![]() ![]() “These soft measures help to plan rebuilding and to protect people from the next tsunami.” “People tend to forget, that is why such storytelling is important,” affirms Fumihiko Imamura, a senior academic at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Tohoku University. The ones who died or went missing during their call of duty, like Endo and Miura, include 254 firefighters and volunteer fire corps, 30 police officers and three members of the country’s self defence force, according to official records. The death toll could have been higher, thousands more, had it not been for the work ethic of Endo, Miura and other members of Japan’s well-drilled disaster response management programme, spread across the 12 prefectures along the coast, who sounded the alarm to save lives.Īnd as Japan remembered the 15,880 people who were killed and the 2,694 people still missing after the twin terrors of the earthquake and tsunami, the role of the first responders, so pivotal in disaster preparedness efforts, was celebrated. Minamisanriku lost 1,206 of its 17,000 residents in March 2011, when 16-metre-high waves crashed over the town’s existing tsunami barriers barely 30 minutes after the powerful 9.0-magnitude earthquake ruptured the seabed some 130 kilometres from Japan’s Pacific coastline. “They gave their lives to save others in this town,” adds Ito, standing in front of an impromptu memorial, complete with fresh flowers, which has come up near a blown-out wall of the centre. “They remained at their job, giving warnings, even when it was known that the waves were higher than the building they were in.” They worked on the second floor and sent out messages through the town’s loudspeakers for people to get to higher ground as the tsunami approached, recalls Ito, who works as a receptionist at a hotel on the edge of this town. 11, 2011.Īmong the few, gutted buildings still standing across empty stretches are the skeletal remains of the three-storey disaster-preparedness centre, where Endo and Miura served as radio operators. Two names – Miki Endo and Takeshi Miura – frame the narrative that 37-year-old Ito shares with visitors as he guides them through this once quiet fishing resort, which still bears the scars of devastation left by the powerful waves on Mar. MINAMISANRIKU, Japan, (IPS) - As a survivor of Japan’s deadliest tsunami in living memory, Shun Ito dedicates his mornings to evoking stories of heroism that helped to save lives in this port town that was decimated on that fateful March afternoon two years ago. A Japanese flag standing amidst the rubble of the March 2011 tsunami. ![]()
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