RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan – Ten years after one of the world’s largest earthquakes caused a tsunami that wiped out much of this city, the great reconstruction is almost complete. A 40-foot-high concrete wall protects the coast, a seven-story city hall will open and only a few trucks will rumble down the main street.
Yet the future remains uncertain for this remote community, where more than 1,700 people, or 7% of the population, died in the disaster.
With the return of state-led financial support, Rikuzentakata is struggling to ward off the decline occurring in other rural parts of Japan. Many survivors have settled elsewhere, and large tracts of land in the city center lie unused.
Momiko Kinno squeezed her elderly mother into a wagon to escape the wave that swept away their home and thousands of other people in Rikuzentakata on March 11, 2011. After eight years in a temporary shelter, Ms. Kinno, now 75 years old, builds a new two-story house in the city center surrounded by vacant lots and signs for sale. Her son and daughter moved to other cities to work.
“I do not think many people will return here,” she said.