Japan man loses wife, 3 kids in quake, honours memory by running marathon with their photo
Grieving father runs race, trains for it in places where he and late family members used to play together
A Japanese man who lost his wife and three children in the devastating Noto earthquake early this year has completed a marathon race near their home wearing their photo on his T-shirt in memory of them.
On January 1, a magnitude-7.5 quake hit Noto Peninsula of central Japan’s Ishikawa prefecture.
The deadliest earthquake in Japan since the 2011 Tohoku earthquake caused a total of 401 deaths, injured more than 1,300 people and damaged 133,000 homes across nine prefectures.
The 42-year-old police officer in Ishikawa’s capital city Kanazawa, Keisuke Oma, lost his wife Haruka, 38, eldest daughter Yuka, 11, elder son Taisuke, 9, and younger son Sosuke, 3, in the earthquake.
They were at his wife’s parents’ home when the quake struck.
Oma went outside by himself to check the surroundings when their house started shaking, and before he realised what was happening, a landslide buried the home and killed all inside.
