March 2011 catastrophe links 2 young men to launch mutually complementary relief activities

March 24, 2012

March 2011 catastrophe links 2 young men to launch mutually complementary relief activities

Hiroki Saijo, a native of Minami Sanriku Town, Miyagi Prefecture, and Kotaro Ohgami of Fukuoka City of Fukuoka Prefecture did not know each other before the catastrophe of March 11, 2011. But a piece of information Saijo placed on a website after the disaster to seek help for affected people in his home town caught Ohgami’s eye. Saijo had nothing to provide to affected people in Minami Sanriku, but he had knowledge about the situation in the town--that it, where the survivors are and what they need.
Ohgami, who leads a volunteer group based in Fukuoka, was thinking about how to start relief activities for the evacuees when he found Saijo’s message on the Internet. His group, called Fukuoka Front Line Support, hoped to supply relief goods to survivors in small and remote communities who tended to be left out of relief activities by public and big organizations. So, specific information provided by Saijo was helpful for his group. (The photo at the top shows, from left to right, Mr. Ohgami, his daughter and Mr. Saijo.)
Saijo works with an Internet service company in Tokyo. His family lives in an inland city west of Minami Sanriku, but some relatives and friends were in the affected town. He hurried home from Tokyo and then entered Minami Sanriku five days after the disaster. While staying at his uncle’s house, which had been unaffected, Saijo continued to support relief groups from other regions, including Ohgami and his staff, who were unfamiliar with the local situation. The mutually complementary activities by the two young men started in May and continued every time when Ohgami’s group visited Minami Sanriku.
When the earthquake-triggered tsunami waves began to hit widely scattered areas on the Pacific coasts from the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan to eastern Japan, Saijo’s grandmother was attending a party for a club of elderly people at a building in the town.
After the first attack of the earthquake hit the area, some participants fled out of the building, for fear that it would be flooded with tsunami waves. But employees at the building persuaded other people to stay while warning it would be rather dangerous to go out. His grandmother escaped from the third floor to the fourth floor and then to the roof. Those who were at the roof of the building survived, but those who had gone out for safer places were mostly dead, Saijo recalls.
His mother worked as a nurse at Shizukawa Hospital, located in the heart of Minami Sanriku, for about 30 years until a few years ago. After the debris was removed from around the damaged hospital building, a corner was set up near its entrance to receive flowers for about 70 victims there. Saijo told his mother, “Why don’t we go to the hospital?” But she never wanted to go there. “Maybe, it (the hospital) was no more a place for her to see,” he said, “because patients whom she knew and her former colleagues were among the dead.”
Ohgami organized a charity bazaar in Fukuoka along with other volunteer group leaders on the first anniversary of the March 11 disaster. He invited Saijo to come and help volunteers at the event. The Rainbow Square event included performances and shops of foods and goods as donations to affected people. The event was supported by members of about 10 different activist groups, who cooperated with each other across the walls of their organizations. The cross-organizational event style "will help them (the members) to increase their motivations for volunteer activities and make our entire relief activities more successful," said Masakatsu Hiyakawa, a key member of the Fukuoka Citizens' Network for Support to the Disaster Areas.

-"We will continue our activity for survivors for at least 10 years"-
Ohgami stressed the uniqueness of a paint art corner in which visitors paint a big rainbow with their hand prints together on nine separate panels one by one. The panels, when completed, were put together and displayed on the performance stage. “We will continue this rainbow painting activity” in the years ahead, Ohgami said. He hopes that the completed rainbow art panels will be displayed at a public place. He believes that activities for the tsunami-affected people and regions must be continued over the years. Saijo agreed. “We will continue our activities for at least 10 years,” Ohgami said.

-Fukuoka citizens form human chain to mourn disaster victims-
One block away from a shopping mall corridor as the venue of the Rainbow Square bazaar was a much bigger event organized by the Fukuoka city government with public and private organizations. The event was designed to mourn the disaster victims and increase people’s awareness about the importance of extending support in various styles to the survivors.
With about 30 booths set up at a square in front of the city hall building, volunteer and other groups introduced their relief activities and charity goods for the affected people. The “Never Forget March 11” event culminated into one minute of silent tribute for the disaster victims by about 1,500 Fukuoka citizens, who braved a piercing wind to form a big human ring hand in hand at 2.46 p.m., the exact moment of the unprecedented earthquake a year ago.

(video3) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video3) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video2) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video2) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video1) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

(video1) Damaged School Buildings, Structures Stand like Monuments in Ishinomaki

Ishinomaki Citizens Hoping to See Early Return of Happy Cherry Blossom Season

Ishinomaki Citizens Hoping to See Early Return of Happy Cherry Blossom Season

March 12, 2012

Mt. Hiyoriyama commands a good view of the central part of Ishinomaki City, with the Pacific seen to the south beyond fishery-related and residential zones on the seaside. Areas around the top of the 56-meter mountain have flowering cherry trees. That is why the hill-like mountain has been loved by Ishinomaki citizens as a nice location for their pleasure in early spring. But one can now see flattened and deserted areas and a few damaged buildings from an observatory at the top of the mountain.
Last year’s cherry blossom season passed with people coming to enjoy the cherry trees limited as it came a month after the tsunami disaster. But citizens hope that a happy cherry blossom viewing season will return this year.
Ishinomaki Municipal Hospital, located near the mouth of Old Kitakami River flowing into the Pacific, is one of the damaged buildings in the seaside area. The hospital was inundated and severely damaged by the tsunami waves. It could not perform its desired role of taking care of people when big disasters occurred. Hospital staff built a makeshift clinic at a different place and started receiving affected people there a few weeks later.
Mt. Hiyoriyama can be seen from many places in the heart of Ishinomaki City. The mountain was a good view to see for a 94-year-old woman, whose son runs a small Japanese-style “ryokan” hotel near JR (Japan Railways) Ishinomaki Station. The woman escaped the tsunami damage, but her son's hotel, on an ally leading to the station square, was flooded by the tide.
The hotel could not resume its business until May. The first floor of the hotel, with a dining room and a bathroom for customers and a living quarter for the family, was completely flooded. The old woman and her family escaped to the second floor when the tsunami waves came, and they spent the first night there. “We had not expected tsunami waves would come this close to our area,” the woman said. Her daughter, who lives in a different city, “came to us and took me to her home a few days later,” she said. Some ryokan owners are considering discontinuing their business because it is difficult to rebuild hotels at the previous places, her son said.
The damaged structures in the affected seaside area also include the charred building of Kadonowaki Elementary School. A big fire occurred after the attack of the tsunami waves and gutted the Kadonowaki district, including the school. The neighboring Minamihama district was also flattened by a separate fire following the tsunami waves. Across Old Kitakami River was another damaged school building, the building that had housed No. 2 Minato Elementary School. (The photo at the top shows the flattened Kadonowaki district with the sea lying ahead. The second photo from the top shows Kadonowaki Elementary School. Ishinomaki Municipal Hospital is seen in the third photo and No. 2 Minato Elementary School in the fourth photo. The remaining two photos are remote views of the damaged seaside and riverside areas from the top of Mt. Hiyoriyama.)
Fires in the two districts were not extinguished until a few days later. Fire fighters were initially unable to reach the areas because the fires were very strong. "Over 1,000 people were dead in the seaside area beyond Mt. Hiyoriyama. The mountain is right up there," said a fish shop employee said.
Main roads in the heart of the city are open for traffic with the debris like broken pieces of houses and buildings and damaged vehicles removed. But some buildings remain deserted. These damaged buildings cannot be demolished partly because their owners have died or become missing. “A sticker, reading ‘Please call the phone number below if you know the owner of this property,’ had been placed on the wall of this shop until a few weeks ago,” a local man said in front of a building once used as a marine product shop.
Some bright signs are emerging in the city, among them the reopening of a fish market at a temporary facility built at one of the raised land tracts near the previous market. Fish dealers at the new market were busy processing the day's catches from early morning. Many shops on main streets near Ishinomaki Station were washed away or damaged, but some shopowners are reopening their business as customers hope to help support local shops by buying their products.

------------------

This series of seven stories is a product of a week-long swing (from February 24 to March 1) through the three prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, whose coastal areas were extensively damaged by the earthquake-triggered tsunami waves in March 2011. The series has become possible with cooperation extended by nearly 100 people, not just those who were interviewed but also ordinary people like hotel and restaurant employees, bus and taxi drivers and citizens who provided many pieces of important information about what is going on in the tsunami-damaged areas right now. The names of these people do not appear in the stories, but special thanks go to all the people, mentioned and not mentioned.

Kashima Hiospital of Iwaki Faced with New Needs Linked to Fukushima N-Plant Disaster (2)

Kashima Hiospital of Iwaki Faced with New Needs Linked to Fukushima N-Plant Disaster (2)

The nuclear accident has not only threatened the health of residents in communities around the plant, but it has also stripped people engaged in farming and fishing in Fukushima of their jobs. These people have to fight against rumors that almost all products from the prefecture have been contaminated with radioactive substances.
The radioactive contamination is also a reason why children in Iwaki and neighboring areas are barred from playing outside. Places for children to play in have been newly opened at some sites. One of the rooms at a building that houses souvenir shops and tourism-related businesses in a seaside area in Iwaki was converted into a children’s playing place in November. With an admission fee of 100 yen, children and parents can play there.
The La La Myu play room attracts 400 to 500 visitors on weekends, said a room manager. The room was filled with children’ happy voices on a weekend day late February. Parents hope to see their children play under the sun again at the earliest possible time, but it is uncertain when such a day will come.
Some researchers have started studies about the influence of the radioactive contamination on children’s health and growth, but this is only for a monitoring purpose, Tago said. Full studies about how to protect their health have yet to start, he said.
“If people’s radioactive exposure level is to be fully examined, we need the so-called whole body counter system,” Tago said. The system is very costly and there are only five units in Fukushima, including two in Iwaki, he said. Schoolchildren in Iwaki have radiation level gauges suspended from their neck all the time.
Personnel working at sites near the damaged nuclear plant to prevent the radioactive contamination from spreading further have to receive medical checks every six months. If their radiation level is found to be higher than an allowable level, they are shifted to other workplaces. Kashima Hospital accepted a maximum 400 to 500 people for medical checks a month from working sites in an off-limits area near the plant last year.
A medical clinic was recently established for these workers at J-Village, the site which was previously occupied by sports facilities. The site, located near the off-limits zone, has been converted into a base camp for people working within the area. At a corner in the J-Village compounds was a complex of housing units for these people. Meanwhile, a checkpoint at a road leading to the J-village camp was in a tense atmosphere with a guard on the alert.
While spending busy days with his staff and having discussion with friends after his business hours about how to encourage the evacuees and other affected people, Tago also devotes his time to playing with his second son. The eight-year-old son was born 13 years after the birth of his first son. Tago calls his two sons as "angels." Despite the current hardship for people in Iwaki, he hopes that happy days will continue for his sons so that they may be able to peacefully plant seeds for their next generation.

Kashima Hiospital of Iwaki Faced with New Needs Linked to Fukushima N-Plant Disaster (1)

Kashima Hospital of Iwaki Faced with New Needs Linked to Fukushima N-Plant Disaster (1)

March 11, 2012

Kashima Hospital of Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, voluntarily served as a hub to collect and distribute relief goods for local tsunami-affected people in the first few months after the disaster, but as their extra mission came to an end, hospital staff had to provide services for new kinds of patients linked to the radioactive leakage accident at the damaged No. 1 Fukushima nuclear power station of Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Iwaki is 30 to 40 kilometers south of the ill-starred plant. The city has become one of places that accommodate those who evacuated from areas near the plant.
Relief activities by doctors and others at the hospital had been almost finished toward summer. Then, their business expanded to take care of evacuees from the regions around the nuclear plant. "The number of evacuees to Iwaki had amounted to tens of thousands," Fumie Nakayama, a key physician at the hospital, recalls. The evacuees came from various cities and towns and therefore, health insurance application systems for them differed from town to town. "This was why our services for the evacuees became very complex," she said.
The hospital itself lacked water not only for drinking but also for medical purposes just after the disaster, which occurred on March 11 last year. Meanwhile, thousands of affected people had remained at evacuation facilities in Iwaki even in early April. This prompted the hospital staff to call for relief goods through various channels from across Japan. Nakayama used mainly her network of friends at her alma mater in Tokyo.
Relief goods collected by Kashima Hospital, with about 230 beds, initially went to tsunami-hit coastal areas in Iwaki, including Toyoma and Usuiso, both fishing villages. People in the two communities never forget the assistance extended by the hospital in their hardest days after the disaster. “Their support was really helpful to us,” said one man who is in his 60s. He recalls a phone call from a Kashima Hospital nurse. The nurse called him and quickly said, “We just got some big-size men's shirts from a supporters’ group today. Come on, and you can get one. That must be good to you.”
"Our activity aimed at distributing a variety of daily necessities through what we called 'Shop Kashima' started spontaneously," said Hajime Tago, the chief of the medical checkup department of the hospital. Toward the middle of May, an increasing number of people came for relief goods, reflecting an influx of people from regions affected by the radioactive leakage accident, Tago said. (The photo at the top shows, from left to right, Mr. Tago, Ms. Nakayama and Ms. Keiko Sato, a hospital employee.)
Shop Kashima received up to 80 cartons of relief goods a day from across the country. Goods gathered by Shop Kashima had been distributed to a total of 663 families or 2,172 people by the end of June, according to Tago.
People in Toyoma and Usuiso, the fishing villages covered by the relief activity by Shop Kashima, are currently anxious about relocating to safer places at higher land. Residents there frequently have discussions with people at local public offices about where to build their new houses. But their discussions get nowhere immediately, because higher places broad enough to accept their relocation are limited near their workplace.
Tokuo Suzuki, the community leader of Toyoma, goes to a prefabricated house set up as a disaster headquarters for his area. He consults with other community people there about how to rebuild houses and rehabilitate their jobs for fishing. Ryuichiro Shiga, the community leader of Usuiso, the village next to Toyoma, is also faced with similar problems. Shiga, who lost his wife in the tsunami disaster, stressed the difficulty of narrowing gaps with public-sector people about where to build new houses, pointing candidate sites for the relocation on a rehabilitation map for his area. (The second photo from the top shows Mr. Suzuki and the third photo shows Mr. Shiga.)

(video3) Okawa Elementary Stands in Calmness

(video3) Okawa Elementary Stands in Calmness

(video2) Okawa Elementary Stands in Calmness

(video2) Okawa Elementary Stands in Calmness

(video1) Okawa Elementary Stands in Calmness

(video1) Okawa Elementary Stands in Calmness

Okawa Elementary Stands Like Bombed Church in Calmness

Okawa Elementary Stands like Bombed Church in Calmness

March 10, 2012

Okawa Elementary School of Kamaya in the northeastern part of Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, was standing like a bombed church in a solemn atmosphere on a cloudy day late February. A few visitors were quietly posing like mourners before the damaged two-story schoolhouse with a unique round shape.
The elementary school is the theater of one of the saddest episodes in the tsunami disaster. The tidal waves climbed up from the sea through Kitakami River and killed 74 children and 10 school people, including teachers. The casualties were 70 pct of the total pupils and staff at the school.
The tsunami waves not only damaged the school building and an adjacent gym but also washed away many houses and facilities in the rural community including Kamaya, leaving hundreds of people dead or missing. A total of about 500 families were affected in the community and at present, about half of them live at temporary housing units at three separate sites in an inland area. The residents are basically inclined to relocate to safe places on higher land in groups, but they are divided on specifically where to relocate, according to a person with access to a local public office. Such higher land for relocation is limited in the area. Some elderly people even hope to return to their previous places despite the tsunami damage. But at least the school is unlikely to be rebuilt at the current place. "No parents hope to let them (the surviving children) go to the place any more," the person said. Most families in Kamaya have lived mainly on farming but also on different businesses, such as jobs at companies in urban areas.
Each community in the area had a fire and disaster brigade comprising local people. They had regularly practiced evacuation training, checking how to close a water gate to prevent a flood, but the training had not been joined by ordinary people, according to the person. “They just had not expected tsunami waves to surpass the river embankment.”
Kamaya is about 5 kilometers inside from the river mouth, but the area is largely on a low land. Actually, the compounds of Okawa Elementary are hemmed by the river embankment on the north and mountains on the east and the south. To the west, there is a road leading to the southern end of the bridge across Kitakami River. Led by teachers, the children were trying to escape to what local people call the “Triangular Area” by the southern end of New Kitakami Bridge, located about 200 meters west of the school, when the tide attacked them.
It is said that some people tried to escape to the highest possible place on the bridge itself because there were apparently no safer places. When considering the distance which can be reached with children on their foot, no fully safe place was seen to be available for them, said the person, who declined to be named. The mountain just behind the school has densely planted cedar trees and its slope is too steep for children to climb up. “It is difficult to say that the teachers’ judgment (that they should escape to the place near the bridge) was wrong,” the person said. The Triangular Area, which is higher than surrounding areas, was swollen by the waves later and the bridge itself was partially broken by the tide, which brought up many damaged objects like uprooted trees from downstream and had them hit the bridge girders. Survivors remained alive by running up the mountain desperately by themselves or being lifted up on the slope by the tide.
The episode at Okawa Elementary was much publicized throughout Japan. As a result, a monument and a bell in memory of the dead pupils were established at a place where the main gate to the school was believed to be, late last year. Beneath the monument were flowers and a lot of items, including toys and an old photo of the schoolhouse before the disaster. Almost nothing was heard around the deserted school building except the whispers of the visitors and the sounds of vehicles and trucks passing by.
The community had become rather impoverished before the mishap as Japan’s economy as a whole has been in the doldrums. The disaster may be an opportunity to rebuild the community, but plans for reconstruction are unlikely to be drawn immediately because the surviving residents remain split on what to do from now on, the person said.

(video2) Old Woman of Iwaki Sings Song Dedicated to God Anba-sama

Old Woman of Iwaki Sings Song Dedicated to God Anba-sama (2)

(video1) Old Woman of Iwaki Sings Song Dedicated to God Anba-sama

Old Woman of Iwaki Sings Song Dedicated to God Anba-sama (1)

Winds blowing from God Anba-sama in the offing
How wonderful How wonderful!
Catch sardines, catch sardines
Winds blowing on cedar leaf fragrances
How wonderful! How wonderful! /
The New Year’s God we welcome once a year
How wonderful! How wonderful!
The whole family is here together
And all are harmonious.
How wonderful! How wonderful! /
Sounds like a crane’s voice on the New Year’s Day
That spring well bucket
How wonderful! How wonderful!
Let’s ladle fresh water into the turtle-like jar
How wonderful! How wonderful! /

A related article can be found in the post "Tsunami-Hit Survivors in Iwaki Hoping to Revive Old Song as Symbol for Fresh Start" released on March 8, 2012.

Father Trying to Keep Memories with Children from Being Destoryed by Disaster (2)

Father Trying to Keep Memories with Children from Being Destroyed by Disaster (2)

Sato’s job is to look for tsunami-damaged vehicles and search their owners by confirming the vehicle numbers printed or carved somewhere inside the car. Vehicle surveyors like Sato confirm whether the owners are willing to abandon their ownership to the vehicles. If this is confirmed, the damaged vehicles will be put up for auction and sold to scrap dealers. Since he began the job in December, his team has processed about 2,000 units.
Vehicles recovered from the sea are assembled at places near the shore. The surveyors regularly check the places where the vehicles are assembled, because the number of vehicles sometimes changes, according to Sato. Somebody brings in a vehicle and somebody comes to pick up one. He sometimes talks with fishermen working on the wharf to collect information about whether there are any deserted vehicles around their workplace.
Some of the vehicles recovered from the sea were found with the drivers’ bodies inside, Sato said. The daughter of a friend of his could not contact her husband, who was a meat shop employee, after the tsunami waves came. Her husband's vehicle was found near the sea a few days later with his seriously damaged body inside.
Sato is sometimes lured into thinking about relocating to a warm place in western Japan after the current job is finished. But he does not consider such plans concretely. Sato believes it will be better to stay in the current place for his family and his job.

Father Trying to Keep Memories with Children from Being Destroyed by Disaster (1)

Father Trying to Keep Memories with Children from Being Destroyed by Disaster (1)

March 9, 2012

Eiji Sato, a father of three children, lives in an inland city of Miyagi Prefecture, but he loved visiting a coastal area in the northeastern part of the prefecture for fishing. The area had many good fishing spots and bashing places, but when he visited there a few weeks after the tsunami disaster, he saw many broken pieces of breakwaters and other port facilities widely scattered on the shore.
Sato, an employee of a used car dealership, currently works as one of tsunami-damaged vehicle surveyors in Minami Sanriku Town on contracts with the prefecture. While surveying the situation in the town, he sometimes passes by Nagasuka Beach. Carefully kept in his mobile phone are photos of sand pictures drawn by his daughter, the youngest of the three children, on the beach at Nagasuka a few years ago. “My children sometimes ask me, ‘How is the beach now?’ but I do not talk about it in detail,” Sato said, “because the area was damaged so seriously.”
Shizukawa in the heart of Minami Sanriku Town, among Sato’s survey areas, was extensively damaged by the tsunami waves. The tide pulling backward was much stronger than the oncoming tide, according to Sato. Houses and buildings were damaged by not only the tsunami waves themselves but also by objects brought up and pulled back on the retreating waves, he said. Actually, the back front of Shizukawa Hospital on the mountain side was hit by various objects which came on the backward waves. Among such objects was a severely damaged boat, which remains deserted on the roof of an extended part of the first story of the hospital building. Vehicles crashed into the four-story building and a few of them remain inside the building. It is difficult to pull them out, because they have got into the building deep, Sato said. As the building is to be demolished before long, these vehicles will have to be recovered then, he said. Shizukawa Hospital, with about 120 beds, was located about 300 meters from the sea and a total of 75 people were dead there.
About 200 meters from the hospital to the mountain side were the town office building and an adjacent structure designed as the town’s antidisaster headquarters. But they were also destroyed by the tsunami waves. Nothing remained there except the red frameworks of the three-story antidisaster headquarters building. When the waves came to the area, about 30 town employees were working inside the building. They climbed up to the roof, but the tide reached far above the height of the roof. About 10 of the 30 people survived the attack of the tide while clinging to an antenna pole and parts of higher structures on the roof.
The victims at the building included Miki Endo, a 24-year-old town employee, who continued to call residents to evacuate through the town’s antidisaster voice alarm system from a broadcasting room on the second floor of the building until the last minutes. Endo was believed to have climbed up to the roof along with her colleagues. But she was not among the survivors there when they confirmed their safety with each other after the waves began to recede. Her body was found near the shore five weeks later and it was identified as hers by her fiancee and her parents.
The tsunami disaster claimed about 900 lives in Minami Sanriku, but her repeated call for evacuation helped to save the remaining people in the town, which had a population of some 17,000 before the mishap. On a desk established in front of the skeletonized building were flowers and other items dedicated to the victims.

Tsunami-Hit Survivors in Iwaki Hoping to Revive Old Song as Symbol for Fresh Start (2)

Tsunami-Hit Survivors in Iwaki Hoping to Revive Old Song as Symbol for Fresh Start (2)

Suzuki, the old woman who had inherited the song, lives with her family, who runs a bed-and-breakfast near the sea. When the strong tremor occurred, she was at home with her husband, her eldest son and his wife. But her grandson was out. The four immediately escaped to the second floor of a building next to the inn when the tide began to flood the area. They spent the first night on the second floor of the building with local people who came to find safe places. The whereabouts of her grandson was unknown until a few days later.
Suzuki got up the next morning and went out to see how the seashore is. She saw a horrible scene out there, with broken pieces of many houses and boats as well as bodies scattered around on the shore. She cried and shouted, “God! Buddha! Why are you so cruel?’” Suzuki, the youngest of nine brothers and sisters, was told by her last living elder sister on her death, “Never cry, Toyono.” Since then, she had not cried at all, but she cried for the first time after her sister’s death when she saw the dreadful scene. Victims in her community included 10 of the 30 members of the elderly persons’ club in the area.
Suzuki's family tried to reopen their business as soon as possible, but she had spent gloomier days since the disaster. One day, she was visited by friends of her and asked by them “Can you sing the Song of God Anba-sama, mom?" They told her that a Mr. Yamana, a shrine priest, is looking for somebody who can sing the song because he intends to revive the song as a symbol for local people’s struggle for recovery from the disaster.

Winds blowing from God Anba-sama in the offing
How wonderful How wonderful!
Catch sardines, catch sardines
Winds blowing on cedar leaf fragrances
How wonderful! How wonderful! /
The New Year’s God we welcome once a year
How wonderful! How wonderful!
The whole family is here together
And all are harmonious.
How wonderful! How wonderful! /
Sounds like a crane’s voice on the New Year’s Day
That spring well bucket
How wonderful! How wonderful!
Let’s ladle fresh water into the turtle-like jar
How wonderful! How wonderful! /
(A personal translation)

These are the first three sequences of the lyrics of the song Suzuki had inherited from people in the community when she was young. (Note: It was believed that cedar leaves have the power of dispelling evil spirits. The crane and the turtle are considered to be symbols of happiness in Japan and their pronunciations in the Japanese language are the same as those of the well bucket and the jar. In other words, the two terms are used as puns in the song. ) Yamana’s approach to the old woman helped her regain her spirits and resume her work as before.

-“All episodes were not tragic. We had also good ones”-
“The episodes we saw in the disaster were not all tragic,” Yamana said. A green belt along about 10 kilometers of coastlines extending north to south across Natsui River helped protect communities inside the zone from the tsunami waves. This is one of good episodes, if not many, in Iwaki, he said.
The green belt, with a width of 50 to 100 meters, is actually a forest of densely planted pine trees. The trees sacrificed themselves to block the tide from invading the communities inside. The original pine tree zone was built early in the Edo era in the 17th century in a project engineered by the then lord in the region. It was designed to protect rice fields from being damaged by salty breezes. Local people called the green belt the “Dosan Forest,” taking the pen name of the lord, according to Yamana. This episode must be used as a lesson for the future, the former high school principal said.
Yamana and his supporters held a meeting in February to announce their endeavor to revive the Song of God Anba-sama, inviting tsunami survivors and other people in the area. It is uncertain if their undertaking will make smooth progress, but they are determined to revive the song and related traditions by all means.
“We know how strong traditional festivals, songs and dances are in rescuing us from the deep well of sadness. They can bring up beautiful water for us,” Yamana wrote in a booklet published in January. “The Song of God Anba-sama would have never been revived, I would say, if the tsunami disaster had not occurred. Only if we have a will to revive the festival related to the song, we should be able to do so,” he wrote.

Tsunami-Hit Survivors in Iwaki Hoping to Revive Old Song as Symbol for Fresh Start (1)

Tsunami-Hit Survivors in Iwaki Hoping to Revive Old Song as Symbol for Fresh Start (1)

March 8, 2012

Iwaki City, located in the southeastern part of Fukushima Prefecture, has long, beautiful coastlines facing the Pacific. But towns and villages on the coasts were extensively damaged by the tsunami waves, which claimed hundreds of lives in the region alone. These communities are largely fishing villages. Survivors lost not only family members and friends but they also had their boats washed away. Most survivors live at temporary housing units built in areas away from the sea. Takahiro Yamana, a Shinto priest, while seeing their hardship, hoped to do something to encourage them and help rebuild the local community.
He joined a bus tour along with tsunami survivors in November to attend an event held in Tokyo to encourage people in the affected regions. On their way back to Iwaki, Yamana heard a group of women talking in the bus about an old song long inherited in the community. Then, an idea hit the man. Yamana started thinking about the possibility of reviving the song, the Song of God Anba-sama. He made up his mind to restore the song, because his shrine, Ohkunitama Shrine of Suganami, Iwaki City, has had strong ties with fishing villages in the area. He has presided over an annual Shinto ritual in which a “mikoshi” portable shrine, shouldered by a group of local fishermen, is driven into the sea to be purified.
The Song of God Anba-sama, the god who promises a good catch and happiness, used to be heard in a children-led New Year’s festival in the seaside community, but it had ceased to be sung about half a century ago. Some elderly people still could sing the song, but their songs differed from person to person. Yamana, the 70-year-old chief priest of Ohkunitama Shrine, had difficulty restoring the original style of the song. He had to look for a person who can properly sing the whole of the song. But he finally found Toyono Suzuki, an 85-year-old woman of Usuiso, a fishing village in the community.
After that, days started for people who had agreed to cooperate in reviving the song and related traditions to be taught by the woman how to sing the song.

Women’s Group Busy Making Present for Elementary School Graduates in Ofunato, Iwate Pref. (2)

Women’s Group Busy Making Present for Elementary School Graduates in Ofunato, Iwate Pref. (2)

Goods made by the women’s club will be displayed for sale at a support event to be held in Tokyo in April. The two Kikuchis and Kushibiki hope to see the results of the event and people’s response to their goods as soon as possible. (The photo at the top shows, from left to right, Ms. Kushibiki, Ms. Yuriko Kikuchi and Ms. Midori Kikuchi.)
Rui, the granddaughter of Kushibiki, will enter Matsuzaki Elementary School this April. She looks forward to attending the girl’s entrance ceremony. Rui, accompanied with her younger brother, had visited her uncle’s house from time to time before and stayed overnight there, because she could play with her cousins. But now she never likes to spend the night there, said Kushibiki. Rui is a gentle, quiet girl. The grandmother, hoping to give a present to the girl on her entrance to elementary school, has asked, “What do you want, Rui?” The grandma has not received her reply as yet, but she hopes to present a hand-knitted bag to Rui.

-Local men out to preserve traditional dance performance for recovery-
Niinuma, who supports the women’s club at the Yamagishi temporary housing site, serves as leader of a society for the preservation of the “Toramai” tiger dance as a time-honored folk performance. The energetic and acrobatic dance is performed with three tigers, whose head and body are operated by two players each, led by one conductor called “Saibofuri.” The performers are backed by a band of flutes and drums.
The origin of the dance, designated as an intangible cultural asset by Ofunato City in 1969, dates back to the Kamakura era about 750 years ago, according to Niinuma. The society, which covers two communities with about 130 families, had been invited to perform the dance at various occasions in and outside of the city before the disaster, but part of the members had costumes and other items for the performance in their houses washed away in the disaster. A building with the tiger heads, the drums and other important items stored was also inundated with tsunami waves, but the tiger heads and the drums remained intact. “This was really a miracle,” Niinuma said.
He is working to restore the lost items and help support the livelihood of affected members of the society so that the centuries-old performance may help generate people’s spirits toward overcoming the hardship. Photos and moving pictures are available at a website for the Society for Promotion of the Kadonaka Tiger Dance, which can be found at http://toramai.web.fc2.com/.

Women’s Group Busy Making Present for Elementary School Graduates in Ofunato, Iwate Pref. (1)

Women’s Group Busy Making Present for Elementary School Graduates in Ofunato, Iwate Pref. (1)

March 7, 2012

A group of about 20 women at a temporary housing site in Matsuzaki Town, Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture, are busy creating cloth-coated “matsubokkuri” pine cones as a present for graduates of a local elementary school.
The Yamagishi Temporary Housing Site Ladies’ Club, so called by the women’s group, was launched in November last year. The purpose was to keep those separately living at small housing units at the site from becoming isolated by providing an opportunity for residents to have communication with each other about their matters of concern. After the start of the group, members agreed to make handicrafts, mainly cloth-made footwear and small bags, in order to seek support for their life from a broad range of people by selling their goods. Their activity at a meeting place within the housing site has been helped by Toshio Niinuma, a city-appointed support manager in charge of the housing site.
The housing site is set up at the compounds of Matsuzaki Elementary School, which became an evacuation center to accommodate residents in the region just after the disaster. Classrooms and the gym at the school returned to normal a few months later, but the playground was converted into a site for temporary housing units. “We feel very sorry to them (schoolchildren), because we have taken away their place to play in,” said Yuriko Kikuchi, the leader of the women’s group. “Therefore, we have decided to make cute matsubokkuri pine cones as a present for the 50 graduates,” said Kukuchi, a former city office worker. (The second photo from the top shows Ms. Kikuchi holding a box filled with matsubokkuri pine cones.)

-Survivor: My life saved by 5-year-old granddaughter-
One year has passed since the disaster, but sad memories linked to the tsunami waves sometimes revisit the women at the Yamagishi housing site. Soon after the strong tremor occurred, Katsuyo Kushibiki went to Matsuzaki Elementary School and a nearby kindergarten because her five grandchildren were attending there. She received the grandchildren from teachers and took four of them to their homes. But she had to stay with a fifth, a five-year-old girl, named Rui, “because her parents were immediately unable to be here to receive their daughter,” said Kushibiki, a former school teacher. Accompanied with her husband, she climbed up to a higher place above their house with Rui, People were watching big tsunami waves coming from the offing from there, but “I spread myself over Rui’s body and held her tight so that she may not see the dreadful scene.” The scene was “too horrible for a small child to see,” she said. While looking up at her grandmother, Rui asked, “Grandma. Is this place all right? The girl repeatedly asked so. Kushibiki replied “It’s OK. It’s OK.” But she had become rather anxious. “I asked my husband what to do and then, he decided to escape to an even higher place.” That decision saved the life of the three.
Midori Kikuchi, who is unrelated to Yuriko Kikuchi, has been proud of her father, who originated “wakame” seaweed farming in the 1950s for the first time in Japan. She served as leader of the women’s club in her community before the disaster. But the tsunami disaster made her and other people in her community to live “a primitive life” in the first few weeks, said Midori Kikuchi. “We, women at the evacuation center, decided who should be in charge of what kind of job,” she said. “We had a lot of jobs there to do—washing clothes, cleaning, cooking and others. We went to a nearby swamp for washing and we cooked rice with the pot,” she recalled.
Kushibiki's husband became sick due to strong stress when they were at the evacuation facility. He consulted a doctor when a traveling medical team visited the facility and he was advised to move to a hospital in an inland city for a rest. Her husband has regained some health.

Tsunami Survivor Hopes to Work as Volunteer for Others in Otsuchi, Iwate Pref. (2)

Tsunami Survivor Hopes to Work as Volunteer for Others in Otsuchi, Iwate Pref. (2)

The handicraft group has made many series of Eco Tawashi brushes, such as those of small animals, famous characters and sweets. Members look forward to having a chat about the designs and colors for the next series. ”We are very much grateful to Keiko for her support, because this work helps us very much, helps us to encourage ourselves,” Sachiko Sato said. Fukudate and Kishiko Hakamada agreed. “We are having fun with this job,” Hakamada said.

-Area around Damaged Town Office Looks Like Ghost Town-
Otsuchi was a town with a population of about 15,000 before the disaster. Over 1,600 lives were lost in the tsunami waves. Despite a lapse of one year, scars of the tsunami damage still can be seen at many places in the town, among them the completely damaged building of the town office and the piers of a collapsed railway bridge over Otsuchi River. At the deserted town office, which stands like a monument, the clock on the front of the building points the time when the tsunami hit the town, 3:16 p.m. Before the main entrance to the building was a desk to lay flowers for the victims, including the 69-year-old town mayor, Koki Kato. Dozens of damaged vehicles, including a few fire engines, had been assembled at a place which used to be a business area near the town office building.
The building was on the busiest street in the town, which was lined by a police station, a post office, a fire station, a public library and banks and other commercial establishments. The area looked like a ghost town.

-“I’d like to go to workplace on foot. This is rather good for health”-
At present, about 4,700 people live at temporary housing units at a total of 48 sites, mainly on the foot of hills, in Otsuchi Town. Hakamada lives with her husband, who is a former fisherman. Her husband is slightly sick, but he works five days a week for a few hours for a town-sponsored job to collect the rubble.
Most of the survivors have also lost their vehicles in the tsunami waves. Furudate’s case is the same. She is willing to go to work at Kirari Station on foot, however. It takes about 15 minutes to go there on foot from her housing unit, but she does not mind. “I think this is good for my health, rather than killing my time alone at my small temporary house,” she said.