MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--Nearly four years after the towering March 2011 tsunami swept away 70 households and claimed 54 lives in this seashore community, a lone “miracle pine tree” that remained standing continues to inspire local residents.
MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--Nearly four years after the towering March 2011 tsunami swept away 70 households and claimed 54 lives in this seashore community, a lone “miracle pine tree” that remained standing continues to inspire local residents.
Chohachi Kanno, who lived on the coast, lost his wife, mother and two children in the tsunami spawned by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Kanno, 63, often visits the site where his house once stood. Only the foundation remains. As he gazes out to sea, he thinks of his mother, Haruyo, and his son, Takemi, who remain missing.
Kanno says he would have continued working with local volunteer fire brigade members in the search for his family if he had not been ordered to evacuate for two weeks after the nuclear crisis unfurled at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
“It is regrettable for me not to have been able to continue searching," Kanno says.
The massive wave of March 11 swept away all that Kanno held dear, even a beachside pine forest that used to cover a 3-kilometer stretch.
But one pine tree was left standing.
The 25-meter-tall tree, which measures 2 meters in circumference, stands 100 meters north of Kanno’s house. He always visits the tree when he returns to the former site of his home.
An arborist said the lone pine tree is suffering from root rot as the result of rising groundwater levels and damage caused by salty seawater.
Local residents are currently doing all they can to save the miracle pine tree, such as digging drainage ditches around it and enriching the soil with bamboo charcoal.
“(The tree) symbolizes hope for reconstruction of the local community,” says Kazuo Goga, 74, chairman of the lone pine tree preservation association.