ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--It took two years and five months, but all the lights are finally back on here after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami devastated the coastal city on March 11, 2011.
ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--It took two years and five months, but all the lights are finally back on here after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami devastated the coastal city on March 11, 2011.
Power was restored to 13 houses in the Nagatsura and Onozaki districts of Ishinomaki on Aug. 25, the last areas to remain without electricity in the nation, other than those immediately adjacent to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
“I used to take electricity for granted before the disaster, but the lack of it has shown me the importance of power,” said Hideki Ogawa, 32, a fish culture worker and a former resident of the Onozaki district.
Ogawa, who currently lives in temporary housing, visited his workshop in the district to confirm that power was actually restored.
“This is where we make a new start,” he added.
The Nagatsura and Onozaki districts have also been designated special “disaster danger” zones, allowing the local government to ban residents from new construction or expanding their houses there.
About 150 workers from Tohoku Electric Power Co. and its subsidiaries installed a total of four kilometers of wire to restore power to the districts.