13 years after the tsunami

This is the 22nd part of our open-ended series to document the recovery of the tsunami-hit coast of northeastern Japan, where nearly 20,000 people lost their lives and entire towns were destroyed on March 11, 2011. 13 years after the tsunami, we traveled along the coast from Fukushima to Iwate and revisited some of the worst-hit cities on October 17-19, 2024.

We started our journey with a visit to the two neighboring towns of Namie and Futaba. The latter is the site of half of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (the other half stands in Okuma Town), which suffered multiple meltdowns in the days following the 2011 tsunami.

An interesting museum about the nuclear disaster, which we visited last year, opened in Futaba in 2020. Adjacent to the museum, construction is ongoing on the Fukushima 3.11 Memorial Park, which is scheduled to open in spring 2026. We concluded our visit to Namie with a filling lunch in the always-popular Namie Michi-no-eki roadside station.

Further up the coast, in Miyagi Prefecture, we made our first ever visit to Natori, a flat city just south of Sendai, where the tsunami made it over five kilometers inland. We were shocked to learn about the city's coastal Yuriage district - previously home to over 5000 residents - which was completely destroyed by the tsunami. More than one out of ten of its residents died.

A small museum, the Natori City Earthquake Reconstruction Tradition Center, displays some information about the district's tragic fate. Among the displays is a diorama of the former district with hundreds of small flags indicating the names of its former residents.

About five kilometers further north, already within the city limits of Sendai, we visited the former Arahama Elementary School, which was flooded up to the second floor on March 11, 2011, and served as the refuge of 320 students, teachers and residents. The school is now open to the public and displays the damaged rooms while educating visitors about the 2011 disaster and disaster prevention. Views towards the sea in the east and towards Sendai's city center in the distance can be had from the building's rooftop.

We spent our first night in Matsushima, which suffered only relatively small damage on March 11 thanks to its sheltered location in the Bay of Matsushima. The young trees along the approach to Zuiganji Temple, whose predecessors were poisoned by the salty sea water brought in by the tsunami, have been growing taller. And we were glad to see tourists streaming to the sightseeing cruises like before the tsunami.

The site of Matsushima's former aquarium, which closed in 2015 not far from the boat pier, has in the meantime be redeveloped into the Matsushima Rikyu tourist complex, which offers some shops, restaurants and a paid garden. The complex' is built around a reconstruction of the pagoda-like Letzel Tower, which was once part of the celebrated Matsushima Park Hotel. It is named after its Czech architect, who also designed the Hiroshima Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall, today better known as the Atomic Bomb Dome.

Besides our customary visit to Hiyoriyama Park in Ishinomaki, we also dropped by the Sant Juan Bautista Museum just outside the city center. The museum, which commemorates the little-known but fascinating trip to Europe by the local feudal clan just before the start of Japan's era of isolation in the early 1600s, displays a replica of the ship used for the journey. The original full-scale replica of the ship had to be dismantled a few years ago due to age and damage by the tsunami, and its successor was recently completed. Due to budget concerns, however, it is only one quarter the size of the original ship.

In Minamisanriku, we visited the memorial park and for the first time drove close to the Takano Kaikan, a former event hall for weddings and other events. The hall is one of only a few structures left standing and will be preserved. It served as the refuge of 327 persons and two dogs, who survived the tsunami. It is not possible to enter the building, but it can be viewed from the outside in the state it was left by the tsunami.

We spent our second night in Kesennuma, where we enjoyed an evening walk around the reborn, attractive waterfront district and up to the hilltop memorial park.

In the next morning we visited the local fish market, one of Japan's largest, and observed the fascinating sight of the unloading, sorting and auctioning of the seasonal delight, Modorigatsuo (bonito "returning" from the north and migrating south), from the free observation deck.

In Rikuzentakata we made a walk in the memorial park famous for its miracle pine and were glad to see the new city center turning more and more lively and urban again.

We concluded the trip with stops in Kamaishi to observe the progress of reconstruction and ended at Jodogahama in Miyako City, where we unfortunately had to cut our walking plans short due to an arriving bad weather front.