MIYAKO, Iwate Prefecture--Distorted metal bars jut out from broken slabs of reinforced concrete. Rust spreads along exposed girders, and paint peels from the outside walls of the upper floors.
The skeletal remains of the six-story Taro Kanko Hotel would seem like an unlikely tourist destination. But about 20,000 people have toured the dilapidated building since April last year, when the Miyako city government began accepting visitors.
The hotel was one of thousands of structures destroyed when the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami devastated the coast of the northeastern Tohoku region on March 11, 2011.
The remains of the building have been preserved so that students and sightseers can learn the importance of disaster preparedness.
A tour guide on Feb. 10 led 38 participants up the emergency stairs of the hotel. They watched a video that showed the moment the 17-meter-high tsunami, spawned by the magnitude-9.0 quake, slammed into the hotel. The guide provided an explanation of the event.
“We definitely should never forget what happened on that day,” said Sonoko Kobayashi, 66, from Inzai, Chiba Prefecture.
The hotel, located about 150 meters from the coastline, was flooded to the fourth level. The first three floors were destroyed.
Vivid scars, including twisted stairs, remained in the hotel’s lobby.
In March 2014, the Taro Kanko Hotel became the first officially recognized ruins of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The status allows central government reconstruction grants to be spent on preservation work.