Sirens wailed, bells tolled and tears flowed across Japan at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, as the nation mourned victims on the one-year anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Sirens wailed, bells tolled and tears flowed across Japan at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, as the nation mourned victims on the one-year anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
At Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, about 300 people, including bereaved family members, put their hands together before an altar.
Eighty-four pupils and teachers were killed or left missing by the tsunami generated by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
Tetsuya Tadano, a sixth-grader, rang a bell in front of the altar at 3:37 p.m., when the tsunami is believed to have inundated the school.
Kazutaka Sato, 45, put the ashes of his son, Yuki, who was a sixth-grader, in a tomb earlier in the day.
“It was wrenching,” Sato said. “We wanted to keep him close to us for some more time, but today marks a closure of sorts.”
Noriyuki Suzuki, 47, placed flowers at the foot of a hill 100 meters west of the school building where his daughter, Mai, who was also a sixth-grader, had been found dead.
“It’s been a long, long year,” he said. “I couldn’t feel the seasons’ changes since then. All I could feel was pain and sorrow. I deeply regret I was not able to come here at that time on that day.”
A 37-year-old man said he sometimes comes to the school to “see” his daughter, one of the victims.
He has been calling for municipal authorities to investigate the cause of the tragedy.
The city’s board of education will hold a fourth explanation meeting for parents on March 18, but the man said he does not have anything to tell his daughter, who was a third-grader.
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A sample of photographs shows people mourning victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake on the first anniversary of the tragedy.