KAMAISHI, Iwate Prefecture--In a race for their lives against the deadly tsunami on March 11, about 20 residents ran in a line along the tracks of the JR Yamada Line.
KAMAISHI, Iwate Prefecture--In a race for their lives against the deadly tsunami on March 11, about 20 residents ran in a line along the tracks of the JR Yamada Line.
The residents had struggled to reach the tracks, which were built to climb over a mountain pass and had an incline that increased by 25 meters over a 1,000-meter stretch of rail. They thought they would be safe there.
However, approaching the embankment on both sides, the tsunami overtook some residents. ...
March 11 had started as a peaceful day for Tomio Maekawa, 57, a company employee who lived in the quiet city of Kamaishi in Iwate Prefecture in the Tohoku region, famous for its steel production and fishing.
Maekawa was born and raised in the Unosumai district in the northern part of the city, which is a typical residential neighborhood of the Sanriku coast with a high prevalence of senior citizens. He still lived there with his wife and 85-year-old mother, Teru.
On March 11, Maekawa awoke close to 10 a.m. and prepared his own meal of natto, rice and miso soup.
He had an appointment to meet a friend at around noon, and his wife was away, visiting her family home. Maekawa called out to his mother, "I'll be gone for a while."
Having difficulty walking, Teru was sitting in her usual place in the living room and only said to her son, "Yep."
After meeting his friend, Tomio was driving along a mountain road when the earthquake struck at 2:46 p.m. He rushed home and found Teru holding up the 32-inch TV set they had just bought so it would not fall and be damaged.
"We have to get out of here," Tomio told his mother. He put her in the car and drove before stopping near the Osanai river, which is crossed by a steel bridge for the JR Yamada Line.
There were about 20 other local residents, including neighborhood senior citizens, who had evacuated to the riverbank. Many of the residents had relieved looks on their faces, seeing friends and acquaintances in the crowd.
One person, however, was looking anxiously downstream.
Yoshihiro Maekawa, 72, who is not related to Tomio, used to work in the volunteer fire department. His experience there taught him that a riverbank was one of the most dangerous places to be in a tsunami.
He soon saw a growing mountain of scrap wood coming toward them.
"It's a tsunami! Everyone evacuate!" he shouted.
Yoshihiro helped Tomio push Teru up to the train tracks constructed on an embankment. Three people were still at the bottom of the embankment. Everyone shouted at the three senior citizens with hearing problems to climb up to the tracks.
Along the riverbank on the northern side of the steel bridge, Ryoko Ogasawara, a 75-year-old homemaker, helped several other residents push an 82-year-old neighborhood man up to the tracks.
Although the man made it to the tracks, he knelt. After suffering a cerebral infarction seven years ago, the man had been undergoing rehabilitation. His 76-year-old wife tried to help him by holding his side, but he could not take another step.
The rising water approached the tracks built on the mound. Houses that were swept away crashed noisily into each other. A green, two-story house came floating up the river.
There was nothing for Ogasawara and her fellow residents to do but run along the tracks.
The man said something to his wife. In the instant the wife hesitated, brown waves swept over the tracks and the two disappeared into the water.
Seeing people behind him swallowed up by the water, Tomio bent down in front of Teru, threw his arms out behind him and told her, "Mom, get on."
While they had always lived together, Tomio had never carried his mother on his shoulders before. Trying to hide her fear, Teru said nothing and clung to her son.
Walking step by step along the railroad tracks, Tomio felt the distance between the crossties was much greater than the actual 65 centimeters. He almost stumbled at times.
After walking about 10 meters, Tomio stopped and lowered his mother, who weighed about 60 kilograms. He felt the tales he'd heard of people performing amazing feats of strength during crises were all lies. He carried Teru again and held on hard to her back so she would not fall. She cried, "It hurts, it hurts."
The social welfare facility designated as an evacuation center was 400 meters away on higher ground. The 20 residents ran in a line along the rail tracks toward it. However, the tsunami overtook some of them, but Tomio and his mother were not taken.
Tomio would rest after walking 10 meters with his mother on his back. Finally arriving at the evacuation center, Tomio lowered Teru, took a deep breath and looked back. All he could see was the ocean.
Meanwhile, Yoshihiro Maekawa was still running, being the last one in the line.
In a residential neighborhood that had been swallowed up by the ocean, Yoshihiro saw a woman with her neck above water. She held up her left hand, which was holding a cane.
Yoshihiro instinctively went down the embankment. He heard people yelling to him, "Don't do it," but he could not just ignore the woman. The woman who was calling for help was the same one who had been supporting her husband, who had suffered a cerebral infarction. She had been swept about 500 meters by the tsunami.
Yoshihiro pulled the woman out of the water and carried her on his shoulders. She said to him, "My husband told me, 'Don't worry about me' and he was swept away."
The cane she was holding belonged to her husband.
Another nearby resident, Kyoko Ogasawara, 74, had went to an empty lot after the quake and talked with her younger sister, Yasuko Hasegawa, 72, who lived nearby, and others.
"I will have to clean up the dishes that fell," Kyoko said.
Someone asked about her husband, which Kyoko replied to, "He said I will be all right so you should evacuate."
Her husband, Yuichi, 77, became bed-ridden after being felled by a stroke five years ago.
The empty lot they were in was about two kilometers from the ocean and was about 800 meters outside of an area that was thought to be the farthest a tsunami could reach.
Suddenly, a man came running and shouted, "It's a tsunami! Escape!"
Kyoko returned to her home and with the help of her sister placed Yuichi on a wheelchair. However, the wheelchair became stuck on a slope at their home and would not budge.
A 27-year-old dentist who passed by on his way to an evacuation center stopped to help. Reaching an intersection by the Ogasawara home, they saw on their right a wall of water and rubble approaching them. Water was also approaching directly from behind them.
Letting out a scream, Kyoko, Yasuko and Yuichi were swept away by the water.
The dentist was saved when he hung on to the roof of the Ogasawara home.
Kyoko's body was later found nearby, while Yasuko's body was found several hundreds of meters away. Yuichi's body was found about 20 kilometers out at sea.
Before the twin disasters, 34.3 percent of the Kamaishi population was made up of senior citizens.
A city employee in charge of the morgue said he has often heard from bereaved family members that they were swept away by the tsunami while they were trying to help bed-ridden seniors.
Tomio Maekawa now lives at an evacuation center.
His mother, Teru, would have difficulty walking to portable toilets, so she is living temporarily at her younger sister's home in Kamaishi, which was spared damage from the tsunami.
While Teru never said anything directly to Tomio, she often tells acquaintances that she was only saved because of her son.
On April 11, Tomio visited a tent set up in the central part of Kamaishi to pick up relief supplies. At 2:46 p.m., when sirens sounded, he closed his eyes and placed his hands together.
"With one month having passed, my feelings are changing from being happy to be alive to becoming more concerned about what my life will be like from now," Tomio said. "My work has been reduced in half."
He won a lottery to enter housing normally used for people trying to hold down a job, but which has been provided to disaster victims.
"I will be moving from a single-family home to two-room quarters, but I cannot be choosy," he said.
Even in the more cramped housing, Tomio plans to continue living with his wife and mother.