Members of the Seo family on March 11 made the familiar trek along the coast of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, to a plot where a stone monument, figurines, flowers and even a white Christmas tree stand.
Members of the Seo family on March 11 made the familiar trek along the coast of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, to a plot where a stone monument, figurines, flowers and even a white Christmas tree stand.
Sobbing, Shinji Seo, 60, his wife, Hiromi, 56, and their son, Ryosuke, 27, prayed for the memory of daughter Kanae, who disappeared four years ago from this spot in the Okirai district after risking her life to save an elderly woman.
The Seo family’s small ceremony was one of countless held around the nation on the fourth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeastern Tohoku region.
From schoolchildren to the emperor, people in Japan prayed for the souls of the 15,891 people killed and the 2,584 missing in the March 11, 2011, catastrophe.
Prayers also went out to the 229,000 people who are still living as evacuees, including many who were driven from their homes after the tsunami caused the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The central government has designated the five years after Japan’s worst postwar natural disaster as the “period for intensive recovery.” But numbers show that a huge amount of work is still needed in this immense project.
After the magnitude-9.0 earthquake rattled the Tohoku region, horrific images spread of the tsunami destroying villages and carrying houses, cars and even ships far inland. The nation was in shock, and untold misery spread across the Tohoku region.
At a government-sponsored ceremony at the National Theater in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on March 11,
Sugawara said she tried to free her mother who had become trapped under debris, but it was too heavy to move. The last words she heard from her mother were, “Don’t go.”
“I told her, ‘Thank you, I love you’ before I swam to a nearby elementary school,” she said.
The ceremony was attended by Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and bereaved family members.
They offered a silent prayer at 2:46 p.m., the time the earthquake struck.
Sugawara has since spoken and written about her experiences as part of a group that wants to pass on lessons of the disaster to others.
Emperor Akihito urged people to do the same and to never forget those who are still suffering from the disaster.
“The situation surrounding the affected people is still severe, and I think it is important for the entire nation to unite from now on, too,” the emperor said. “It is important to hand down lessons from the disaster to future generations and to continue making efforts to build a safer country.”
On the day the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, Kanae Seo was a 20-year-old student at Kitasato University’s School of Marine Biosciences whose campus is located in Ofunato.
She was swallowed by the waves after she helped an elderly woman in a wheelchair escape the disaster.
Almost every month, Shinji and Hiromi, who live in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward, have visited the site where Kanae disappeared. They never found her.
In March 2014, they set up a stone memorial about 1.5 meters wide and 60 cm high about 200 meters from where Kanae’s apartment building once stood. The couple had become acquainted with a local resident who offered land for the memorial.
However, they will have to transfer the memorial by the end of this month to make room for work to elevate a prefectural road.
“I want to put it in a quiet place that commands a view of the sea,” Shinji said.
Work on roads in the Tohoku region has made steady progress since the disaster. About 99 percent of national roads directly managed by the central government have been rebuilt.
But work in other critical areas has been slow.
Only 4,543, or 15 percent, of the 29,517 planned public houses that will become permanent homes for disaster victims have been completed in the three hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. The delays have been caused mainly by the sharp rises in prices for construction materials and workers’ wages.
The number of households living in temporary housing facilities in the three prefectures fell by 13,000 in the year to Jan. 1, but it was still 77,000.
Reconstruction Agency data underscore the problems and hardships facing those forced to live away from their homes after the disaster struck. The agency said 3,194 of them killed themselves or died because of deteriorated physical conditions as of the end of September 2014.
Infrastructure is not the only thing that needs rebuilding in the Tohoku region.
In Fukushima Prefecture, home of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that was swamped by the tsunami, evacuation orders were lifted in the nearby municipalities of Tamura and Kawauchi in 2014.
But fears of radiation contamination and distrust of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. and government authorities continue around the crippled plant. Only 40 percent of the evacuees from Tamura and 10 percent of those from Kawauchi have returned home.
The accumulation of contaminated water at the plant has been a constant problem in efforts to finally decommission the reactors. The volume of highly radioactive water peaked at 367,000 tons in September 2014, and has since been declining.
However, radioactive water leaks and malfunctioning equipment continue to be reported, sometimes belatedly.
The processing of highly contaminated water stored in tanks at the plant is scheduled to be completed in May. But the method will not eliminate radioactive tritium, and how to dispose of the water has yet to be decided.
Around the nuclear plant, soil, debris and other materials contaminated with radioactive substances remain at temporary storage sites in Fukushima Prefecture and several other prefectures.
The recovery rate of farmlands and the total fish haul at major fishing ports in the affected areas are both around 70 percent of pre-disaster levels.
According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in autumn 2014, sales at 80 percent of companies in Tohoku’s main industries, such as fisheries and food processing, remain below pre-disaster levels.
As of the end of January 2015, the total population in 39 of 42 municipalities hard hit by the disaster decreased by about 92,000, or 6.7 percent, in the nearly four-year period, according to an Asahi Shimbun survey.
The three municipalities where the population increased were Sendai and the neighboring municipalities of Natori and Rifu. Local officials said the rise was due mainly to an influx of evacuees from other areas and workers seeking jobs in the reconstruction effort.
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A panoramic view of Ukedo Elementary School in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, that remains deserted and unrepaired four years after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami: