Top 7 Stories of Confronting the Disaster in Japan 7 Years Ago

While driving to warn residents about the tsunami, Toshinobu Oikawa discovered the approaching tsunami 3 km away. The earthquake had just passed, and he and his colleagues from the local government in Miyagi province were heading to villages without electricity. 'I saw white foam on top of the wave towering over the pine forest,' and that pine forest was 20 meters high, Oikawa told author Richard Lloyd Parry, author of the book 'Ghost Matrix of the Tsunami.' The tsunami quickly overflowed the embankment and 'flowed down like a waterfall,' Oikawa recalled. Oikawa and his colleagues ran uphill just seconds ahead of the raging wave. But one person got stuck in a car and was never found. They turned the car around, continued yelling into the loudspeaker 'Super tsunami is coming! Evacuate to higher ground!' From the hill, they witnessed the entire scene of the tsunami submerging everything—a truly horrifying sight. Even 20-meter tall pine trees were crushed, smashing houses, including Yukinori Sato's home. 'He witnessed his house being swept away. His parents, daughters, and granddaughter were inside. He shouted 'my house, my house,'' Oikawa said. Waichi Nagano heard but ignored the warning from Oikawa's loudspeaker. Only when his wife pointed out that the tsunami had overflowed the embankment 600 meters from their house, smashing buildings on the way, did he hurriedly call his daughter and granddaughter inside the house. The four jumped in the car and ran uphill to safety, the tsunami arriving just seconds behind them. Just a minute ago, Nagano was still tidying up the house, but now, before him, were houses, rice fields, and villages submerged in water, the assets of ancestors for five generations. 'It was like hell, like dreaming,' Nagano said. Each Japanese person on the east coast described the 2011 tsunami differently: 'like powerful waterfalls overflowing the embankment or like a sweeping flood, grabbing victims' legs, knocking them down,' author Parry wrote in his book. It was nothing like the blue ocean wave in the classic woodblock print by the artist Hokusai. It was extremely frightening, like 'the whole ocean rising up, roaring and rushing towards you,' author Parry wrote. More terrifying than anything was the sound created when the tsunami 'chewed up the world of humans, the sound of friction, and the breaking of wood, concrete, bricks, and metal.'

After 2011, a government study in Japan estimated a dual disaster, including an undersea earthquake south of Japan causing a tsunami, would kill 323,000 people along the coast and injure 623,000. According to this research, preventive measures considered sturdy construction, tsunami barriers, and regular evacuation drills. Thus, the hypothetical earthquake would claim more lives than 4 atomic bombs. Despite the 2011 disaster caused by an earthquake, 99% of the nearly 16,000 casualties were due to the tsunami. In Sendai, a major city near the epicenter, earthquake damages were relatively minimal. Modern buildings withstood the impact well.

Teruo Konno experienced the tsunami's fury, getting swept away but miraculously escaping the clutches of death. As the tsunami approached, Konno was at work in the Miyagi prefectural government office. In just a few seconds, everyone was engulfed by the water. Konno describes the experience as being 'in a washing machine.' The water was bitterly cold and ferocious, rendering him numb. He was thrown down, hitting the concrete floor of the parking lot outside the office, now turned into the seabed. 'As people say, faces of family and friends flashed in my mind,' Konno told author Parry. 'I thought, it's over, forgive me.' The feeling was different from fear; it was a profound sense of guilt and remorse. When the tsunami temporarily receded, he was swept back towards the sea. The familiar landmarks flashed before his eyes. Konno soon lost the sense of time, feeling like the world had been annihilated by the tsunami, and he was the sole survivor. His lifeline was a 1m x 2m wooden panel from a house that, if clinging to anything less sturdy, would have exhausted him to death, according to the author of the book 'Ghost Wave.' Subsequent waves left Konno unconscious and carried him towards the river. When he woke up, he found himself next to a roof, and he climbed onto it. Here, he encountered the most terrifying thing—the bone-piercing cold. 'The wind blew fiercely, full of snow. My shirt was soaked. With no jacket, no shoes, I shivered intensely... I gradually lost sensation. I just counted until the tsunami changed direction and swept me back into the sea.' Counting to 160, his roof was swept away. Fortunately for Konno, he heard someone shouting, 'Hold on tight!' It was Mitsuko Suzuki, a friend. Her house was on higher ground, and the water didn't flood the second floor. Like a miracle, Konno's roof drifted towards Mrs. Suzuki's house. 'Teruo! Climb up,' she said. Konno was utterly exhausted. However, as the strong waves returned and pulled the roof away, Konno knew this was his last chance. He reached out, grabbed onto the electric wires, and swam into Mrs. Suzuki's house through the first-floor door. He doesn't remember anything more. Konno didn't drown for 2 and a half hours underwater. But after reaching the second floor, he almost died from hypothermia. Mrs. Suzuki recounted how he became delirious, rummaging through the closet, smashing belongings. Still, the retired teacher saved him. In Japan, earthquakes happen frequently, and small tremors occur every 5 minutes. Some quakes can be distinctly felt, while others blend into the city's noise, like drilling, passing trucks, or subway sounds. Experts believe that Tokyo will face a strong earthquake in the coming years, destructive enough to cause widespread fires, killing tens of thousands. 'The first thing you're taught when moving to live in Tokyo is that this city is about to be destroyed,' author Parry wrote in 'Ghost Wave.'

The tragedy at Okawa Elementary School in Miyagi prefecture became known throughout Japan. 74 students, 10 teachers, and 1 bus driver couldn't evacuate in time and were swept away by the tsunami. When Hitomi Konno arrived two days after the tsunami, Daisuke's school was amidst debris—tree trunks, houses, boats, beds, bicycles, refrigerators. In every direction, there was only devastation. 'Everything looks like hell, as if an atomic bomb had fallen,' she told author Parry. Two students who managed to climb a hill reported seeing her son, Daisuke, being carried away by the water. She climbed the hill desperately searching for Daisuke. Miho Suzuki lost both her daughters and her father-in-law. She came here every day for almost two years to help dig and search for her daughter Hana. She left letters for her daughter on the altar next to the school for students. The letters were decorated with manga drawings that Hana loved to create when she was alive. 'Today, Mom and Grandma came here to meet you, to breathe the same air as you,' Miho wrote in the letters. 'Mom apologizes for not finding you... Mom wanted to sew a long-sleeved black kimono for your future wedding, but now it's just the dreams of your parents.' Searching for bodies was quite dangerous. The tsunami had piled up broken and sharp objects, not to mention the slippery foam and mud that could slide and collapse. 'No one is just looking for their own relatives. We collect bodies of everyone. Everyone works while crying,' said Ryosuke Abe, another parent. When they found a body, they brought it to a traffic island where women, including Hitomi, cleaned off the mud and searched for student ID cards. 'Of course, we had nothing to cover the bodies. We had to pick up sheets from the debris,' Hitomi said. She spent mornings arranging the bodies, and in the afternoons, she cooked for those who had just lost their homes, like herself.

Just a few hours after the disaster, hundreds of thousands had to evacuate to schools, temples, gymnasiums—anywhere they could spend the night. Despite losing homes, order prevailed everywhere due to the self-discipline of the Japanese. Each person's space was allocated, food was pooled, prepared, and distributed. Lists for cooking and quick cleaning had enough volunteers. They promptly lined up to receive food and took care of the elderly or injured. No one argued or complained, according to author Parry. Through this disaster, we also witnessed the sense of responsibility towards their work by Japanese officials. Even though they might have lost family and relatives, had to witness their homes being swept away, Teruo Konno woke up the next morning in shock. Despite Mrs. Suzuki's opposition, he returned to the government office. Wearing sandals, wading through thick snow and debris, a few hundred meters took an hour. The building was just an empty shell. Bodies were scattered around. Konno felt a chilling silence. Despite three broken fingers and bruises, Konno immediately got to work: identifying bodies, rescuing survivors—difficult tasks for an ordinary person, even more so for someone who had been swept away by water like Konno.

Finally, Abe later found the bodies of his two granddaughters and son-in-law. He burst into tears when he saw his beautiful granddaughters distorted to the point he didn't recognize them. Hitomi found her son Daisuke a week after the disaster. Her husband and she lost their son, two daughters, and the grandparents. They couldn't find coffins. Crematoriums were overloaded for days. Many drove hundreds of kilometers to organize funerals. Hitomi's husband spent hours every day driving around towns to find dry ice to preserve the five family corpses. Miho quit her job because the search for Hana, still missing, occupied her mind—a tumultuous search. Some students here were found in a lake 3 km away. Bodies were found outside the sea. The couple lived for 4 years in a makeshift metal house for those who lost homes. No one in the community knew them, and no one asked about their daughter Hana, one of the 2,500 Japanese still missing after the disaster. 'Who will bury us here? We are always uneasy about the future. Just thinking about it makes me breathless,' Miho told the author of the book 'Ghost Matrix of the Tsunami'.