After hearing about the impacts of the disaster on the region from my former colleagues at Iwate prefectural government, it was finally time for me to go to the coast to see for myself the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. Pulling into downtown Miyako, I was initially surprised at how little seemed to have changed, at least in the main business district near the station.
My first stop was Miyako Keifu Special Education School. This school is located high in the hills north of Miyako, so was not damaged by the tsunami. Luckily, the tsunami occurred during school hours, so the kids were safe at school. However, the school was cut off from other parts of town for several days, so over 100 students, teachers and local residents slept in the gym in the days after the disaster. Power and water were also cut off, which posed extra challenges for the dedicated teachers as they tried to look after students with a range of special needs. Some of these kids lost relatives and their homes in the tsunami, so there are ongoing challenges for the school community.
I also visited Miyako Kita High School. I used to work with the current principal, Hiraga-sensei, when he worked at the Iwate Board of Education in Morioka and was in charge of looking after the JET program teachers in Iwate. His school, located in Taro in northern Miyako, was undamaged in the disaster and was used as an evacuation centre for the people of Taro for several months after the tsunami. Hiraga-sensei explained that teachers all over Tohoku had a duty of care to stay with their students until each and every student could be collected from school. This meant that many teachers could not pick up their own children or spend time with their families immediately after the tragedy.
I had two main purposes in visiting these schools on the coast. Firstly, I wanted to assist in their English classes. A significant number of foreign teachers left Japan after the tsunami (particularly as fears emerged over the stability of the Fukushima nuclear power plant) so many students now have few opportunities to speak to a native English speaker. More importantly, however, I wanted to deliver the messages of support that JET programme alumni and other concerned members of the community in Sydney had written for the people of Iwate.
The students were so glad to receive messages of support from Australia, and to know that people overseas were thinking about them. I was impressed with how energetic and bright the students were, despite the hard times they had experienced.
Hiraga-sensei and the teachers at Miyako Kita were extremely generous with their time, showing me around some of the worst affected areas in Taro and Miyako.
Taro has experienced large tsunamis in the past, and as a result the town spent many years constructing tsunami barriers that were considered some of the best in the world. Unfortunately, the shape of Iwate’s coastline – with lots of steep cliffs and narrow inlets – makes it especially susceptible to tsunami damage. The water is pushed up by the cliffs and funnelled into the narrow bays. The tsunami wave on 11 March was over 38 metres high in Taro (the highest recorded in Japan). It went straight over the top of the 10 metre-high concrete wall and destroyed most of the town.
From a distance, the plain where Taro once stood looks like a green field, but up close you can see the concrete foundations where houses used to stand, and even make out the outlines of individual rooms. Nature is starting to take over already, with grass filling in the gaps.
I was surprised that so much has already been cleaned up. The problem now is finding somewhere to put the rubbish - six months after the tsunami, there are still massive piles of debris around the town, including stacks of cars.
The people of Iwate have made great progress in cleaning up their towns and starting to rebuild their lives. But they still have a long way to go, and will need our ongoing support for many years.
