“I felt like the ocean was all around me. The water was so cold that it kept me cool to the bone.”
The water was coming up to his knees, Kurosawa saw the occupants of the car holding their steering wheels as their vehicles were washed off the road. Others who were hanging on the trees surrounded by waves overturned. Kurosawa endured sub-zero temperatures for hours. He thought about his wife – before he died in line, while in the trees, she reached for his cellphone for 15 seconds.
As the night turned to day, he heard someone in the distance calling for help for what seemed like the last ounce of his holiday. He says he doesn’t know the person’s fate – but Kurosawa survived the worst natural disaster in Japan’s history.
The quake and subsequent tsunami left more than 20,000 people dead or missing. But the devastation was greater than the natural disasters. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in this part of Japan became its own disaster.
This year, a ceremony will be held to mark the tenth anniversary of the tragedy Low key and social distance between coronavirus epidemics. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Yoshihid Suga, Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako will attend a memorial, pausing at 2:46 p.m., a moment of silence, the exact time of the earthquake 10 years ago.
Despite the devastation, many survivors have rebuilt their lives and communities, but for many, the legacy of disaster will be forever.
The power of the tsunami
The tsunami destroyed more than that Eshinomaki alone destroys 50,000 homes and buildings, a vibrant city center and most of its seaport and infrastructure. About 3,100 people lost their lives in the city.
Kurosawa, a plumber, worked in a town 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from his hometown. When the earthquake came. He called his wife, who was sheltered in a bank, and asked to meet her at his home.
A tsunami alert was issued shortly afterwards. He tried to call his wife again, but the phone lines were dead. Concerned for her safety, Kurosawa jumped into her car and went home to meet her so that they could go to higher ground together. The cars followed him in the opposite direction, paving the way to settlements in the quake-hit country.
As he approached the house he saw tsunami obstacles in the distance. As he got closer, he realized it was a car – flipping through the waves, down and bobbing.
When he made an incredible U-turn, he saw a man trying to escape the oncoming water. On foot. “I pulled it out of the window into the car, and we were out of the water,” said Kurosawa.
Soon the waves sandwiched, the pair ate the car and ran to find shelter.
When Kurosawa fell on a tree, a branch broke and fell on the ridge. The waves came in the same way Kurosawa himself waved the tree back up. The man he saved did just that. “I almost thought I wouldn’t make it.”
“It’s hard to imagine the power of a tsunami unless you experience it – it’s a destructive force that just swallows everything and destroys everything in its path.”
Nuclear Disaster
The tsunami was a Daiichi nuclear plant, moving more inland in neighboring Fukushima prefecture. Melt down.
In the months and years that followed, parts around Fukushima became haunted towns, only to be thrilled in the darkness by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) officials, security inspectors, and tourists. In the aftermath of this tragedy, TEPCO is doing hundreds of tons of water at the nuclear plant to cool the radiators and stop the flow of radiation.
Cleaning up from this tragedy is expected to take decades and cost billions of dollars. More than 35,000 people remain displaced 10 years after the original meltdown, According to Fukushima officials.
Hajim Matsukubo, a spokesman for the Citizens Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo, an anti-nuclear public interest organization, says the quake and tsunami-affected areas have largely recovered. However, recovery operations around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have remained stagnant since the meltdown, as the surrounding population has halved since 2010, despite spending large sums of money. “After 10 years, what we have learned is that once a nuclear accident occurs, cleaning is extremely difficult,” he said.
As of March 2020, only 2.4% of the prefecture is beyond the limits of residents, according to the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, while parts of the area are also accessible for short visits, according to the Japanese Ministry of the Environment.
However, despite the banknote ban efforts, a 2020 survey conducted by Kwansei Gakuin University found that 65% of evacuees no longer wanted to return to Fukushima prefecture – 46% said they feared environmental residue contamination and 45% They settled elsewhere.
This ended on May 5, 2012, when the country’s last operating reactor, in Hokkaido, was shut down for inspection, leaving Japan without nuclear power for the first time in more than 45 years. (Two units of the OI nuclear power plant were soon reopened in 2012, but went offline again a year later.)
Time passes
On the morning of May 12, Kurosawa climbed out of a pine tree. Looks like a bomb has exploded in his city.
As he walked home he wrapped up the debris from the wreckage, wrapping up the wreckage of the wrecked boats. Half-collapsed buildings were submerged in water, and he struggled to breathe the smoke-filled air.
Kurosawa’s wife was alive, she was moved to a school on higher ground. But overnight, they’ll lose the friends and physical markers they made.
For the next six months, Kurosawa and his wife lived in rented houses and their friends’ offices in Fees. In August 2011, they moved into temporary disaster housing, a prefabricated building that housed them for more than three years. Kurosawa put her plumbing skills to use, volunteering to help her local community With fantastic jobs. He still lives in Ishinomaki.
“I went from a normal routine to a new standard. One year, two years passed – the unusual reality became normal,” says Kurosawa. For five years, he had nightmares as he went through the devastation of his homeland.
Today in Ishinomaki, Kurosawa says people’s feelings towards nuclear power in the region are as mixed as anyone’s experience of the tenth anniversary of the disaster.
“People ask me how I feel it’s been 10 years now. I still feel like I’m living on that extended timeline and trying my best.”
For many years Kurosawa has fought to rebuild his life, business and community. Today, coastal lakes protect their city from the sea at an altitude of about 34 feet in the coast. New public residences have sprung up in areas outside the city, while others are still being rebuilt.
Kurosawa says people’s emotional scars take as long to heal as their bound environment. But, he says, there is no point in living in the past. Today Kurosawa plays an active role in teaching others about disaster preparedness and keeps moving forward.
“One thing I learned from this tragedy is that people need to be with each other. I think the hope is in us,” he says.
Sometimes, he passes through the tree that saved his life. He even tried once to pull her back.
CNN’s James Griffiths, Angus Watson and Chi Kobayashi contributed to this report from Hong Kong and Tokyo.
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