March 2011 Disaster Victims Remembered in Northeastern Japan

Otsuchi, Iwate Pref., March 11 (Jiji Press)–Victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were remembered in the hardest hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima in northeastern Japan on Wednesday, the 15th anniversary of the disaster. Along the Pacific coast of the three prefectures, people gathered from early in the morning to pray for those who perished in the disaster, which happened on March 11, 2011, leaving 22,230 people dead or missing nationwide, including those who died from indirect causes. It is the largest natural disaster in postwar Japan. At the Koganji temple in Otsuchi, an Iwate town, local resident Takafumi Sasaki, 75, put his numbed hands together at the grave of his younger brother who died at 58 while working as a town official during the disaster. “I wish he had evacuated instead of holding a meeting,” Sasaki said. “Everyone is doing well,” he said to the gravestone. In the Hajikami Suginoshita district of Kesennuma, a Miyagi city, Kazuo Sato, 72, who lost his mother, raised “koinobori” carp-shaped decorative windsocks, traditionally flown to pray for healthy growth of boys. He raised the streamers at the same spot for the first time since April 2011, when the area was still covered with debris. At that time, he hoped that the koinobori would help lift residents’ spirits. “I lost my home and my work, and I’ve struggled desperately to survive,” Sato said. “Finally, I feel ready to raise them again.” Standing beneath the windsocks, drifting against a clear sky, he had tears in his eyes. In the town of Tomioka, Fukushima, where 24 people died in the disaster, a surfer was seen on a beach where ice still clung to puddles in a seaside parking lot. The 55-year-old public servant said he had lost a fellow surfer in the tsunami that day. “I came to pay my respects,” he said, gazing out at the sea. “Fifteen years feels long and also short,” he said. “Tomioka’s recovery is still halfway through.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]