MIYAKO, Iwate Prefecture--A regular tour of the disaster-hit Taro district in this northeastern city underscoring the destructive power of tsunami and lessons learned has welcomed its 100,000th visitor.
Participants in the “Manabu Bosai” (Learning disaster preparedness) tour are led through the Taro district, where the vivid scars from the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami remain alongside signs of the rebuilding efforts in progress.
Sites, such as the exposed steel frame of a hotel that was swamped by the towering waves, show visitors the imposing power of the workings of nature and the importance of fleeing for high ground in the event of a tsunami.
The total number of participants topped 100,000 on May 14 when a group of 138 third-year students visited from Shijonawate Gakuen Junior High School in Osaka Prefecture. The students on a field trip, which also doubled as a study program on the 2011 disasters, were seen climbing a gigantic seawall and walking along an evacuation route that was used by local junior high school students five years ago to escape the approaching tsunami.
The students also visited memorials at a Buddhist temple that are dedicated to the victims of three tsunami in the region throughout history: the Meiji Sanriku tsunami of 1896, the Showa Sanriku tsunami of 1933 and the Heisei tsunami of 2011.
“I want to learn about ways to flee, which I will share with members of my family as I will show them photos,” said 14-year-old Kazuki Hamada outside the Taro Kanko Hotel, a structure preserved with its lower floors destroyed to serve as a reminder of the destructive force of the tsunami.
“The tsunami arrived at a terrible speed,” said Kanna Oguchi, also 14, after she was shown a video of the approaching tsunami on the top floor of the six-story hotel building, where the footage had been filmed. “I have no idea if I could manage to flee to higher ground myself.”
The Manabu Bosai program, which started in April 2012, is operated by the Miyako Tourism Cultural Exchange Association on commission from the city government. The program offers various tours, including a one-hour course that starts from Taro Station of Sanriku Railway’s North Rias Line and includes visits to the seawall and the destroyed hotel. Six tour guides take turns leading participants, who are asked to pay a total of 4,000 yen ($37) in “partnership money” per guide for facility maintenance expenses.
The annual number of tour participants soared from about 18,900 in fiscal 2012 to about 31,300 in fiscal 2013. The figures have since dropped slightly, but more people have participated in the program this fiscal year than in 2015, partly because the Taro Kanko Hotel was made available for public viewing in spring 2016, sources said.
“I want people to share--to the extent they can--the sense of dread that engulfed us on that fateful day,” said 60-year-old tour guide Minoru Obata, who ran a guesthouse in Taro before the waves swept it away. “It is true we were overconfident that the seawall would protect us. I hope to emphasize the importance of promptly fleeing.”
“We hope that learning disaster preparedness will become second nature for people,” said Katsuji Sawada, the 72-year-old head of the Miyako Tourism Cultural Exchange Association. “We will do our best to enhance people’s awareness of disaster preparedness.”