SENDAI--Watching 9-month-old Konosuke Yokoyama beam happily as he pulls himself up from the floor by grabbing hold of his play gym, it is difficult to believe the ordeal he endured just a few months ago.
SENDAI--Watching 9-month-old Konosuke Yokoyama beam happily as he pulls himself up from the floor by grabbing hold of his play gym, it is difficult to believe the ordeal he endured just a few months ago.
Konosuke, his mother, Taeko, 30, who looks on happily as the toddler plays in an apartment room, and father, Tetsuji, 30, narrowly escaped death after their car was swept away in a tsunami following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11.
They were rescued the next day, but along with their car, lost their home.
Now Konosuke and his parents live in a two-room apartment with a kitchen, which the city has borrowed for disaster victims, in the city's Wakabayashi Ward.
Tetsuji said he was almost resigned to death when their car was washed away.
"The horn broke and kept honking incessantly," he recalled. "The view in front of me turned gray."
In the three months since the disaster, Konosuke has "learned" to crawl and stand holding on to things.
Looking at her son, Taeko said, "Even though we lost our house in the quake we can see our son grow. I am very grateful that we were rescued."