Yuriage – One Year After

Around 8.5 kilometers (5.3 miles) north of Sendai Airport is the small town of Yuriage.  Most of the homes were located within 1 kilometer of the ocean to the east or the Natori River to the north.  Prior to March 11, 2011, it had a population of around 5,600 people.  After the tsunami engulfed the area, more than 700 were left dead or missing.  Only a few structures remained standing in the areas east and west of the Teizan-bori water canal.

One of the most vivid videos that was broadcast on the news that day was the tsunami rolling into a wide plain of farm land, bulldozing most everything in its path.  Part of that was Yuriage being inundated.  The end result was the town being literally wiped off the map.

Yuriage in 2011

The following is a small portion of that broadcast with some annotations to provide a point of reference to some of the images taken one year after the disaster (further below).

In the following NHK Special, NHK researchers visited the survivors, conducted dozens of interviews, and handed out hundreds of questionnaires. In the survey, 600 people gave details about what they did (70 minutes) before the tsunami, and a dynamic action map was created.

 

This program analyzes that data with the help of disaster management experts.  What emerged from the results were psychological factors, which had not previously been verified or included in disaster prevention measures.  The end result is that many of the victims perished due to these “mental traps” that people often fall into in times of disaster.  This is a worthwhile 58 minute documentary (english narration and subtitles) to watch.

Basically, one of the tragic findings is that many people literally did not evacuate until the last moment.  Many did not believe that a 6+ meter high tsunami was possible.  Even when others tried to warn them, many just sort of stood around and waited.  Furthermore, the key evacuation centers (the town hall, Yuriage Junior High School, and Yuriage Elementary School) which were initially thought to be clear from the inundation zone, were swamped by this tsunami.  And the main road (129) which ran through the town, became congested as people eventually decided to evacuate.

The following are some photos taken along Road 129 one year after.

Boat (presumably the ones that haven’t been removed is because the owner died)

Another boat (you may have seen this one being pushed along by the tsunami in the HD broadcasts)

Yuriage Elementary School

Yuriage Elementary School (opposite side)

 

Pedestrian Overpass (this is where some were able to flee to)

Pedestrian Overpass (the following video was shot from this bridge – the building with the blue roof is where Yuriage Junior High School is located)

 

Click image for video

 

Yuriage Junior High School

 

Yuriage Junior High School (the following video was shot from this school)

Click image for video

Hiyoriyama Hill

 

Hiyoriyama Hill – this is a man made 6.3 meter (21 feet) high hill where a shrine once existed.  The small shrine along with a man who was taking care of it were washed away by the tsunami.  A new torii was erected along with some temporary markers to allow people to come here and leave flowers and other offerings for the deceased.

Satellite view from 2009 of Hiyoriyama-jinja

Satellite view from mid-2011 of Hiyoriyama and the surrounding area

 

The 360 degree view from the top of the mound is literally the same – bare land where houses once stood.

The loose debris has been mostly cleared and piled into mounds, waiting to be disposed of.

Pile of debris

Residents of nearby Natori City which Yuriage is a part of, want to revive the area.  The proposed plan is to rebuild in the same area, but on top of man made raised ground (sort of like the hill across from Hiyoriyama but much higher).  If anything, it is going to be costly to do in order to make them resistant to quakes as well as tsunami.

Video of the area surrounding Hiyoriyama from the top which shows just how very little remains after one year.

The following capture from the broadcast video shows where these are located (except Hiyoriyama since it is somewhere under water by this time) as the tsunami was inundating the area:

 

The reason I’m doing this is because there are numerous lessons to be learned from this disaster.  Past generations warned their ancestors about large tsunamis.  Yet, history has managed to repeat itself from as far back as the 869 Sanriku earthquake (known as the Jogan jishin – 貞観地震) where time and time again, people returned to rebuild homes in the same low lying areas.  That particular event and this M9.0 where it covered a large area are considered by scientists as 1,000 year events.

 

However, there have been localized major tsunami events after earthquakes in 1896 (Meiji-Sanriku) and 1933 (Sanriku).  The solution after those were to construct sea walls and 10 meter high levees surrounding the towns.  Those ended up being breached in 2011 because these walls and levees did not take into account severe land subsidence as well as tsunami mechanics which scientists did not previously think was previously possible.  In otherwords, while our science is excellent and continues to get better, it is arrogant to assume that we know everything.  Furthermore, as research over the past year has shown, many residents placed far too much faith in these walls and levees (which had managed to stop smaller tsunami).

 

The tragedy is that many died following instructions to the “t” including evacuating to emergency tsunami shelters which ended up being inundated by this particular tsunami, because they were built inland up to a certain distance from the ocean which was assumed to be safe from a wave being able to wash in that far.  Other evacuation sites proved to be no match for the height that the tsunami was able to reach in some areas.  The general line of thought most ancestors in less modern societies have passed on though is that if the ground shakes strong and long enough where it is difficult to stand, they are to immediately run as far from the shoreline as possible and to get as high as they can.  In modern societies, people have been conditioned to wait for emergency broadcasts to tell us what we should do.  Basically, people have lost the instinct to take immediate action when faced with danger (that only kicks in when the danger is almost upon us; at which point, survivals ends up being primarily by chance and luck).  With March 11th, way too many videos show people stopping to look back or not running full sprint once they realized the threat was real.  Finally, people tend to have a short memory when it comes to history especially as he successive generation passes.  Complacency ends up setting in leading to the greater possibility of history repeating itself some time down the road.

 

The first year since that fateful day has gone by relatively quickly for some while for others, time has stopped, because the events have been just too big for some to process and fully comprehend.  There are still survivors to this very day, who are looking for their missing loved ones.  Closure for some of these folks is going to be a long road.   It is why some of us are taking a stance to make sure that even though time has passed, that the events of March 11, 2011 won’t be forgotten, and that important lessons have been learned which will be passed on for future generations.