HIGASHI-MATSUSHIMA, Miyagi Prefecture--Purple sea bells are making a comeback on Nobiru beach here after the 2011 tsunami wiped out nearly all of the flowering bindweeds.
HIGASHI-MATSUSHIMA, Miyagi Prefecture--Purple sea bells are making a comeback on Nobiru beach here after the 2011 tsunami wiped out nearly all of the flowering bindweeds.
The flowers covered a 3-kilometer stretch of the shoreline before the 10-meter tsunami spawned by the Great East Japan Earthquake swamped the coast.
A group of locals in June 2012 found only a handful of the sea bells flourishing on a 1-meter patch of the shore.
But this season, sea bells are blooming on a 150-meter stretch, making the northern edge of the beach appear covered by a purple carpet.
“I never imagined that the flowers could put down their roots on the beach again and blossom like this,” said Ichiko Takahashi, a 72-year-old resident of Higashi-Matsushima.
Officials at the Botanical Gardens of Tohoku University in Sendai said the sea bells are returning because either their subterranean roots managed to survive the tsunami or ocean currents brought in seeds from elsewhere.