MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture--Dangerous pieces of the disaster management center building swamped by the 2011 tsunami were removed, but calls have grown to dismantle the remaining rust-colored metal frames and girders of the hulking structure.
MINAMI-SANRIKU, Miyagi Prefecture--Dangerous pieces of the disaster management center building swamped by the 2011 tsunami were removed, but calls have grown to dismantle the remaining rust-colored metal frames and girders of the hulking structure.
However, the site is also the place where Hiromi Miura, 53, visits once every three days to “enjoy a conversation” with her husband over beer and sake.
Miura’s husband, Takeshi, was a 51-year-old town official when the tsunami struck in March 2011. He was on the second floor of the center using the community wireless system to urge residents to flee just before the waves swept him away. His body has not been found.
“I’ve heard the building, the only place where I can chat with you, will be torn down. How will we handle this?” Hiromi Miura asked the spirit of her missing husband in front of the tsunami-wrecked building.
Survivors of the quake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan two and a half years ago have been debating over the ships, buildings, vehicles and other objects that have become symbols of the disaster.
Some want to keep them as memorials and education tools for future generations. Others want them removed to erase reminders of all the pain, suffering and death that shattered their communities.
Forty-two people at the Minami-Sanriku disaster management center were killed or remain missing. The town government intended to preserve the remains of the building as a monument to the tsunami victims.
But some bereaved families demanded the building be dismantled, saying it was bringing back painful memories. The town government in September decided to demolish it.
In summer last year, citizens submitted three petitions: two calling for scrapping or delaying the dismantling plan, and one seeking the removal of the building as soon as possible.
In the end, the town determined that preserving the building would hamper surrounding reconstruction work, and decided to tear down the structure.
In other parts of Miyagi Prefecture, symbols of the disaster are disappearing.
One famous image from the disaster was the No. 18 Kyotoku Maru fishing boat that was swept 750 meters inland in Kesennuma.
The Kesennuma city government had worked to conserve the ship as a symbol, but the ship’s owner in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, sought to demolish it because residents said they did not want to see it anymore.
Dismantling work started in early September.
In March last year, the city government of Ishinomaki, also in Miyagi Prefecture, removed a sightseeing bus that had ended up on the roof of a community center building. Citizens complained that the vehicle reminded them of what they do not want to remember.
But in other disaster areas, aggressive efforts have been made to preserve the symbols.
The Taro tourist hotel in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, was hit hard by the tsunami two years ago. Its walls on the first and second floors were swept away, leaving only the building’s metal frames.
The six-story hotel is trying to make the facility a tourist attraction for people who hope to learn more about the devastation. Visitors on the top floor can watch a video that recorded the tsunami heading toward the hotel.
Miyako Mayor Masanori Yamamoto plans to buy the hotel and preserve it as a disaster-preparedness education center. He said he wants to pass down the horrors of the tsunami to future generations.
The Otsuchi town government in Iwate Prefecture is attempting to restore a once-removed sightseeing boat that had washed up on a roof of a tourist inn.
The government took away the Hamayuri ship two months after the March 2011 disaster. But some citizens said it should be restored as educational material to show the height of the tsunami.
The municipal government in July last year began soliciting donations for the project.
Debate over whether to maintain symbols of natural disasters, wars or accidents is not new in Japan.
The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, an iconic symbol of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of the city, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996.
But before 1966, when the Hiroshima city assembly adopted a resolution calling for the building to be preserved as a memorial, local residents argued over whether it should remain.
One thing that led to the city’s resolution was a study that showed the dome could be maintained with reinforcement work.
But in Nagasaki, the Urakami Cathedral hit by the U.S. atomic bomb was demolished after the end of World War II. A new cathedral was constructed on its site.
“Even today, some people say it is regrettable that (the cathedral was replaced),” said Yuichi Seirai, a novelist who was born and raised near the Urakami Cathedral.
But Seirai, who wrote the book “Bakushin” (Ground zero) about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, also noted the costs needed by a local government to preserve monuments of a disaster or war.
“Unless the central government chooses which symbols to preserve, the ‘messages’ for posterity will vanish,” Seirai said.
In Tokyo, Japan Airlines Co. has kept traces of one of the worst air disasters in history to remind employees and executives of the importance of ensuring safety.
A JAL jumbo jet crashed into the village of Ueno, Gunma Prefecture, in 1985, killing 520 aboard.
Bereaved family members initially asked JAL to preserve the wreckage, but the airline was cool toward the idea.
But after a series of JAL safety blunders surfaced in 2005, the company decided to exhibit the remains of the jet at its Safety Promotion Center near Haneda Airport in Tokyo.
“Once the remains are cleared away, it becomes impossible to restore them again,” said Kuniko Miyajima, 66, one of the bereaved family members. “What is important is to pass them down to future generations.”