, the tremor triggered a series of powerful tsunami that barreled ashore along beaches from Chiba Prefecture in the south to Hokkaido in the far north. on March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9 megathrust event approximately 70 km to the east of the Oshika Peninsula of Miyagi Prefecture. The Great East Japan Earthquake struck shortly before 3 p.m. Like those 50 workers at the Fukushima nuclear reactor, who have stayed at their posts, fighting to avoid a meltdown while the entire region is evacuated, Miki Endo should be remembered as a true hero of the highest order, and remembered forever with grateful reverence.The bridge connecting the Sun-Sun Sanriku shopping mall and memorial park in Minamisanriku, Janu©Ī decade on from the most devastating natural disaster to strike Japan in recorded history, life in the communities that dot the inlets and bays of the northeast coast is in many ways very different. ![]() If there's any comfort at all to be taken in the awful catastrophe in Japan, it is in these stories of true heroism. ![]() I heard the voice of your daughter the whole way.\n That he had heard Endo's voice and immediately jumped in his car and headed for higher ground. One co-worker told Miki’s mother, that he saw Miki being swept away by the tsunami wave.\nĪnother survivor, a 61 year-old man named Taeza Haga, told Endo's mother that the broadcast had saved his live. Miki Endo did not let go of her microphone, even during the very moment the black waves of the tsunami engulfed the city, so that every last villager could hear her warning call. According to the Mainichi story, Endo stayed at her post, repeating her warning, until the wave struck. Of the 17,000 residents, 10,000 are feared to be dead, but the 7,000 who survived owe everything to Endo. The city was one of the hardest hit along the Miyagi Coast.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |