Force of Nature

In March, I decided to take a short road trip from my home on the west coast of northern Japan to the east coast. Over there lies Sendai, the Tohoku region’s main city. If that name sounds somehow familiar, it became newsworthy last year when its industrialised port was slammed by a tsunami, providing the world with images of black smoke billowing from a blazing petroleum refinery.


I had very briefly visited the city in December for a test, and only saw the downtown area. Although it would have felt the effects of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, it was spared the tsunami and any damage inflicted was completely unnoticeable. The city was buzzing and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I returned from my trip without thinking much of it, seeing as I had been preoccupied with the exam.

It should be noted that where I live is quite possibly the safest part of the country. Earthquakes, tsunami, typhoons... they all seem to simply avoid this area. In the Pacific Ring of Fire, I’ve managed to land in a disaster free zone. Add to that the fact that’s it’s in Japan, a country with impressively low levels of violence, theft, and road deaths and it’s quite possible that it’s the safest place in the world. Since arriving here, I haven’t had to face a single hardship greater than a big soft pile of snow. All the problems of the world are kept at a safe distance.

Having said that, a now common sight all over Japan are banners proclaiming “がんばろう東北！” or “Ganbarou Tōhoku!”. They can be seen hanging from train stations, draped over temple entrances or even popping up around construction sights. “Keep Fighting, Tohoku”. I made up my mind that, one year after the disaster, I wanted to see for myself what this region was struggling with.

Once again arriving in Sendai city, no clues could be seen that would betray the event which killed almost 20,000 people and caused tens, if not hundreds, of billions of euro worth of damage. This time, my companion and I drove further east.

The buildings thinned out as we passed by the docks district. Despite the force exerted on this major port it reopened only a month after it was struck, in one of many testaments to the resilience shown by Japan. Again, everything looked completely unfazed. So on we drove, out of the city limits and towards the coastline. This part of the country gets far less snow than my hometown, and the countryside was already clear of the ravages of winter which still buried the fields around my house. All of the exposed grass and plant life were simply brown. I couldn’t tell if they were just recovering from the freezing temperatures, or if the earth here had been salted by sea-water. But really, everything seemed quite normal.

We finally neared the shore, and we were lucky enough to have a beautiful clear day. The air was crisp and the blue sky dotted with light, fluffy clouds. All around us was open space, and sparsely placed houses. A sense of peacefulness lay on the land, until we came across a large, packed parking lot. My companion wondered aloud what all the people were doing here, as there didn’t seem to be any event taking place. Everywhere was quiet. Only when the road brought us closer did I start to notice what was strange. Dents. Rust. Scratches.

Each car was visibly battered. They had been collected, and left here, in this empty place. Some owners no doubt gave them up for lost after their damage. Some owners, no doubt, were no longer alive.

The silence remained, but the peacefulness was now shattered. It had suddenly become evident that the space we were driving through was not always so open. The houses had not always been so sparse. At this point of realisation, you begin to see things somewhat differently. Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s hard to miss it. The lower branches of the remaining trees torn off, the perfectly bulldozed earth. Sometimes, a house was missing a wall.

It’s important to remember as well that the enormous earthquake alone would have had the power to devastate less robust houses, even before the sea rushed in to take what remained. But one year later, the rubble has been almost completely cleared, leaving hauntingly empty strips of coastline. As we continued driving, we found areas that had apparently been spared, as well as those who must have taken the full brunt of the incoming wave. Still, as affecting as this landscape was, I knew that this couldn’t possibly be the worst. So as the day wore on, we drove further.

In Japan, one of the commonly referenced “Three Most Beautiful Views” is Matsushima, a bay with myriad pine covered islets. It lies directly where the tsunami struck, but due to the formation of the sea bed around the islands, both the stunning view and the town that grew beside it were completely saved. We stayed and enjoyed their famous oysters, ate soy sauce covered corn on the cob and strolled along the seafront while the sun set behind the floating forests. The sudden change was surprising but the shrines and the food and the bustling waterfront gave our minds a chance to take a step back and process the reality behind what we’d seen.

If we’d been surprised then, it was nothing compared with how unprepared we were for the next day.

Just twenty minutes up the road from the bay, we parked the car and got out to look at the tree line facing the beach. The bottom six or so meters of the trees were stripped entirely bare. The city we were en route to recorded an almost eight metre high tsunami. Eight metres. My friend had become more quiet now, as we got back in the car. At this point, we weren’t driving past houses missing walls anymore, we were passing walls missing houses. We made our way through estates that were mostly shells, heaping piles of debris scraped from one place and dumped in another. The stacks of cars here were mangled and crushed, nothing like those we’d seen the day before. Walking through the streets, the entire contents of somebody’s life could be seen, moulding and thrown about the rooms, through gaping holes in the remaining buildings.

And then the buildings ended. We were looking out across a sea of foundations. An entire residential area of the city, gone. My friend walked out into the empty streets in silence, and I wondered what she must be thinking. She had been in Japan last year, and she felt the earthquake on the opposite coast. She was there when shops ran out of food, and when petrol stations dried up. When parents called and begged their children to come home. When nobody knew what to believe about the impending meltdown in Fukushima. She hadn’t really wanted to come here, hadn’t particularly wanted to see this and be reminded of the fear.

But now she was walking towards one of the only standing buildings in sight, joining the others who had come to remember, one year after the disaster. She looked up at the three story school, blackened by the fires that ravaged it even after the earthquake couldn’t break it and the sea had failed to claim it. She saw the upturned staff room, with the identical government issued desks we all work at. She saw the surviving posters on the walls, reminding the students to eat right. She saw the two graveyards that stood on either side of it. And then we went back to the car, and we drove home.


She looked at me, and thanked me for persuading her to come. She was saddened by what she saw, but she was glad to have seen it for herself. And so was I.


I think the perfect moment that encapsulates the experience was this:

In the mess of half destroyed houses and ghost estates, standing in a city that had sunk almost a metre from the force of the biggest earthquake to hit Japan since records began, one man was putting a fresh coat of red paint on his garden gate.

Life goes on.