Although only the shell of an elementary school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, remains from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, former students are campaigning for their damaged building to be preserved as a reminder of the disaster.
Although only the shell of an elementary school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, remains from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, former students are campaigning for their damaged building to be preserved as a reminder of the disaster. About 70 percent of the school's students were killed in the disaster on March 11, 2011, when a tsunami spawned by the quake engulfed the campus. During a symposium in Tokyo on Dec. 6, six former students of Okawa Elementary School called for the authorities to preserve the damaged main building of the school. A total of 80 students and teachers were killed, while four other students remain missing. “It may be convenient to hand down memories of the disaster through images, but people can learn the reality of the disaster just by looking at the damaged school building,” said Sonomi Sato, an 18-year-old alumna of the school who lost her younger sister when the tsunami struck. Tomoka Shito, 16, who also lost her sister in the disaster, said, she, as an alumna, cannot let the building that embodies so many memories of the students be torn down. “The building must be preserved as standing evidence to learn about the disaster,” she said. Tetsuya Tadano, 15, who survived the disaster at the school, said the building will be a precious reminder of why the lives of so many students were lost in the calamity. While collapsed or damaged buildings in the area surrounding the school have been removed, the devastated school building remains as it was, more than three and a half years after the disaster. Many people still visit it to offer a prayer to students’ souls. Some local residents have demanded the school building be dismantled as it rekindles memories that are too painful. But Hideaki Sato, the 58-year-old head of a citizens’ group that has assisted the alumni’s campaign, said it is a good reminder for all to think of why so many young people had to die in vain.