MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture--In the minutes after the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake that ravaged this northeastern town, Miki Endo rushed to the disaster prevention center building to announce to residents that they should flee to higher ground because of impending tsunami.
MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture--In the minutes after the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake that ravaged this northeastern town, Miki Endo rushed to the disaster prevention center building to announce to residents that they should flee to higher ground because of impending tsunami. The 24-year-old Endo and 41 other town employees who were responsible for crisis management at the center did not make it. They were among the estimated 800 townsfolk who died or remain missing after the tsunami that raged through Minami-Sanriku on March 11, 2011. The town originally planned to preserve the rusted skeleton of the disaster prevention center building, but the structure has proven to be a painful reminder to many of the 15,000 residents, and the community has now agreed it must come down. “It is painful to see (the building),” said one of the survivors. Mayor Jin Sato is expected to make an official announcement soon, officials said. Three petitions concerning the fate of the building were submitted in August and September 2012. One petition suggested preserving the remains of the building as a memorial, a second suggested dismantling the structure at some point, while the third called for razing the building as soon as possible. Town officials determined that the structure was dangerous and could collapse, and that preserving it would cost too much. So they decided it had to come down as soon as possible. In order for the costs of demolition to be covered by the prefectural government, authorities in Minami-Sanriku must submit their application by the end of this month. What to do with the steel debris has not yet been decided, officials said. In the same prefecture, dismantling of a 330-ton fishing boat that was swept 750 meters inland from Kesennuma Port by the tsunami is under way in Kesennuma. The No. 18 Kyotoku Maru ended up near the city center. Originally, it was planned to preserve the vessel as a memorial. But many citizens of Kesennuma said it was a painful reminder of friends and relatives who died in the disaster, so town officials decided to have the Kyotoku Maru dismantled and the pieces hauled away.