ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Akemi Karino received a mobile phone call immediately after the memorial service on April 28 for staff and children of Okawa Elementary School, where 84 students and teachers are missing or confirmed dead following the Great East Japan Earthquake.
ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--Akemi Karino received a mobile phone call immediately after the memorial service on April 28 for staff and children of Okawa Elementary School, where 84 students and teachers are missing or confirmed dead following the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Local police said they thought they had found the body of her 12-year-old daughter Ai, a pupil at the school who had been missing since March 11.
The trousers and the belt on the body appeared to be the same as those worn by Ai on the day of the disaster, the officer said.
Akemi and her husband went to the morgue and confirmed that the body was their daughter's.
They took it home. "I want to spend at least one or two nights with Ai in my house," Akemi, 42, said.
The service, held at Iinokawa Daini Elementary School in Ishinomaki because Okawa Elementary School was too damaged, was one of hundreds of "Shijukunichi" (49th day) memorial ceremonies held throughout the disaster zone April 28.
The 49th day has a special significance in Japan's Buddhist tradition. The dead are believed to wander between this world and the afterlife for 49 days following their deaths. The Shijukunichi service marks their passage to the next world.
Ai's photograph was among images of 74 students and 10 teachers of Okawa Elementary School displayed on the altar during the ceremony.
Akemi spoke as a representative of the families during the service.
She said Ai had loved the school. She had noticed that her daughter was smiling in every photo she had of her.
She said it was upsetting that her daughter's body had not been found.
"I wanted my daughter to go to heaven along with the other children on Shijukunichi. But it just didn't happen," she said.
At 11:08 a.m., immediately after the memorial service finished, Ai's body was found under the rubble of a temple near the school.
Akemi and her husband Takao, 42, had searched for Ai every day since the disaster. The parents looked for their third daughter in rice fields and on a hill near the school. Each day, before starting their search, they placed Ai's favorite foods, including cocoa, pizza and hot cakes, at the school's gates and other spots. They hoped the treats might make her appear.
On the day of the memorial service the couple prepared rice balls and fried eggs because they planned to search for Ai after the memorial.
Okawa Elementary School stands on the Kitakamigawa river, and tsunami caused by the magnitude-9 quake surged up the river and engulfed the school. Six students and one teacher are still missing.
(This article was written by Rho Isshiki, Go Kobayashi and Nasuka Yamamoto.)