RIKUZENTAKATA, Iwate Prefecture--The 2011 tsunami devastated the Rikuzentakata city museum here, taking the lives of six staff members, including the director--but now the institution is getting back on its feet with a little help from its friends.
The museum also lost over 230,000 artifacts and research materials in its collection of cultural, botanical and zoological items to the deluge triggered by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, including some 27,000 insect specimens.
Fortunately for the museum, sympathetic institutions, including the Iwate Prefectural Museum in Morioka, came to the rescue. And in a group effort, they have been tackling the unprecedented challenge of restoring the tsunami-damaged insect specimens.
The specimens were smashed out of their cabinets and swamped by the tsunami, and started to rot. They have since been kept in a special freezer at minus 20 degrees, awaiting the painstaking process of restoration.
It involves meticulously cleaning, sterilizing and drying each item by hand. Staff are required to strike a delicate balance, as cleaning can further damage the insects’ fragile wings and bodies, but if they are left in their salty state, they could become moldy.
Shuji Watanabe, a curatorial researcher from the prefectural museum, said the restored specimens together with their correct collection records still hold academic and scientific value.
“Records proving which insects inhabited where and when can help us understand the natural environment and its history,” said Watanabe.