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Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster: 10 years on from tsunami, Japan’s ghosts linger
- On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan’s northeast coast, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people
- Ten years later, the communities along the 300km of coastline left devastated in the disaster’s wake are still struggling to find peace and closure
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It was a Friday when disaster struck, and all along Japan’s northeast coast, people were looking forward to the weekend. Office workers watched the clock, counting down the hours until the working week would be done – when, at 2.46pm, just as schools were about to let out, the ground began to shake.
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The ensuing earthquake of between magnitude 9.0 and 9.1 on March 11, 2011, was so powerful that it tilted the Earth’s axis and shifted Japan’s main island eastward by up to four metres. The tsunami it triggered swept 10km inland, killing more than 18,000 people as it destroyed entire towns with a wall of water that reached up to 40 metres in height, which would go on to set off three nuclear meltdowns.
Ten years later, the communities along the 300km of coastline left devastated by the disaster are still struggling to find peace and closure.
In the village of Kamaya, near the Kitakami River, a concrete shell is all that remains of what used to be Ookawa Elementary School. Here 74 children and 10 teachers died when the waves struck, alongside worried mothers and other locals who had headed to the school, which was a designated disaster evacuation site.
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The ruin is to become a memorial to the victims – one of whom was Shinichiro Hiratsuka’s 12-year-old daughter Koharu.
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