RIKUZEN-TAKATA, Iwate Prefecture--Nineteen stone tsunami markers erected around a century ago to warn against building in low-lying coastal areas now have protected status.
The city’s Board of Education designated the markers, designed to teach residents lessons from past towering tsunami disasters, as cultural assets for the first time.
The markers dot the city’s coastal area, which has always been vulnerable to tsunami.
According to the education board, nine of the markers were erected after the 1896 Meiji Sanriku Tsunami. The remaining 10 were set up after the 1933 Showa Sanriku Tsunami. The city’s official history book shows that the 1896 tsunami claimed the lives of 817 people, while the 1933 tsunami killed 106 residents.
The education board started a fact-finding survey of the tsunami-warning stone monuments after the magnitude-9.0 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. All the markers found to be still standing in the city were designated as cultural assets, except for those washed away by tsunami triggered by the earthquake. They include 15 markers in the Hirota-cho district, three in Otomo-cho and one in Kesen-cho.
Inscriptions engraved on all the stone monuments from the Meiji Era (1868-1912) are dedicated to mourn the tsunami victims. Using an old term for tsunami at the time, “kaisho,” they feature words such as “monument in memory of souls lost to drowning” and “soul-beckoning monument.”
Meanwhile, most of the stone markers from the early Showa Era (1926-1989) teach lessons learned from the tsunami disaster.
The inscription on a 1934 stone monument standing along a prefectural road on the east side of the Hirota Elementary School reads: “Tsunami will come after a major earthquake. Get together at high ground. When you hear tsunami, throw away your greed and run. Don’t build houses in low-lying areas.”
But the lessons inscribed on the stone monument have weathered with the passing of the years. By the time the 2011 earthquake hit the region, many houses had been built below the stone marker and suffered considerable extensive damage in the tsunami that followed.
“We hope that children who will be born in the future and other members of a generation who have no recollection of tsunami would also make use (of the cultural assets) as learning tools for disaster prevention education,” said an official of the education board.
At least one of the stone monuments designated as the cultural assets was established with donations collected by Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, the predecessor of The Asahi Shimbun, from its readers.