15 Years On: Police Chief’s Grim Death Estimate Drove Home Acute Shortages

Tokyo, March 10 (Jiji Press)–Just two days after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, then Miyagi prefectural police chief Naoto Takeuchi made a chillingly accurate prediction: “The number of bodies will inevitably reach into the tens of thousands.” At a time when confusion was hindering efforts to gather information and the full scale of the disaster was still unclear, the remark at a prefectural disaster response meeting was a stark signal of the magnitude of the catastrophe. Now 68, Takeuchi recalls the moment, saying, “I hoped I would be completely wrong.” He adds, however, “I was desperate to make people understand that everything would be in critically short supply, from temporary morgues to the doctors needed to issue death certificates.” At 2:46 p.m. on the fateful day of the disaster, Takeuchi was in the office of the chief of the Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters in Sendai, capital of Miyagi Prefecture, one of the hardest-hit areas in northeastern Japan. Violent tremors sent his computer and documents crashing from his desk to the floor, leaving the office in complete disarray. When the shaking showed no sign of letting up, he thought that “the building might collapse and crush me to death.” By the evening of the next day, reports indicated that about 7,500 people had reached evacuation shelters in Minamisanriku, a Pacific coastal town believed to have been devastated by the tsunami. The local police station had been flooded up to the third floor. At the time, the town’s population had been about 17,600. Takeuchi thought that “it would be no surprise if some portion of the roughly 10,000 residents unaccounted for outside the evacuation shelters had been swept away by the waves.” He feared similar devastation in other coastal areas, including Ishinomaki. Helicopter footage also showed massive fires in Kesennuma. “It was like hell,” he recalls. Although the number of bodies recovered locally by then stood at 244, he was convinced that the final toll would be far higher. Looking back on the March 13 prefectural meeting, which was also attended by officials from central government ministries, Takeuchi remembers focusing on just one thing. “I simply wanted them to understand the acute shortage of equipment and personnel,” he says. “I didn’t have the presence of mind to worry whether the phrase ‘into the tens of thousands’ would attract attention.” Even so, his few words had a significant impact. In the aftermath of the meeting, efforts to secure body bags, temporary morgues, doctors and dentists, rubber gloves, face masks, transport vehicles, and other essential supplies quickly gained momentum. As more bodies were brought in each day, the prefectural police struggled to keep up with the task of identifying them and returning them to their families. Under normal procedures, requests for doctors and equipment would be made to the relevant ministries and agencies via the National Police Agency. Takeuchi says, however: “I didn’t think this was a situation in which we could afford to move so slowly.” His decision to predict a final body count, which appeared to break with bureaucratic convention, drew criticism within the National Police Agency, with some saying he “should have handled it more cautiously.” Others, however, including former police officials, defended his remark, saying it “alerted people to the seriousness of the devastation” and “helped the Japanese public and residents in the prefecture roughly understand the scale (of the disaster).” As of September 2025, the number of people confirmed dead or missing in Miyagi stood at 11,786. Tragically, Takeuchi’s estimate did not turn out to be totally wrong. Reflecting on his remark, he says, “Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I had acted a bit more cautiously. But as someone who was directly involved, it’s difficult for me to judge that myself.” Takeuchi now heads a nonprofit organization whose members include former police officers with firsthand knowledge of what happened at the time. He is dedicated to passing on the lessons of the earthquake and tsunami disaster. Many challenges remain, including those related to the establishment of temporary morgues and better coordination between the police and local governments in gathering and releasing information on people who remain unaccounted for. He now spends his days giving lectures to police officers and local government officials involved in disaster preparedness and response. “I want to continue contributing to improvements in disaster management,” he says. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]