MIYAGI-JONET: Jonet visits Oshika Peninsula and Minato elementary school

On August 14^th we went to the town of Ayukawa on the Oshika Peninsula. All the small villages on the flat areas along the coast had been destroyed. It was the same in Tsukihama in Oku-Matsushima. I could sense the tragedy that had befallen all these small communities that faced the Pacific Ocean. The Kugunarihama beach, famous for its singing sand, was reduced in size and in a terrible state. Ms. O., who I work with for Jonet, is a victim too from Ishinomaki. Her parents, house, family business, car – everything disappeared in an instance. Miraculously, she was rescued from her submerged car. When she was a child, she stayed at her grandmother’s house on a small beach near here during the summer holidays and enjoyed the Pacific Ocean. August 14^th was the first time she could visit the site where her grandmother had been swept away with the house on the beach. She cried. All that was left of her childhood memories was the mountain.

In the sweltering heat of the afternoon, we visited an elementary school in Ishinomaki. It is an evacuation centre we have gone past many times before. Across from Minato elementary school is a daycare. That daycare is next to Kitakami river and was the local evacuation centre. The head of the daycare is the former principal of a junior high school and when he heard the tsunami warning, he determined that the daycare was too close to the river and with only two floors was too low. So he told the local people to go over the road and take shelter in the elementary school. Of course the tsunami flooded the school too, but many people were able to escape to the top floor. Straight after the disaster 1400 people were sheltering there and, as it hadn’t been designated as an evacuation centre, there was no food or water. They had to take sips from the bottles of water that evacuees had brought with them. (Any supplies that weren’t on the top floor, were swept away immediately by the tsunami.)

They spent the time in the cold and with no provisions trying to cheer each other up. Only several days later did the Self Defence Forces finally reach them with food and water. The head of the daycare made an excellent judgment call.

I often visited Ishinomaki during April to see my family and friends who have been affected by the disaster. It was especially difficult to pass through the Minato area as the water rose on to the road. When I got home, the car would be white from all the dried mud and it became a regular occurrence to take the car to the car wash the next day. By the time I got round visiting everyone it would be nighttime. Even at 8pm in the Minato area, it would be pitch black like the middle of the night, because the power was cut. Only Minato elementary school was lit up because of the generator and I remember I had a sudden impulse to take a photo of it. Ｙ

We used the Cobalt Line road as far as Kozumi