Let's Talk about .. 2011 Tsunami affected area in Sendai in 2013

On May 11th, 2013, I got an opportunity to join the tsunami damage and reconstruction site visit in Miyagi prefecture (宮城県) with the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) (災害科学国際研究所), Tohoku University (東北大学), Japan. I would like to thank Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri and Tohoku University for this great opportunity.

This (AEARU) site visit trip was leaded by Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri and Prof. Yuichi Ono from IRIDeS with facilities support from Tohoku University's staffs.

After 2011 East Japan Great Earthquake and Tsunami, many areas in Sendai were still inundated, especially rice fields. Sendai is considered as an important rice producer in Japan. Currently, the situation has been better.  

The first place we went to was Onagawa Hospital. This hospital was used as the shelter during the disaster. However, the water arrived the first floor of the hospital even if it is located on the cliff. You can see the mark indicated the high of water level at the entrance of Onagawa Regional Medical Center (女川町地域医療センター) in my photo below the photo of Onagawa Hospital.

 Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri explained the impact of tsunami. Most of the buildings in this area were attached and submerged by water. One of the ruined building still stands there. It was a bank located in this area.

This train passed when we were moving to the next place.

Although there are breakwater along the coastal area, but the scale of 2011 tsunami was very large, that is why many areas were damaged.

 Kadonowaki Elementary School in Ishinomaki was our next stop. This school was burnt during 2011 tsunami. Actually, tsunami arrived only around the first flood of the school but there was burnt car flown to school with fire and caused the whole school burnt. Luckily, the students were informed to evacuate.

A short break was there with this Kamen raider.

Then, we moved to Arahama village in Wakabayashi. The Arahama Elementary School was used as an official evacuation shelter.

A new tsunami memorial was established, together with the list of deaths.

Next, we went to Hiyoriyama Minato Shrine (日和山 湊神社分霊). This shrine is located on the hill. Before walking up, we walked to the back of the hill to see the stone inscriptions indicated the previous tsunamis.

Then, the last destination was Iwanuma city. The idea of establishing an artificial hill, so-called "Millennium Hope Hills", was proposed in order to reduce the energy of tsunami in the future. For the current progress, they have built an experimental hill. They are checking if there is any reaction from the combination of various material of garbages.

Acknowledgements
Special thank Assoc.Prof. Anawat Suppasri, Prof. Yuichi Ono, all Tohoku University staffs.

Ref.
[1] Suppasri, A., & Mas, E. (2013, May 13). Field guide of tsunami damage and reconstruction site visit in Miyagi prefecture. Miyagi: International Research Institute of Disaster Science.