15 Years On: Miyagi Town Worker Aids Noto Quake Reconstruction

Yamamoto, Miyagi Pref., March 6 (Jiji Press)–Suguru Kikuchi, an employee of the Yamamoto town government in Miyagi Prefecture, worked to support recovery and reconstruction in a disaster-hit area of the Noto Peninsula following the powerful earthquake that struck there on New Year’s Day in 2024. “I felt I had finally reached a point where I could offer help,” recalls Kikuchi, who had long hoped to repay the assistance his hometown received after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The northeastern town of Yamamoto suffered devastating damage from the tsunami and received support from about 700 personnel, mainly dispatched from municipalities across Japan. The last of them returned to the Reconstruction Agency in March 2024. That experience firmly instilled a spirit of mutual aid among local residents in times of major disasters. Kikuchi, a 46-year-old staff member of the town hall’s industry and tourism section, is one of those who has wholeheartedly embraced this ethos. Soon after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake jolted the Noto Peninsula in central Japan, Kikuchi learned that his town government would be sending staff to support the disaster-stricken areas. He volunteered and spent a year in the hard-hit town of Anamizu in Ishikawa Prefecture, assisting with rebuilding and restoration. Kikuchi stepped forward without hesitation, feeling strongly that “we were saved by support from municipalities across the country.” In the aftermath of the March 2011 disaster, he and his colleagues in the Yamamoto town government had been overwhelmed with duties entirely different from their normal work. With local crematoriums damaged, the town was forced to bury victims’ bodies temporarily–an experience that has stayed with him ever since. He had already told his wife he would apply as soon as the town formalized the dispatch program. With his eldest son in the second year of junior high school and his eldest daughter in the fifth grade of elementary school, his decision was also encouraged by a slightly reduced need for hands-on child care. On April 8, 2024, Kikuchi drove alone into Anamizu. The scale of damage to buildings and roads was overwhelming. He remembers sitting behind the wheel and quietly telling himself, “I’ll do whatever I can.” Assigned to oversee the publicly funded demolition of damaged homes, he spent his days, together with staff dispatched from other municipalities, accepting applications, reviewing paperwork and coordinating with contractors. When local disaster victims learned he had been sent from Yamamoto, many said to him, “What you went through in March 2011 must have been tough,” Kikuchi recounts. That summer, on his own initiative, Kikuchi set up a booth for Yamamoto at a festival in Anamizu. Officials from the Yamamoto town government, led by Deputy Mayor Heikichi Sato, came to Anamizu, sold local specialties and donated the proceeds, turning the festival into a small bridge between the two towns. Looking back, Kikuchi says: “After the March 2011 disaster, support staff sold specialty products from their home municipalities and livened up the festival in Yamamoto. I remembered how happy that made us.” Kikuchi’s dedicated work was highly valued in Anamizu. “He had great spirit and his attitude toward work was second to none. He was also trusted by local residents,” says Makoto Hamanaka, a 48-year-old assistant chief of the town’s environmental safety section. Kikuchi now thinks of Anamizu as a second hometown. “Even now, I worry about how the reconstruction is progressing and catch myself watching the news,” he says. Memories of working there alongside staff dispatched from places such as Aomori and Kagoshima prefectures have never faded. “Helping each other is a good thing, isn’t it?” he says. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]