FUKUSHIMA--Although the top is completely gone and the rest of the vehicle a rusting hulk, a police car that helped save lives from the tsunami spawned by the Great East Japan Earthquake will be preserved as a memorial.
FUKUSHIMA--Although the top is completely gone and the rest of the vehicle a rusting hulk, a police car that helped save lives from the tsunami spawned by the Great East Japan Earthquake will be preserved as a memorial.
The Tomioka town assembly on Dec. 16 received a report that the town government decided to save the patrol car that was engulfed by the tsunami on March 11, 2011, and resulted in its two occupants killed or missing.
“We want to convey to future generations not only the damage to the patrol car but also the police officers who saved the lives of many residents of our town without regard for the danger,” said a town government official.
Residents of Fukushima Prefecture have finally begun to collect objects for preservation that reflect the destruction and turmoil brought about by the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis.
Unlike in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, which were also devastated by the tsunami, the collection effort has been delayed in Fukushima Prefecture because radiation levels were high in many areas due to the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
In addition, work to clear the rubble contaminated with radioactive materials has been slow.
But many reminders in the prefecture show not only the damage from the tsunami, but also the dire situation that forced many residents to quickly flee their houses, schools or workplaces as the nuclear accident unfolded.
Now, people are actively engaged in their collection in order to convey these “silent witnesses” to the disaster to future generations.
Immediately after the earthquake, two police officers in Tomioka jumped into the patrol car to urge residents to evacuate to safer ground. Yoichi Masuko, 41, one of the two, was later found dead while the other, Yuta Sato, then 24, is still missing.
The vehicle was later found near a beach in the Hotokehama district of Tomioka.
Sato’s parents, who live in the city of Fukushima, have visited the destroyed patrol car around the 11th day of every month.
“If the car is left as is, it will rust away and wind up as rubble,” said his father, Yasuhiro, 56.
“Though our memories of the disaster (from the tsunami) wane, we should not forget them. It is a good thing to preserve the car,” he added.
The two police officers were off duty that day and were visiting the Futaba Police Station to receive their personnel transfer orders.
Soon after, a major tremor rocked the police station. They immediately headed for a residential area near the coast, though the huge tsunami was approaching.
The Fukushima prefectural police planned to dispose of the vehicle. However, a group of Tomioka residents petitioned the town government and the Futaba Police Station to preserve it. The town government received the car from the prefectural police on Dec. 1.
The town government plans to take corrosion-proofing measures on the vehicle and then display it in a children’s park next to the police station within this fiscal year, which ends in March 2015.
The efforts will be assisted by the action committee of the “Fukushima Shinsai Isan Hozen Project” (Project to preserve objects from the Fukushima earthquake disaster), which consists of eight organizations, including the prefectural Fukushima Museum in the city of Aizu-Wakamatsu.
The committee, formed in April this year, began to collect objects in the following month that show dire circumstances brought about by the disaster and the nuclear crisis.
With about 6 million yen ($50,190) in subsidies from the Cultural Affairs Agency, its members are looking into coastal areas this fiscal year. If they find suitable items, they measure their radiation levels. If they confirm that those objects are safe, they collect them.
The committee has already gathered about 100 objects. They include a clock at a beauty parlor in Tomioka, which stopped at 2:46 p.m., the time of the disaster; a toppled signboard of the Ukedo Elementary School in Namie; a stack of newspapers dated March 12, 2011, the day after the disaster, which were not distributed to customers and remained at a newspaper sales agent office.
The committee plans to continue the collection for three years from this fiscal year. It will also hold a meeting on its activities and display collected objects in two places in the prefecture during the period from February to March 2015.
All the residents in Tomioka were ordered to evacuate to safer municipalities due to the nuclear accident. Starting in March 2013, however, they have been allowed to re-enter their town only in the daytime.
“In Fukushima Prefecture, levels of radiation in the air and from objects were high in areas damaged by the disaster. Because of that, we hesitated to collect them. But now, a growing number of residents have been entering the damaged areas. So it has become possible to collect the objects,” said Mitsuru Takahashi, 44, a senior curator of the Fukushima Museum.
“We want to preserve as much as possible the objects that are reminders of people’s daily lives and jobs, which were lost due to the nuclear accident, and serve as witnesses of the tsunami and the nuclear crisis,” he added.