ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Only 31 of the 108 students at Okawa Elementary School are known to have survived the towering tsunami that engulfed it after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Only 31 of the 108 students at Okawa Elementary School are known to have survived the towering tsunami that engulfed it after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Twenty-one children have been found dead and 56 are still missing. Only one male teacher out of 11 members of staff present at the time of the disaster has been found alive.
The school, on high ground near the Kitakamigawa river, had been considered safe before the catastrophe. It had even been designated as an evacuation center. The events of March 11 proved that assessment disastrously wrong.
The grandfather of two students said he had visited shortly after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck northeastern Japan at 2:46 p.m. but before the tsunami hit.
He said the students were lined up and wearing helmets.
"Teachers were doing roll calls, apparently preparing to evacuate," he said.
Minutes later, a huge wave rolled up from the mouth of the Kitakamigawa river 5 kilometers away and appears to have completely submerged Okawa Elementary.
The body of Sueko Sato's daughter, Miku, a sixth-grader, was later found on a nearby mountain. The body of her son Takumi, a third-grader, was discovered in the school.
"Even though it was in an isolated place, I had heard it would be safe there," Sato, 37, said.
She said she was unable to get to her children on the night of the quake and could not sleep because she was not "by their side in the cold." She expected them to return the next day.
But that was when students' bodies started to be recovered. By Tuesday, March 22, Sato knew her children had been killed.
Miku's graduation ceremony had been due on March 18. Her junior high school uniform had already been delivered and lay untouched in the family's home throughout the catastrophe. Sato remembers her daughter asking her if she would look good in it.
"If the earthquake had occurred on Saturday or Sunday or if the tsunami had come one hour later, everyone would have been at home. My sorrow is too deep to put into words," Sato said.
Students' belongings--satchels, helmets, calligraphy sets and albums--have been laid out in an improvised memorial at the end of a bridge near the school. A photograph of Miku and a composition by Takumi are part of the display.
The 42-year-old father of a sixth-grade girl and a third-grade boy has been coming to the school every day since the disaster to try to find out his children's fate.
His daughter has been found dead. His son is still missing. Only his helmet has been retrieved.
The man is left with the memory of his daughter's delight at a new bicycle given by her grandparents. "She only managed to ride it once," he said.
Principal Teruyuki Kashiba, 57, was not present at the time of the tsunami. He headed there immediately after the disaster but found the road impassable.
Ever since, he has been searching desperately for missing students at evacuation centers and digging through the debris at his devastated school. He said he had no idea how many days had passed since the disaster.
He found a woman's jacket in a crumpled teacher's locker on Thursday.
The school janitor said: "It belonged to Sayaka sensei (teacher)."
"Yes," Kashiba responded simply.
There are plans to set up a temporary staff room and classrooms for Okawa Elementary School at Iinokawa Daiichi Elementary School, 10 km away, but the principal said he could not think that far ahead.
"This school was beautiful," he said. "I often think how children can recover their smiles. I want to build a place for them."