A plain bracelet reminds Eri Watanabe of both the happy times and the moments of terror with her grandmother on the day the Great East Japan Earthquake struck.
A plain bracelet reminds Eri Watanabe of both the happy times and the moments of terror with her grandmother on the day the Great East Japan Earthquake struck.Watanabe, 20, lost hold of the hand of her grandmother, Ryoko, when they were fleeing in Miyagi Prefecture from the tsunami spawned by the temblor. Ryoko’s body was found at a nearby morgue about five days later. She was 67.Before the magnitude-9.0 quake struck on March 11, 2011, Watanabe and Ryoko went to Sendai, the prefectural capital, where they ate cake together. The bracelet, which Ryoko bought for her in Sendai, was found among the rubble.Watanabe’s experience was included in “3.11 Dokoku no Kiroku” (March 11: Records of wailings), a collection of 71 essays by quake and tsunami survivors as well as victims of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.“It is painful to look back on (the disaster and its aftermath), but we want to keep evidence that we lived with the victims,” said Watanabe, a sophomore at Tohoku Gakuin University in Sendai. “We want to leave records so that as many lives as possible can be saved in another major earthquake.”The book, published in February by Tokyo-based Shinyosha, was compiled by Kiyoshi Kanebishi, an associate professor of environmental sociology at the university.It has been reprinted twice, and a U.S. television network has reported on the book. Work has started to publish an English translation.Kanebishi visited the hardest-hit prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima with students, including Watanabe, and asked survivors to write about “experiences that cannot be conveyed by images or media reports.”Watanabe, for example, met with a farmer who evacuated from Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, after destroying 16 heads of cattle due to the nuclear accident. She also talked with a man from Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, who was forced to stay at an evacuation center.Watanabe still feels guilty that she could not save her grandmother. She spent six months completing her 9,000-character essay, shedding tears before her computer. She makes it a rule to read over it on the 11th of every month.The Great East Japan Earthquake struck after Watanabe and her grandmother returned from Sendai to their home in Shichigahama along the coast.The two fled to a hill behind their home. Ryoko looked relieved, saying that the tsunami generated by a magnitude-9.5 earthquake off Chile in 1960 did not reach the hill.Minutes later, however, “a wall of black water” swallowed up their home. Watanabe shouted, “Run,” and led her grandmother by the hand. A blank-faced Ryoko said, “Our home will be gone.”Watanabe let go of her grandmother’s hand when her feet were trapped by the waves. Watanabe fell on her behind, swallowed seawater and was carried away for 15 meters or so until she grabbed a tree.When the waves receded, Watanabe repeatedly called, “Grandma,” but never heard her voice.When Watanabe saw Ryoko’s body at the morgue, she looked as if she were sleeping. There were no visible signs of injury on her body. Watanabe could only say, “I am sorry.”In addition to the bracelet, cash gift envelopes Ryoko used on Watanabe’s birthdays and other anniversaries were retrieved from the rubble. The envelopes carried messages, such as “Korekaramo Yoroshiku” (I will be counting on you).Watanabe said she felt as if Ryoko were telling her from heaven to live a full life for herself and on behalf of the grandmother.Watanabe has taken part in volunteer activities in disaster areas, such as removing salt from the fields.“Those who survived have to face up to the disaster,” she said.