Konnichiwa: October 2011

A fallen advertisement.

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According to Wikipedia, Ishinomaki is the town most badly affected by the tsunami. It certainly was bad, but I am not sure if it is the most badly affected. I thought Rikuzentakata had it very bad, it was pretty much entirely wiped out.

We went up a hillside that looks down into town. The right side of a canal/river was completely wiped out whereas the left side was damaged but not wiped out. The picture above was taken on the left side. The picture below is of the right side. Only a few buildings left standing.

And here is a close up of the right side.

As you know, many houses were badly damaged after the tsunami. So even if it had not floated away, it was pretty much a goner and uninhabitable. There was a system where if the owner of that house wanted the army/volunteers to help break down the house for disposal, they would put a special marking on the side of the house. When we drove through the tsunami-area, we saw some really battered houses, definitely uninhabitable, but they were not removed although the buildings in the surrounding area have been removed. I am told that for such houses, what it means is that the owner/family of that house entirely perished. There is no one around to put any marking. And without such marking, the government cannot demolish what is left standing. Here is a close-up of a badly damaged house that is still not yet demolished.

The primary school in this town was the most badly affected of all schools in the tsunami. The school was completely destroyed. The kids and teachers were evacuating when they were swept away by a 2nd tsunami wave, killing 75 of the 108 students and 10 of the 13 teachers. Below is a picture of this primary school.

What I thought was really eerie about this school is that its frontage is a graveyard. Both the right and left of the road leading up to the school was all tombstones. And these tombstones were also badly damaged by the tsunami. See photo below.

The hill I mentioned is behind this school. When the towns people ran up the only 2 staircases leading up the hill. It caused a bottleneck and not everyone managed to make it up. This is the one of the staircases, below.

How bad was the tsunami here? According to Wikipedia, it reached 10m high and travelled 600 m inland. Approximately 29,000 residents lost their homes. All pretty heartbreaking stuff.

The earthquake shifted this city southeast and downwards, by as much as 1.2 metres in some areas. The picture below is of the jetty which used to be above water pre-earthquake. It is now submerged in water due to the earthquake causing the land here to sink.

Matsushima, Miyagi

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We finally went to the tsunami-hit area. I think I mentioned before that Tomo did some volunteer work there in July. The locals were saying to him - thank you for volunteering, but it would be just as good if not better if you brought your friends/family here to do some sight-seeing and drop some tourist money. Tomo and I had always been curious and wanting to see first-hand the devastation and we wanted our boys to see it too. But were hesitatant to be tsunami-tourists as it seemed in bad taste to be gawking when so many were suffering. So after Tomo heard those words, he needed no further encouragement to bring us there.

We went during the long weekend in early October. Tomo had to be in Sendai for a business trip (his company lost a warehouse in Sendai to the tsunami). So the boys and I took the shinkansen by ourselves. We had quite an interesting encounter in the shinkansen. When we boarded, we could not find 3 seats together. At best, there were only 2 seats together but a salaryman had put his bag on one of the seats. So I was trying to get Taiga to sit down next to the bag and I am right behind him. Taiga refused to be alone and we were having our little conversation in English where I was trying to get him to sit. The salaryman notices us and removes his bag. I thanked him in Japanese and told Taiga to thank him. Taiga thanked him in Japanese. And the salaryman said to Taiga - nihonjin datta (Oh, you are Japanese). A simple phrase like "arigatou" is so telling as to where one grew up! I must say that the salaryman is quite different - he had a very nice friendly/kind smile. And he smiled often. Taiga must have felt comfortable with him right from the start. He normally clams up around strangers, but not with this salaryman. He told him that we were going to see the tsunami-area, does he know ultraman etc? He was talking non-stop about ultraman and goranger (another superhero) to the poor salaryman who is probably in his 50s. The salaryman seemed to enjoy it and was amused.

We finally reached Sendai and met Tomo. Had a quick dinner of gyutan (cow's tongue) which Sendai is famous for and then crashed on the hotel bed.

The next morning, we headed to Ishinomaki. On the way there, we drove past Matsushima. Matsushima is comprised of many little islands covered with pine trees (matsu=pine, shima=island). It was quite scenic.

We also made a brief stop at Touna. The train station at Touna was flashed around the media as it was pretty much swept away by the tsunami.

I mention Touna because as we were walking around the train station (picture above of the "remains" of the train station), a man was pulling some plants off the ground. He started talking to us, saying he was pulling out herbs which is good for kids. We then asked him if he was around here when the tsunami struck. He pointed us to about 5o to 100 m away and said his house used to be there. When the tsunami warnings came, he and his wife tried to get his elderly mum (in her 90s) out of the house to safety. The mum initially agreed to leave the house but quickly changed her mind and decided to stay in her house. Because she did not want to leave, his wife also did not want to leave as the wife could not bear to leave the mum alone. They were both upstairs. He was pacing downstairs wondering what to do. The water was flowing in to the house very quickly. Before he could sort out what to do, the water had already almost reached the ceiling of the first floor and he was practically submerged in the water with his head sticking out (he had climbed his altar to get above the water). He thought he was going to drown/die when the force of water tore the house away from the foundation and apart. He then found himself floating in the open. He said he was very lucky as near where he was floating, there was a telephone pole and there were 5 or 6 guys hanging off the top of the pole. When the rescuers finally came and got those guys off the pole, those guys told the rescuers to look for him - they had seen him floating around and they last time they saw him, he was still alive. And so the rescuers found him. This was about 3 or 4 hours after the tsunami struck. Many days later, the officials told him they found his wife and mum. They were still in the 2nd floor of his house but they had died. He told us that this train station, when the tsunami struck, the force of the water ripped out the metal and all the wood just floated up. There are tracks no more. We thanked him for sharing his story and he waved us off.

Soon after, we came across this stationary train in the middle of nowhere.

This train has not moved since the tsunami struck. Why? Because of the missing tracks! The tracks around this train are still intact but this train heads to Touma.

As we drive around, we see tsunami tourists in tour buses and in private taxis! We saw this building which must have been a convenience store before.