With his wife still missing and his company destroyed, Tatsuya Ito continues to ply his trade in Iwate Prefecture, working from his temporary home to repair graves and carve posthumous names on gravestones.
With his wife still missing and his company destroyed, Tatsuya Ito continues to ply his trade in Iwate Prefecture, working from his temporary home to repair graves and carve posthumous names on gravestones.
But Ito, 54, and others in the industry cannot keep up with the soaring demand for repair work on gravestones in the Tohoku region, particularly as Japan is in the midst of a biannual Buddhist observance.
The March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami caused such extensive damage to cemeteries that many bereaved family members will be unable to visit their family graves during the autumn "higan" observance to pay respects to their ancestors.
Companies and workers are also waiting for local rebuilding plans, as well as help from Tokyo, where the government is discussing a third supplementary budget that will include reconstruction measures for the disaster areas.
"Because no decision has been made on the rebuilding plans, everyone is wondering what to do about the family graves," said Ito, whose wife, Sachiko, 53, was swept away in the tsunami in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture.
One company in Miyagi Prefecture that provides gravestones said it would take two years to handle all 2,000 or so requests to repair the graves.
In one cemetery in Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture, the tsunami toppled about 230 of the 242 available plots. Cranes have been operated on an almost daily basis to repair the graves.
But the workers can only repair one or two graves a day. So far, work has been completed on about 60.
"We have received so many requests that we cannot get around to all of them,” said Hatsuro Hoshi, 53, the company’s chairman. “At every company, people have to wait at least three months for repairs."
Tokuyoshi Iwasa, 75, a neighborhood leader in Yamamoto, said, "While most people will not be able to have their family graves repaired in time for this autumn, we hope to repair the graves in time for the next observance in spring."
Kenji Endo, 45, reopened his gravestone company in April in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture. Since then, he has only been able to take four days off from work.
Other cemeteries show no signs of repair work on any of the graves, so many bereaved family members have placed orders for new graves with the higan approaching.
Gravestone companies have also been flooded with requests to repair graves in inland areas that had toppled due to the quake.
An official with a company in Wakuya, Miyagi Prefecture, said, "There have been about 2,000 requests from inland areas alone, and it will take us two years to deal with all of them."
One problem is a shortage of personnel and rental heavy equipment because of the other rebuilding work being done in Tohoku.
"Cemeteries that were damaged by the tsunami have had gravestones swept far away so we have turned down such repair requests because it would take so much time," an official of a Sendai company said.
Residents in other communities have been unable to even begin making requests for repairs because the rebuilding policy for the district has yet to be finalized.
In the Yuriage district of Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, gravestones for about 1,200 plots at three Buddhist temples remain scattered.
Although temple priests have consulted with city government officials about removing the gravestones, no decision has been made on where to rebuild the cemeteries.
One temple representative said, "With the rebuilding plan for the district still undecided, we are unable to judge if it is all right to rebuild the cemetery on the same site."
This article was written by Akihiro Yamada and Naoko Kawamura.