Passing this building every day going to work is a constant, prominent reminder of what happened. I had read about this building and seen pictures before I came to Minamisanriku, and seeing it in person was really a moment that made the tsunami, and my living in this town, a tangible reality. I believe these are the photos that he was able to take before the wave hit. In fact, here is an article written about my Supervisor and his experience. One was the mayor of the town, and the other was my Supervisor. Only 11 of them survived, and they were on the roof for one day after the tsunami.Īs if that story wasn’t crazy enough in and of itself, I have met two of the 11 people who survived that rooftop experience. Of the 130 people, 33 made it to the roof before the wave hit, and while the waters were roaring over and around them clung to the antenna and railings to stay on the roof. One of the heroes from the tsunami, a young woman named Miki Endo, is remembered for manning the town PA system and delivering warnings to the people, telling them to evacuate, until it was too late for her to escape. At the time of the tsunami, 130 people were working in the building. The story that goes with this building is incredible. We drive past it every day going to work. Every day busloads of people come to this place to offer prayers and take pictures. What used to be a government building in the heart of the old town is now just a skeleton, and it has become a memorial for the victims of the tsunami. The most iconic image of the tsunami from Minamisanriku is perhaps this building. A few tiny trailer businesses dot the landscape, but primarily it is a broad expanse of plots of weeds, large piles of dirt, constantly working bulldozers and backhoes, and a few twisted remnants of what used to be there.
Between the two and out towards the ocean, there is very little. A new government building and a makeshift hospital were built to the north of the valley, on hills where the tsunami did not reach (see map above). Sansanshouten is located in the back left of the main valley. Minaisanriku does get a fair number of tourists who come to see the tsunami damage, and many stop at Sansanshouten before boarding their tour bus and heading home. This is the new town center, as I understand it, and there are always people hanging around, shopping, eating, chillaxing. There are a number of restaurants, souvenir shops, fish shops, a meat shop, a tiny dry grocery market, a flower shop, a hair salon, a bakery. Here many of the shopkeepers and restaurant-owners of Minamisanriku have reopened a tiny version of their previous business. Nearby my apartment is the temporary shopping plaza, Sansanshouten. Reconstruction has not begun in earnest, and instead, the town seems to be operating out of temporary buildings. This was mainly concentrated close to the water turning inland, it was green, and it was empty. Our car drove over newly paved roads, through a number of stoplights, past a number of large cranes, backhoes, and bulldozers working away at large piles of dirt or piles of scrap metal.
Instead, grass and plants had filled in much of the now vacant space. The stretch of flat land that used to hold the town no longer was the desolate grey shown in countless post-tsunami photographs. Teaching English is only a minuscule part of this effort, but it is what I can try to do, and do it I shall!ĭriving into Minamisanriku on Wednesday, July 31 st, my wonderings as to what I would see came to an end. What an opportunity this was, to be immersed in a community that had lost so much and to be a part of their efforts to push forward. However, after a few days, those initial feelings changed. Trying to imagine what it must have been like to see it live is overwhelming. On Youtube there are a number of videos from Minamisanriku taken during the tsunami itself, and seeing in 6 minutes a town of 15,000 be swept away is a frightening and humbling thing to behold, even in just a tiny video screen. When I found out I was going to this town that had suffered so much (95% percent of the infrastructure was destroyed), I will admit, I was a little shocked and somewhat nervous. This is Minamisanriku several months after the tsunami. This is Minamisanriku during the tsunami: This is Minamisanriku before the tsunami. This is because the tsunami wiped out essentially the entire town.
#Miki endo your name tv#
Right on the coast, much of the footage and photographs of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami seen on TV were from Miyagi, and my town, Minamisanriku (南三陸), was most likely included. Miyagi (宮城) prefecture is in the northeast of Japan, in the region referred to as the Tohoku (東北) region. Today, I will take some time to describe where I am, and how the tsunami affected it.
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