MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--A nursing home where 36 elderly patients died in the tsunami was illuminated by candles on the one-year anniversary of the disaster.
MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--A nursing home where 36 elderly patients died in the tsunami was illuminated by candles on the one-year anniversary of the disaster.
On the initiative of director Sou Kuramoto, 2,000 small tealights were placed on the floor of the three wrecked buildings of what used to be Yoshi Land, the telltale 2-meter-high mud line showing just how far the water reached. Candles were also laid out in the field to form two flickering lines of flame leading toward the sea like an airport runway.
“We put them there so that the souls would know where to come back to,” said Noriyo Saito, the director of Creative Conservation Club, an environmental NPO that helped to coordinate the event.
Candle nights have been held for various purposes and events over the last 10 years. More than 100 events were held up and down the country for the anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, and Kuramoto, 77, who is best known for the TV drama “Kita no Kuni Kara” (From a north country), knew he couldn’t let the anniversary pass without doing something.
Moved by the suffering of all those who lost someone--including a close friend in Iwaki whose parents were killed--Kuramoto decided to hold two candle nights, one in Minami-Soma and one in Iwaki, where he spent the evening of the anniversary. Actress Keiko Takeshita attended the Minami-Soma event.
According to Saito, Kuramoto had visited Yoshi Land on his third trip to Minami-Soma, and had also been into the 20-kilometer exclusion zone around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant with a friend.
“He wanted to see it for himself firsthand,” explained Saito.
The nursing home, now scrubbed and gutted but for a few artifacts that tell of the vulnerability of its former inhabitants--a disabled toilet here, a handrail there--seems to have been left as a symbol of the tsunami’s destruction.
The sea, over a kilometer away, was not visible from here before the tsunami because houses blocked the view. Now all that remains between the nursing home and the water is a stretch of muddy land, dotted with a few concrete foundations and a pile of rubble and wrecked cars. The locals say the patients, immobile and unable to escape, merely waited for the tsunami to come. Those who were fortunate enough to be spared were hoisted up on their beds by the wave.
Toshihiro Shiga, 29, is from Namie, a town within the 20-km no-entry zone. He stopped by after attending the memorial service at Minami-Soma’s cultural center, feeling that he wanted to reflect upon the past year and the events of March 11.
“Everyone’s got people like this who died, and it’s important to remember them,” he said. “I cried at the memorial ceremony.”
In contrast to the town’s official ceremony, there were no speeches or group prayers offered at the candle night; instead, people wandered quietly through the wrecked rooms. In one lay an altar where some had placed offerings of flowers, food and drinks.