Tohoku, Japan 9

 Onagawa   March 31,2011

This gentleman was talking to two other men, maybe talking about business.
Before I took this shot he said to me " I owned ten facilities in this town,
fish processing plant, some office buildings, some warehouses, and some
apartment buildings. Now they are all gone."
Then he laughed. He laughed loud.
From his laugh,I felt resignation that he can't do anything to prevent that,
 and his intention not to give up.
  

Behind them, there were their houses. The couple used to live right behind them, the gentleman on right used to live next door and he lost all his families by tsunami....
They come here to look for remaining stuffs from their houses.

A Japanese Self Defense Force officer.

A platoon of the Self Defense Forces. I tried to talk to one of them,
I said "Are you cleaning the area?" He never reply.
Then I said " Are you trying to search for something" Then he just nodded his head.
They were searching for bodies, and he was not being rude to me, he was being serious to me. 

It's a graveyard on a hill about 15 meter above sea level. 

They are visiting their auntie's grave.

There are a shelter near by and they are on their way to go back.

This gentleman did not want his face on a photo he said because he is a politician and a little bit famous, sometimes he goes on a TV news.
He travels around the disaster stricken area and report what he sees to the government.
He said he will write something down so take a picture of that instead of his face.
The writing says

"This great earthquake is the first time in millennium. Japanese people do not give up and trying so hard to reconstruct.

              April 1,2011 a brave man with no name." 

I was actually walking on this road about 2 hours before, now it's under water because of high tide.
They say the costline of Tohoku area , which is about 500 kilometers long, fell in about  2 feet overall the coastline.

Tohoku, Japan 8

 Onagawa   March 31, 2011


 I entered Onagawa in the morning of March 31 2011.

Onagawa is a small town located just about a mile east from Ishinomaki City, the town is sandwiched between a bay and mauntains
Although Onagawa and Ishinomaki City are right next to each other, situation there are totally different.


 When I first saw the town, I was speechless..... whole town was just gone, I could not even image how the town looked like.


 There is a good size hospital on top of a hill in the center of the town, now it's a shelter for the victims, I went there first to take a look at the town from higher ground.

A view from top of the hill.

This man was working to control traffic at parking lot of the hospital. He is a local here in Onagawa. After he heard the news that tsunami is coming, he fled to here by driving his car. The hill is about 55 feet higher than sea level so he thought he is going to be ok there but he was wrong. The water came over the hill top so he had to run to second floor of the hospital.
He said he saw everything from the top.
By the time, the parking lot was packed by cars and all washed away, people were still there in some of the cars. You can see some concrete buildings in the back, he said he saw a lot of people on roof top evacuating and after the tsunami they were all gone.....

She was walking with heavy bags in middle of nowhere, well this place used be lots of houses and stores, so I asked where she is going. She said she is on her way back from her relative's house to a shelter. She's got some clothe and stuffs she needs from her relative.

They are a troop from India called NDRF. They said they are not military forces, they are specialized for rescue missions. 

The captain of NDRF.
When I was taking this photo, there were about 10 NDRF personnels working behind me on top of rubbles, one of them yelled that they found a human body underneath.  

In front of his shop, trying to clean up. He has to work in morning time because this area sank 3 feet by the earthquake, will covered by water when high tide. 

Inside of the shop. The shop used be a dealer/maintenance for farm machines. 

Salvaging car and debris from seabed. 

He said the salvage ship is from Ishinomaki. They have to clean up the seabed so that more bigger ships can come in and out to transport materials.

They evacuated to Sendai City, about 50 miles from Onagawa, came back to town 3 weeks after.
They were grieving that they can not recall how the town was like from it is now after tsunami.

A husband and a wife. Behind them was where the wife's parents' house used to be. Parents are not found yet after 3 weeks.
They come here every day to search for parents' bodies and anything remains from the house for keepsake.
Thay said chances are low to find parents' body near  here because they know bodies can travel tens of miles by water flow.
They were shedding tears while they were talking about their stories. Then when I asked for a photo, they smiled at my camera to show they are going to be alright.