Japan strives to ‘restore people’s hearts’ decade after earthquake

TOMIOKA, Japan (AP) – Ten years after Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, the lives of many who survived are still at stake.

On March 11, 2011, a major tsunami hit a major tsunami by killing more than 18,000 people and causing a catastrophic collapse at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Nearly half a million people are displaced. Tens of thousands have not yet returned home.

More than 30 billion yen ($ 280 billion) has been spent on reconstruction so far – but even Reconstruction Minister Katsuei Hirasawa recently acknowledged that although the government has proposed new buildings, less has been invested in helping people save their lives. rebuilt, for example, by providing mental health services for trauma.

The Associated Press spoke to people affected by the disasters about how far they have come – and how much more needs to be done.

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“AS LONG AS MY BODY MOVES”

Yasuo Takamatsu, 64, lost his wife, Yuko, when the tsunami hit Onagawa in Miyagi Prefecture.

He’s been looking for her ever since.

He even got his diving license to find remains, and for seven years he dived weekly – 470 and counting.

“I always think she could be somewhere in the area,” he said.

Apart from his solo dives, he joins local authorities once a month while conducting underwater surveys for about 2,500 people whose remains are not yet offset across the region.

Takamatsu said the city’s scars had largely healed, “but restoring people’s hearts … will take time.”

So far, he has found albums, clothes and other artifacts, but nothing that belonged to his wife.

He said he would continue to search for his wife “as long as my body moves.”

“In the last text message she sent me, she said, ‘Are you okay? I want to go home, ‘he said. “I’m sure she still wants to come home.”

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“LINE STARTS AGAIN”

Just a month after a tsunami up to 17 meters hit the city of Rikuzentakata, Michihiro Kono took over his family’s soy sauce business.

That he was even able to continue the two-century-old business is a miracle, he says. The precious soy yeast was only saved because he donated it to a university laboratory.

For the past decade, Kono has been working to rebuild the business in Iwate Prefecture, and later this year he will complete the construction of a new factory, which replaced the factory on the same land where his family began making soy sauce in 1807. He even introduced a soy sauce called “Miracle” in honor of the saved yeast.

“This is a critical moment to see if I can do something meaningful in the next ten years,” said the ninth-generation owner of Yagisawa Shoten Co. “I was born here and now I’m at the starting point again.”

But there are challenges: its customer base has been reduced. The city’s population has dropped more than 20% to about 18,000, so he’s trying to build networks outside the city.

Kono often thinks of the people who were killed by the tsunami, with whom he talked a lot about the city revival plans.

“These people all wanted to become a wonderful city, and I want to do things that will make them say, ‘Well done, you did it,’ when I see them again in the next life,” he said.

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“WHO WANTS TO RETURN?”

About 10 kilometers south of the devastated nuclear power plant, rice farmer Naoto Matsumura defied an order to evacuate the government a decade ago and remained on his farm to protect his land and the livestock left by the neighbors.

He’s still there.

Most of the city of Tomioka reopened in 2017. But dozens of neighboring houses around Matsumura are still empty, leaving the area dark at night.

The main station of the prefecture of Fukushima city received a facelift. A new shopping center has been built. But less than 10% of Tomioka’s former population of 16,000 has returned after large quantities of radioactive material dumped from the factory forced evacuations from the city and other nearby areas. Parts of the city remain off limits; houses and shops stand deserted.

“It took hundreds of years of history and effort to build this city, and it was immediately destroyed,” he said. “I grew up here … but it’s nothing more than a house.”

Because it took six years to repeal the evacuation order, many residents of the city have already found work and homes elsewhere. Half of the former residents say according to a city survey that they have decided never to return.

This is true throughout the region.

In Tomioka, radioactive waste from disinfection efforts in the city is still stored in a no-go zone.

“Who wants to go back to a place like this?” Vra Matsumura. “I do not see much future for this city.”

For company, Matsumura has several cows, a pony and a family of hunting dogs that help him chase away wild pigs. The cows are descendants of those from neighboring farms that he detained in protest after the government issued an order to destroy thousands for fear of radiation.

This spring, for the first time since the disaster, the 62-year-old farmer is planning an experimental rice plantation and to expand his beekeeping.

“I will stay here until the end of my life,” he said.

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“THEIR HOUSE IS STILL HERE”

Yuya Hatakeyama was 14 when he was forced to evacuate Tomioka after the disaster.

Now 24, the former third baseman of the Fukushima Red Hopes, a local professional league team, in his first year working at Tomioka City Hall – but he still has not returned to live in the city, and he has him with the many who commute it from without.

Hatakeyama has bittersweet memories of Tomioka. The area that is now a no-go zone includes Yonomori Park, where people gathered regularly for a cherry blossom festival. Disinfection work is intensifying in the area and the city plans to remove the rest of the no-go zone by 2023.

“I want to make contact with the residents, especially the younger generation, so they know their home is still here,” Hatakeyama said. One day, he said, he wants to see young families catch up, as he did with his father.

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A PLACE OF COMFORT

Hazuki Sato was ten when she fled her primary school in Futaba, home to the devastated nuclear power plant.

She is now preparing for the maturation ceremony typical of Japanese 20-year-olds, and hopes for a reunion in the city so she can reconnect with her former classmates who have been dispersed.

Despite horrific memories of escaping from her classroom, she still considers Futaba her home.

After studying outside the region for eight years, she now works for her hometown – although she works from an office in Iwaki, another city in Fukushima Prefecture.

None of Futaba’s 5,700 residents can return to live there until 2022, when the city is expected to partially reopen. An area outside a train station reopened in March last year, just for a day visit to bring in the Olympic torch.

Sato has fond memories of Futaba – a family braai, riding a motorcycle to school and doing homework and snacking with friends at a childcare center while she waits for her grandmother to pick her up.

“I want to see this town become a comfortable place again,” she said.