Fukushima dad finds remains of daughter, but no closure for 3/11

A man’s painstaking search over nearly six years has finally uncovered remains of his 7-year-old daughter who disappeared in the 2011 tsunami.

But the discovery has not brought closure for the father, Norio Kimura, who plans to keep sifting through the debris on the coast of this town in the shadow of the ruined Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

“I am glad, but only small parts of her have been recovered,” said Kimura, 51. “I will continue my search until I find everything.”

A breakthrough in his private search for daughter Yuna came on Dec. 9, when a volunteer found a scarf she was wearing on the day the tsunami struck. It was near the coast only a few hundred meters from where Kimura’s home once stood in Okuma.

A further search of the area uncovered parts of neck and jaw bones among the tsunami debris.

A DNA test conducted by Fukushima prefectural police showed the remains were of Yuna. Kimura was informed of the test result on Dec. 22.

However, he said he still has no intention of submitting a document to officially certify her death until the rest of her body is found.

Yuna was the last resident of Okuma officially listed as missing.

Kimura’s house was located about 4 kilometers south of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and 100 meters from the coast. The tsunami spawned by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, destroyed the home and swept away Yuna, Kimura’s wife, Miyuki, then 37, and his father, Wataro, then 77.

The bodies of Miyuki and Wataro were recovered that year. But Yuna remained missing.

The meltdowns at the nuclear plant forced Kimura to evacuate from Okuma and halt his search for Yuna.

Although the Self-Defense Forces, firefighters, police and volunteers conducted searches along the coast of the Tohoku region, radioactive fallout prevented extensive checks around Okuma in the early days of the recovery effort.

Most parts of the town are still located in the government-designated “difficult-to-return zone” because of high radiation levels. Access is limited to former residents, but only for short periods.

Kimura resumed his personal search for Yuna at the end of 2011, when the government allowed those limited-period returns to Okuma.

After settling in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture, with his mother and surviving daughter, Kimura frequently made round trips of about 1,000 kilometers in his search for Yuna. He often wore protective clothing against radiation in his endeavor.

Yuna’s remains were found in an area where Kimura discovered a shoe in June 2012 that his daughter was wearing on the day of the disaster.

Kimura said he intends to increase his trips to Okuma and focus his search on the area where Yuna’s bones were discovered.

“I do hold anger toward TEPCO, which caused the nuclear crisis, and the government, which was not committed enough to the body-recovery effort,” Kimura said. “I am mortified that it took nearly six years to find her.”

Sunday 26 December 2016

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201612260050.html

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Great East Japan Earthquake: Hunt for missing disaster victims still confounds rescuers

Five years after the Great East Japan Earthquake, police in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures are still searching for and identifying the bodies of those who went missing on March 11, 2011, though as time goes on they have fewer clues to work with.

The huge earthquake and ensuing tsunami caused massive damage across a broad swath of the Tohoku region. It left a total of 15,894 people dead, while 2,562 people remain unaccounted for as of Feb. 10, including 1,124 in Iwate, 1,237 in Miyagi and 197 in Fukushima, according to the National Police Agency.

Authorities in the three prefectures say they had recovered the bodies of 4,672 in Iwate, 9,539 in Miyagi and 1,613 in Fukushima by the end of January. The figures exclude the number of headless bodies, remains with only parts of the body recovered, as well as victims of aftershocks from the March 11 quake.

Of those recovered, police have matched names with all of the bodies recovered in Fukushima, 4,613 of those in Iwate and 9,523 in Miyagi.

But the challenge of identifying victims has grown over time. This year, police have managed to identify just 10 people. The low figure could be attributed to several factors, including relatives not reporting their kin as missing as well as a lack of DNA samples to match with bodies, since many victims’ homes were washed away in the tsunami.

In Fukushima Prefecture, a number of areas are still designated as no-go zones due to high radiation levels caused by the reactor meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

In these areas, police have found many businesses reluctant to aid in search activities, which often require the use of heavy machinery.

There are also many family members who argue the authorities have yet to exhaust all options in their search.

A man in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, whose eldest son is still listed as missing, submitted a request to the city office earlier this month calling for another investigation into places where searches were already conducted.

Despite these difficulties, police say they will continue working to identify remains.

In January, Fukushima police managed to ID the 1,613th victim, a carpenter in his 60s, based on records of artificial teeth. His body was recovered on March 14, 2011, but it took until January of this year to identify it as that of the carpenter, who had lived in the city of Iwaki.

After interviewing local dental technicians, police concluded that, due to their shape and color, it was highly likely that the carpenter’s artificial teeth matched the dental records.

Police also obtained an X-ray from a hospital the man visited, which provided conclusive evidence. It showed “a feature on the backbone typical of those who regularly carry heavy objects over long periods of time.”

Miyagi Prefectural Police set up a task force in November 2011 dedicated to researching and investigating unidentified and missing individuals. The officers from the task force have since taken various unorthodox approaches to their mission, including zooming in on pictures of remains and looking for moles or signs of surgery that might have been overlooked in an autopsy.

In the city of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, a photo found near a male body was even helpful in identifying that man. Fingerprints found on the photo and that of the individual matched, and police went on to determine which photo-developing machine was used to print it, based on a code found on its back side. After going from that photo studio to another equipped with the same machine, police officers found the studio that actually developed the photo, which led to the identification of the 43-year-old man.

“Methods leading to identification are different in each case,” an officer with the task force said. “We are determined to make continuous efforts to find clues step by step.”

In addition to checking DNA samples and dental charts against the remains, Iwate Prefectural Police have released facial sketches of those who are still unidentified and held consultation events at temporary housing facilities.

Five years since the disaster, police in the coastal areas — who play a central role in search efforts — are renewing their pledge to recover the remains and return them to families in a bid to help bring closure to those still suffering.

Tomonori Hirobata, a 29-year-old senior officer at the Kahoku Police Station in coastal Ishinomaki, has taken part in the more than 1,000 searches since the disasters, when he was dispatched from the Naruko Police Station, in the inland city of Osaki.

Hirobata said he has had many exchanges with the locals at the police station and sometimes receives words of appreciation from them.

“There are still so many missing individuals who should be returned to their families, but my efforts are not enough,” Hirobata said apologetically.

Hirobata said he has seen many families of the missing and dead shed tears over the loss of their relatives, which has renewed his determination to help bring them closure.

“Who else would conduct the search but us?” he asked.

21 March 2015

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/11/national/hunt-missing-disaster-victims-still-confounds-rescuers/#.Vu-xW-nbLuh

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Great East Japan Earthquake: Mystery man found dead among 3/11 rubble finally identified

A body pulled from burned debris after the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami has finally been identified as that of a 63-year-old man, according to the Miyagi Prefectural Police.

The police said Thursday that the charred body was found in May 2011 in an area in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, that had been severely damaged by fire.

He had lived alone and there was no report of a missing person from his family or relatives.

According to the Mainichi Shimbun, the police started to make a list in January of people who did not resume receiving public assistance after the disasters, and they eventually came upon the missing man.

Before that, they had released information to the public about what the man was wearing when he was found, though no one came forward with information.

The police found his relatives based on his family register and confirmed that their DNA and that of his remains matched. The remains were handed over to the relatives on Wednesday, the Mainichi reported.

The police said there are still 16 unidentified bodies in Miyagi Prefecture alone, according to the newspaper.

Friday 04 September 2015

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/09/04/national/dna-check-identifies-mystery-man-found-dead-among-311-rubble/#.VelFxukcTuh

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Japan: Ashes of thousands of wartime dead still unclaimed

The remains of thousands of civilians killed during World War II still remain unclaimed by relatives and languish in storage at temples and other sites across the country, an Asahi Shimbun survey shows.

The families of more than 7,400 people have yet to claim ashes stored in eight cities across Japan, even though the deceased have been identified based on name tags and other items attached to their clothing.

Many of the victims were killed in U.S. air raids. But in Okinawa, the victims were caught up in shelling and fighting.

In an effort to tally the unclaimed remains, The Asahi Shimbun contacted local governments, private-sector organizations, temples and other parties. The study covered Okinawa and 71 cities where 100 or more people are said to have died in connection with the war.

Although the central government has been diligently working to return the remains of Japanese soldiers killed in the war to their families, there had been no detailed research on the uncollected remains of civilians killed in U.S. air raids and other means.

According to the survey results, the ashes of 3,701 people stored in Tokyo have been identified but remain unclaimed by relatives. The figures for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were both leveled by atomic bombing in 1945, are 815 and 122, respectively.

Each of the three cities annually receives several inquiries and ashes have been returned in some cases. But in many instances, ashes that have been identified cannot be claimed because all family members perished in the war, according to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.

The ashes of more than 2,700 identified civilians remain unclaimed in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, Yokohama, Hamamatsu, Osaka and Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Because the bodies of victims were cremated and buried together in those five cities, relatives are now unable to collect the remains.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki city governments publicly disclose names of the identified victims. In the case of Hamamatsu and Sakai, bereaved families can view lists of remains that have been identified by contacting the temples and private groups storing them. Tokyo and Osaka do not publicly disclose the identities of remains.

The Asahi Shimbun also learned that unidentified remains of more than 300,000 people were buried together at temples and other facilities in Okinawa, Tokyo and 11 other cities.

More than 500,000 civilians are thought to have perished in Japan in World War II, mainly as a result of U.S. air raids.

One reason behind the large number of unclaimed remains is that it was difficult for Japanese officials during the war to identify victims and locate their families in the face of intensified aerial attacks by the United States.

According to records on damage to Tokyo during the war and other source material, the police were responsible for examining and identifying those killed in airstrikes.

But police were overwhelmed by the number of victims in the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, 1945. Corpses were laid out on city streets for several days so people could find their families. The bodies were later transferred to nearby parks and elsewhere for tentative burial because it was thought that leaving them laid out on the ground for a prolonged period could undermine the people's fighting spirit.

Victims of the Great Tokyo Air Raid were exhumed and cremated after the end of the war so they could be enshrined at a Tokyo government-run memorial facility.

Although some of the victims of the air raid were identified, those remains could not be returned to relatives because the bereaved families did not know where or even if the ashes were being stored.

Interviews with bereaved families showed they could not afford to claim their relatives’ ashes as they were caught up on the task of rebuilding their own lives. In some cases, ashes were not returned because authorities mixed up names.

“The wartime authorities prioritized hiding corpses rather than identifying them so as not to lower citizens’ morale,” said Katsumoto Saotome, director of the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage. “If the authorities had actively sought bereaved families of the remains immediately following the war, more ashes may have been returned to their relatives by now.”

Thursday 13 August 2015

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201508120070

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Japan tsunami: Diving into the world of the dead to find their relatives

Twice a month two Japanese men put on scuba gear and go diving. One is looking for his wife, the other for his daughter, both of whom were swept away by the devastating tsunami that struck Japan four years ago. They know they are no longer alive, but the hope of finding something - anything - gives them a much-needed sense of purpose.

Underneath the glittering waters of Onagawa Bay, in Japan's north-eastern Miyagi Prefecture, fridges, TVs, cars, trucks and fishing gear lie scattered on the sea floor, under a layer of mud.

"Imagine a big city, put it in a grinder and throw it all into the ocean," is how one oceanographer described the effect of the Japanese tsunami.

Under water, things are still mostly where they were left by the violence of the waves.

In the sunlight up above, on the other hand, everything has changed.

Fishing boats are again going about their business - the Japanese diet is built around seafood and it's a key part of the local economy.

The wreckage of a thriving port has been cleaned away. In its place there is now a vast expanse of concrete - empty except for, in one corner, a modest shrine made up of some laminated pages of A4, a pink plastic chrysanthemum, and, rather incongruously, a Christmas tree.

This is where the Onagawa branch of the Shichijushichi (77) Bank used to stand and the shrine is there to commemorate it.

When the tsunami warning sounded at 14:50 on the afternoon of 11 March 2011, the bank's employees were busy tidying up the damage caused by the earthquake that had shaken the building a few minutes earlier.

Their manager was out seeing clients. Driving back along the coast he could see the sea sharply withdrawing - a sure sign of an imminent tsunami. As soon as he walked in he told everyone to stop and to climb on to the roof of the two-storey building as quickly as possible.

Sure enough, as soon as they got there, they heard the siren and the municipal broadcast warning people to evacuate to high ground - just a few hundred metres away were the steep slopes of Mount Horikiri, where some people were already seeking shelter.

One employee asked if she could go home because she was worried about her children. The manager said he couldn't stop her, so she ran to her car, which was parked 300m away, and drove home.

The manager told those remaining to watch the sea, just 100m away in normal conditions, and to listen out for further news. The radio warned that a 6m-high tsunami would hit at 15:10.

Among the 13 bank employees up on the roof that day was 47-year-old Yoko Takamatsu. Her husband Yasuo had dropped her off by car that morning, though they only lived a few minutes' drive away. During the short short journey they had talked about what to have for dinner. "Don't say: 'Anything is fine!'" she had said.

With Yoko on the roof was her colleague, 26-year-old Emi Narita, from the neighbouring town of Ishinomaki, where her father Masaaki ran a fish-processing plant. She had seen him just the night before, when she went over to pick up her dinner - her grandmother still liked to cook for her.

As the workers stood nervously on the roof they debated whether there was time to flee to the nearby hospital - a much taller and stronger building, but they decided to stay. After all, a 6m-high tsunami would only reach the first floor. Some went down to get their coats - it was cold, there was still snow on the ground.

Yoko sent her husband a text message: "Are you safe? I want to go home."

The tsunami swept into Onagawa moments later. Footage filmed by a survivor shows how the dark water moved swiftly and relentlessly into town, pushing over everything in its path. Buildings gave way and cars and trucks were picked up like toys, and acted like floating battering rams adding to the wave's destructive power. Within minutes the sea had engulfed areas that were once considered safe.

The bank flooded quickly - it took just five minutes for the water to fill half the building. The workers decided to climb up even higher on top of an electrical room standing on the roof of the two-storey building. As they climbed the 3m vertical ladder the strong wind almost blew them off.

Many people witnessed their desperate bid to escape to safety. A Facebook post reads: "We get a lump in a throat every time we think about the female bankers who, wearing skirts, had to climb the ladder with unimaginable fear, and male bankers who threw off their coats at the last minute regardless of the cold weather, their fear, despair and regret."

The tsunami turned out to be far, far bigger than anyone expected.

The town's defences had largely been based on the worst tsunami in living memory - a 6m-high tsunami in Chile in 1960. But this one reached more than three times higher.

As a consequence many designated shelters were inundated - even the hospital was flooded, killing four people in the building itself and an estimated 16 in the car park.

Onagawa was one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami," says Tsutomu Yamanaka, a relief co-ordinator who arrived a week after the disaster for the aid organisation Japan Platform.

The coastline of the region is a series of submerged river valleys shaped "like the teeth of a saw", he says, and tsunamis reach great heights as the water funnels into the crevices.

A town has little chance in this battle between ocean and mountain. Satellite pictures show how the sea reached in and clawed the town away. More than 5,000 buildings were washed away or damaged beyond repair.

"Buildings had been torn from their foundations," says Yanamaka, describing the scene he witnessed when he arrived in Onagawa. "A train had been swept to the hill far from the station."

The morning after the tsunami Yasuo Takamatsu made his way to the municipal hospital to find Yoko. He soon had to abandon the car and push a path through the wreckage.

He was stunned to find she wasn't there.

"There were lots of people taking refuge there, but I was told she'd been taken away by the tsunami," he says. "After that I just couldn't stand up. I'd lost all my strength like it had been washed away."

It took Emi Narita's father, Masaaki, longer to find out about his daughter's fate in the chaotic days after the disaster.

He himself had only just driven to safety with his mother-in-law, the tsunami "coming over a few cars behind us".

For four days he was unable to contact his wife, who was working as a nurse away from home. It was she who told him Emi was missing. "I couldn't believe it. I can't believe it even now," he says. "Until that moment, I had no doubt that she would be safe."

Local authorities were overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, the staff reeling from their own personal losses, on top of massive practical and logistical problems.

Almost one in 10 of the town's residents was dead or missing. The majority of survivors were staying in special accommodation for evacuees. They spent their days searching for loved ones, picking through the chaos and walking for miles along the breakwaters on the shoreline.

Takamatsu was there too, looking for his wife, Yoko. "I searched everywhere for her, but she was nowhere to be found," he says.

The only thing that was eventually recovered was Yoko's mobile phone, found in the parking lot behind the 77 Bank building. At first, Takamatsu thought it wouldn't work because it had been soaked with water, but months later, he took the phone out and tried it.

Miraculously, it came to life. Then he saw she'd tried to send another message that never reached him. It said: "The tsunami is disastrous."

The 77 Bank building, just over 10m tall, was knocked over by the force of the tsunami.

Of the 13 people on the roof, one, amazingly, survived - he held on to floating debris and was swept out to sea, almost losing consciousness in the icy water before he was rescued by a fishing boat hours later. The bodies of four bank staff were found, but eight are still missing, Emi and Yoko among them. The worker who left the building by car survived.

"I couldn't understand why they escaped to the rooftop," says Narita. "There's no more escape there. If they had escaped to the mountain, they could have climbed to a higher place. I thought evacuation to the mountain was a matter of course."

The toppled building itself was cleared away along with all the other buildings in the port area, bar one, which was left as a memorial. Although the town began to rebuild, for the bereaved families it was hard to move on.

"We are still stuck in 2011," says Narita.

Takamatsu is haunted by the message Yoko sent. "I have this feeling that she still wants to come home," he says.

"I wish I had gone to pick her up at the bank after the earthquake struck, but I'm still not sure what would have been the right decision. The tsunami warning told us to stay away from the shoreline, and if I'd gone down to pick her up, chances are I would have been taken out by the tsunami as well.

"But at the same time, I wish I'd gone and saved her."

Two years ago, when he saw divers from the Japanese Coast Guard out searching for the remains of the missing, it gave him an idea: he could do the same, and perhaps bring Yoko home.

"So I learned to dive. I felt like I could meet her one day as long as I kept diving," he says.

Takamatsu needed to qualify for a diving licence, and he began taking lessons at a diving school. When he talked to Narita about it, and offered to look for Emi too, Narita decided to join him.

Learning to dive was a challenge for these men, both in their mid-50s. Takamatsu was terrified by the thought of his oxygen failing, and having to come up for air. "At 5m below, I could swim up without much trouble, but at 20m deep it gets dangerous - thinking about those things always scared me," he says.

Narita had other problems. "I didn't get scared, but I couldn't control my body under the sea at all," he says. He found it hard even to regulate his breathing. "I never considered quitting, but I struggled."

After months of training, the two men qualified last summer, and have since completed more than 80 dives. The search has given them purpose and lifted their spirits.

"I couldn't do anything before I started diving, but after I decided to find my daughter by myself, I could become positive about it - a bit. I get encouraged by searching for her," says Narita.

"It was depressing not doing anything," says Takamatsu. "At first I just wanted to find my wife, but now I hope I can find others too."

It's hard work. The bay is very deep and most objects are buried under a thick layer of mud, which, when disturbed, also makes it hard to see. They have good days. On one they found a child's calligraphy box with his name on it, and a wedding album.

Anything with a name goes back to the owners. Wallets, bank books, and stamps are handed to the police. Photographs can often be restored. An estimated five million tonnes of debris was dragged into the sea by the tsunami. Two-thirds sank just off the coast, covering the sea floor and damaging the marine environment. About a third floated away, in giant patches that could be tracked on satellite images.

Boats, buoys, propane tanks and refrigerator doors are still washing up on the shores of North America and Hawaii.

But much of the tsunami debris has joined the "plastic smog" that collects in oceanic gyres. Marcus Eriksen, from the 5 Gyres Institute, led an expedition to the debris field in June 2012 - 5,000 miles east of Tokyo they spotted buckets, laundry detergent bottles, half a boat, and a still-inflated truck tyre. "One day a shoe drifted by," says Eriksen. "What was eerie was that the laces were still laced at the top - it left us thinking."

The bodies of more than 2,000 people, of the 16,000 estimated to have died, have never been recovered.

So what about those missing from Onagawa - how far could they have travelled? Not far, says Hiroshi Kitazato from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. "I think they sank immediately in the bay. I talked to fishermen in Onagawa town, they said that in the past couple of years they've found no bodies in their fishing nets. This means that in the first two or three years they dredged up dead bodies."

Kitazato points out that, coming from a small community, those fishermen would probably have known who they had fished up. "They would have felt very bad," he says.

Four years on, this is less likely to happen - organic matter will have mostly "returned to nature", says Kitazato. "Now, we seldom find bodies or their belongings during research activities."

Kitazato's work is aimed at helping ecosystems recover, but after the tsunami many people "felt awful about the sea" he says, and part of his remit is to explain to them how the ocean works. His team goes into schools to show its positive side - "how ocean organisms are beautiful and how the oceanic system is useful for human life."

Many of Onagawa's citizens moved away to escape their memories of the disaster - and to find work. Takamatsu stayed, and, through diving, has a new-found appreciation of the sea. "I found creatures which I had never seen, beautiful fish such as lumpfish," he says. "You cannot see such worlds usually."

Despite the seeming hopelessness of their task, Takamatsu and Narita have no intention of giving up. "I still have a hope we can find something - maybe a human body, regardless of whether it's my daughter's or not," says Narita.

His only memento of Emi is a painting he commissioned after her death, which has pride of place in the living room - all of his own photographs were lost, along with the family home.

"I want to search for my daughter as long as my body allows me to. If I just give up, there's zero chance. If I keep searching, I might have a chance at least."

Takamatsu feels the same way. "I want to continue my search as long as my strength lasts, even though the chances of finding her are slim. I know that she has already passed away, but I don't want her to be left alone under the sea.

"Honestly, I still want to find her and bring her home."

Wednesday 15 July 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33294275

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Japan Government to conduct DNA tests on more remains of war dead

The government will conduct DNA tests on more unidentified remains collected from World War II battlefields and internment areas, and store the results in a database, welfare ministry sources said Tuesday.

The move is part of an effort to identify the war dead and return the remains to aging relatives, as this year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

DNA tests have previously been limited to remains found near personal belongings bearing names. But they are expected to also be conducted on remains without such items, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry sources said.

The ministry will also receive DNA samples from potential relatives in a bid to match them with the test results, they said.

The new database is likely to contain data on DNA samples taken from the remains of around 8,000 people found in the battlefield in the Philippines, Okinawa and Iwojima (now Iwoto) in the Pacific, as well as areas in the former Soviet Union and Mongolia where Japanese were imprisoned.

The government began collecting samples in fiscal 1999 and launched the DNA analysis in fiscal 2003. But only 2,031 DNA tests have so far been conducted on the remains of the war dead, according to the ministry.

Thursday 25 June 2015

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/24/national/history/government-conduct-dna-tests-remains-war-dead/

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Japan marks 4th anniversary of tsunami

Japan yesterday observed the fourth anniversary of the quake-tsunami disaster that swept away thousands of people and sparked a nuclear crisis, a tragedy that has left visible scars on the landscape and continues to wreak misery for many.

Remembrance ceremonies were held in towns and cities around the disaster zone and in Tokyo, where Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko led tributes to those who died in Japan's worst peacetime disaster.

Television footage showed victims and volunteers joining their hands in prayer near the shell of a tsunami-hit building in the north-eastern port town of Minamisanriku, one of the many stark reminders of the destruction.

A nationwide minute of silence followed the wail of tsunami alarm sirens at 2.46 pm (1.46pm Singapore time), the exact moment a 9.0-magnitude undersea quake hit.

Thursday 12 March 2015

http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/asia-report/japan/story/japan-marks-4th-anniversary-tsunami-20150312

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Remains of 83 Japan tsunami victims still unidentified four years on

The remains of 83 people who perished in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami remain unidentified in the hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima four years after the disaster, with boxes holding the remains temporarily placed at temples and cemeteries.

At the administrative office of the Kuzuoka Boen cemetery park in Sendai's Aoba Ward, three investigators from Miyagi Prefectural Police and Sendai city officials offered bouquets of white lilies and other flowers in front of boxes holding the remains at 10 a.m. on March 10, pressing their hands together as they vowed to identify the victims. The smell of incense sticks was wafting in the air inside the 10-tatami-mat room.

Two of the boxes bear pieces of paper reading "57-RC4" and "55-RA1," respectively. The boxes contain partial remains of victims still unidentified, which were retrieved from the sea and other locations in the wake of the March 11, 2011 disaster. The three police officers, including 61-year-old inspector Yoshihiro Konno, are members of an eight-strong investigative team dedicated to identifying the remains.

As of March 3, Miyagi Prefectural Police had identified the bodies of 9,519 disaster victims, but the remains of 18 people still remain unidentified. Apart from those, there are partial remains -- such as hands and legs -- of about 80 people yet to be identified. Those remains are tentatively placed at 10 locations in the prefecture.

"We get fewer and fewer pieces of information year by year. The creative ability of investigators is being tested," said a senior prefectural police official. Recently, the team managed to identify some of the victims from the initials of a repairer on the back cover of a watch, as well as the production records of artificial teeth.

In November 2012, the team received a letter and 30,000 yen as a donation from a sender who only identified themself as "Southern Cross." "I couldn't do anything after the quake disaster, so I am sending this hoping to offer you something warm to consume. It's the least I could do," read the letter.

A woman living in Mima, Tokushima Prefecture, also sent in donations to the team on seven separate occasions. "I would appreciate it if you could use the money -- though little -- to offer flowers or something (to unidentified victims)," read one of her letters. "My heart aches when I think of the feelings of the relatives of those still unaccounted for," went another letter of hers.

Toshiaki Seki, 80, a resident of Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, donated cash to the investigative unit in January 2013 after learning about it in a newspaper article. "I have a friend living in Sendai, and the disaster is not someone else's business. I wanted to express my feelings of gratitude to the investigators," he told the Mainichi.

The team has thus far received a total of some 270,000 yen in contributions, arriving on 12 separate occasions. The prefectural police force has used all of the money to offer flowers to the unidentified victims.

Wednesday 11 March 2015

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150311p2a00m0na013000c.html

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Identities of 83 bodies still mystery nearly four years after 3/11

The National Police Agency said Friday 83 bodies found after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami remained unidentified as of the end of February, down 15 from a year earlier.

The death toll from the natural disasters stood at 15,890 in 12 prefectures, up by six. The number of missing fell by 47 to 2,589.

Of the 15,807 identified bodies, 15,737 were in the three northeastern prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, which took the brunt of the disasters. Those who were 65 or older accounted for 56 percent of the bodies, while 90 percent of the deaths overall were attributed to drowning.

Friday 6 March 2015

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/06/national/identities-of-83-bodies-still-mystery-nearly-four-years-after-311/

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Aichi doctors to form disaster teams to examine corpses

An association of doctors in Aichi Prefecture, plans to create teams next spring that specialize in examining the bodies of victims in major natural disasters and accidents, according to people familiar with the plan.

The Aichi Prefectural Government estimates that up to 29,000 people could die in the prefecture if a major earthquake strikes in the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast and generates a huge tsunami.

The Aichi Medical Association will be the first such entity in the country to form a team dedicated to examining corpses following major disasters and accidents, the sources said.

In its discussions to set up the teams, the Aichi group included aircraft accidents. The prefecture is home to Central Japan International Airport, or Centrair, and Nagoya Airfield, also known as Komaki Airport.

The eruption earlier this year at Mount Ontake, on the border between nearby Gifu and Nagano prefectures, prompted the group to accelerate the talks. The natural disaster left 57 people dead and six missing.

The teams will act at the request of police to examine bodies at the scene, mainly to identify cause of death. Each team will have three or four doctors.

Thursday 25 December 2014

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/12/24/national/aichi-doctors-to-form-disaster-teams-to-examine-corpses/

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Japan: Dental data standardization eyed to help identify victims

An effort to standardize dental data records, including the results of dental treatments, is attracting attention as an effective method to help quickly identify bodies of victims in major disasters, in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Because massive casualties are forecast in the event of the anticipated Nankai Trough earthquake, the government aims to establish a uniform national format for the records.

The standardization could also be utilized if Japanese fall victim to terrorist attacks or disasters overseas.

An adult has 32 permanent teeth. The proposed standard would convert the condition of each tooth into numerical data or codes using uniform rules and encode the information digitally.



This card, containing dental information used in Niigata Prefecture, shows various items, such as treatment methods, in easy-to-understand terms for experts.

For example, a tooth without cavity could be recorded as “1,” a filled tooth as “2,” a crowned tooth as “3” and a missing tooth as “4.”

The Yomiuri Shimbun last month asked Prof. Takafumi Aoki of Tohoku University to run search software using the proposed standardization method. Aoki was involved in confirming the identities of bodies after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Aoki, an information engineering professor, demonstrated how the condition of teeth from a dead body could be input into a computer with 32 digits.

Aoki entered a series of numbers, “433134...,” and clicked the search command button. The computer cross-checked the data with dental records gathered from 1,000 living people that had been registered in the system’s database.

The software ranked the registered dental patterns in the database from No. 1 to 1,000, based on the extent of matching.

Aoki said, “The larger the number of unidentified victims, the more effective the system will be.”

In the worst-hit earthquake areas it was very difficult to identify bodies with few clues to their identities.

Dental data became a key focus as an effective method for confirming identities, because teeth change very little, even with the passage of time.

However, it was difficult to collect dental treatment records that could serve as base data of the victims while they were alive. The fact that local dental clinics had used differing formats to record dental information compounded this difficulty.

Recalling the experience, a local dentist said, “Making a random cross-check one by one just wasn’t realistic.”

The stress from the hard work took its toll on many dentists who felt physically and mentally ill.

This is what inspired a team of researchers led by Aoki to develop specialized software for this purpose two months after the disaster.

According to the Miyagi prefectural police, the search software narrowed down searches from around 500 unidentified victims to a much smaller number of possible matches. Police were able to combine the results from the dental software scan with results of DNA analysis and other techniques to accelerate the process.

After the disaster, Aoki’s team received inquiries from local governments in areas forecast to be hit hard by the envisaged Nankai Trough earthquake, including Shizuoka and Kochi prefectures. Tohoku University has distributed more than 100 sets of the software.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry also became involved in the standardization plan, conducting experiments in Niigata Prefecture until March.

In the experiments, the accuracy of the scans was improved by increasing the number of options for describing the condition of teeth, and computer-score sheets were introduced to record the data.

The experiments treated data from 1,763 people as dental records from victims, removing the data for half of their teeth, as though those teeth had been destroyed or lost after death. The results gave the highest ranking to the correct records 87.5 percent of the time. The accuracy rate for the top 18 results was 99 percent.

The health ministry praised these results, with one official saying the system was able to “narrow down the results to correctly identify [a 'victim'] with great accuracy.”

The ministry plans to create a uniform nationwide format for the data so the system can be employed wherever a disaster occurs.

Hisako Saito, an associate professor of forensic medicine at Chiba University who is knowledgeable about methods used to identify people overseas, said the proposed method “will be useful to identify Japanese victims of disasters overseas.”

The health ministry will consider the possibility of linking the standardized data with similar databases in other countries in experiments planned later this fiscal year.

The government is interested in the disaster victim identification system used by Interpol. That system includes data on treatment using a code consisting of three letters.

Data organized using the Interpol method could be used as a global common language for this purpose.

Finland adopted such measures after some of its nationals went missing in the earthquake off Sumatra in 2004. Data standardized using Finland’s methods were converted to the Internet standard. By cross-checking the data with bodies found in the disaster-hit areas, authorities were able to identify 112 victims.

Citing these precedents, Saito said, “Japan should act quickly to standardize data across the nation.”

Many experts in the field point out that the standardization method will also be useful to identify foreign nationals who die in Japan.

Because the number of inbound foreign visitors is certain to rise as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics approach, it is possible that the proposed system will be put to use for a wider range of purposes.

Privacy concerns become roadblock to dental ID

Many experts believe that unless record-keeping is integrated into an envisioned government standardization plan, identifying victims in large-scale disasters will remain difficult.

Dental records are important for swiftly identifying disaster victims, but many dental clinics and records were destroyed in the Great East Japan Earthquake and ensuing tsunami in March 2011.

This prompted calls for a database where such records can be stored, but government ministries and agencies are cautious about establishing such a database.

The major bottleneck lies in the issue of privacy. The government is concerned that people will regard their dental records as privileged information.

Though the government has been proceeding with a project to standardize its record-keeping by gaining people's agreement, it is difficult to secure individuals’ consent in preparing the database.

A senior police official, who is in charge of identifying disaster victims, said, “The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry should manage patients’ information gathered while they are alive.”

However, some health ministry officials said their job is to ensure people remain healthy, not collect data that could be used to identify dead people.

According to a 2012 government forecast, a massive earthquake in the Nankai Trough would, in the worst case, kill 320,000 people in Tokyo and 29 other prefectures.

“In preparation for the next large-scale disaster, we should discuss the standardization and creation of a dental database in an integrated manner, and swiftly introduce it,” said Prof. Toshinobu Komuro of Nihon University, who specializes in forensic medicine. He is a member of a ministry panel discussing how to standardize dental identification.

Wednesday 16 April 2014

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001191496

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Minute's silence held in Japan in memory of 2011 Fukushima disaster

A nationwide minute of silence has been held in Japan on Tuesday to pay tribute to victims of the most powerful in the country’s history earthquake and following tsunami that hit the north-east March 11, 2011. Millions of people bowed their heads in commemorative prayer.

The main mourning event is held in the national theatre’s building in Tokyo, with Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe taking part.

In addition, local mourning ceremonies are held on Tuesday on the northeast of Honshu Island that was hit by the natural disaster. People come to places where once used to stand their homes destroyed by the tsunami. In the city of Miyako on the coast of the stricken area, earthquake emergency exercise was timed to the third anniversary of the disaster. The police and coast guard have also organized the symbolic search of those whose bodies were not found after the tsunami.

March 11, 2011, a catastrophic earthquake of magnitude 9 took place at the coast of Miyagi Prefecture. The earthquake triggered a series of tsunami with waves 20 meters in height. At some sites the waves exceeded 30 meters destroying entire coastal towns and blocks. Almost 15,900 people are in the victims’ list, and more than 2,600 people are reported missing.

The tsunami led to switching off the cooling system and meltdown of nuclear fuel at three reactors of the Fukushima-1 NPP. This was accompanied by explosions and releases of radiation contaminating a wide area.

After the natural disasters of 2011, 267 thousand Japanese still live in temporary dwellings, since the reconstruction of stricken neighborhoods is slow. Almost 48,000 residents of Fukushima Prefecture cannot return to their homes that are located in the contaminated area. The situation at the Fukushima-1 NPP is generally under control, however, incidents including radioactive water leackage continue there.

Tuesday 11 March 2014

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_11/photo-Minutes-silence-held-in-Japan-in-memory-of-2011-Fukushima-disaster-5574/?slide-1

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Thousands of tsunami victims still missing in Japan three years after disaster

More than 2,600 people remain missing in Japan three years after the nation was hit by a major earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, according to the latest police figures.

Search operations continue across swathes of the northeast coastline, where the majority of lives lost in the March 11, 2011, disaster were those swept away by the tsunami.

The figures came to light as Japan prepared to commemorate on Tuesday the third anniversary of the disaster - the nation's worst peacetime loss of life, claiming 15,884 lives.

In addition, 2,636 remain officially missing, mostly in the three worst hit prefectures Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima.

The remains of 98 people are also unidentified, according to the latest figures from the National Police Agency.

Three years after the disaster, life in many disaster-hit communities appears, on the surface at least, to have tentatively returned to normal, with much of the rubble cleared away and businesses reopened.

However, the challenges facing bereaved relatives of those whose bodies have never been found remain complex, with many determined to find their loved ones in order to finally lay them to rest.

Monthly searches are conducted on the 11th of each month by police officers, Maritime Safety Agency personnel and local volunteers, at the request of relatives of the missing.

Among those determined not to give up is Yasuo Takamatsu, 57, from the small fishing town of Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture, whose wife Yuko disappeared in the tsunami.

The bus driver recently took the unusual step of learning how to scuba dive in order to take to the chilly waters of the Pacific Ocean and search the seabed for signs of his still-missing wife himself.

Mrs Takamatsu, then 47, a bank worker, was one of 250 people who are still missing from the town, which was hit badly by the disaster, with more than 800 people swept to their deaths by the 65-foot tsunami.

Mr Takamatsu described how the last text message he received from his wife shortly after the earthquake said simply "I want to go home", while another unsent message later found on her discovered mobile phone, was found to read "Tsunami huge".

He added: "That was the last message from her. I feel terrible thinking she is still out there. I want to bring her home as soon as possible."

Monday 10 March 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/10687110/Thousands-of-tsunami-victims-still-missing-in-Japan-three-years-after-disaster.html

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Japanese Man Learns to Dive to Find Wife Missing in Tsunami

A Japanese man has taken up scuba diving in an effort to find the body of his wife, who went missing in the Japanese tsunami of 2011.

Yasuo Takamatsu, 57, has been searching for his wife's body since she was carried away by giant waves when the tsunami struck the coast of Japan.

Just days before the third anniversary of the disaster on 11 March, Takamatsu has decided to take his search underwater, after searches on land proved unsuccessful.

He described his wife, who was 47 when she went missing, as a "gentle and kind" individual.

"She would always be next to me, physically and mentally," he said. "I miss her, I miss the big part of me that was her."

He said that just hours before the huge 9.9 magnitude earthquake struck Japan, and the waves of the tsunami rushed ashore, he had received a final message from his wife.

"It read 'I want to go home'," he said. "That was the last message from her. I feel terrible thinking she is still out there. I want to bring her home as soon as possible."

"'Tsunami huge'. That was all she wrote in the very last one," he said.

Bus driver Takamatsu said that he had no experience of scuba diving, but that his desire to lay his wife to rest had motivated him.

"I still feel just as I did when the disaster hit," he said. "Emotion-wise, I have not moved a bit since then. I will feel like this, I think, until I find her.

"I do want to find her, but I also feel that she may never be discovered as the ocean is way too vast - but I have to keep looking."

Takamatsu has been trained to dive by Masayoshi Takahashi, who leads teams of people looking for missing tsunami victims underwater.

"During underwater search, unlike leisure diving, we have to dive in unclear water and there is also the risk of getting trapped in the wreckage," he said.

"I want him to be able to relax and look around carefully in the water. He has a clear object to find." When the waves of the tsunami receded, they took wreckage and bodies with them.

More than 15,800 people are recorded as having died in the disaster - with a further 2,636 still missing. In Takamatsu's village of Onagawa alone, 250 people remain missing.

Sunday 09 March 2014

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/japanese-man-learns-dive-find-wife-missing-tsunami-1439518

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Japan ready to deal with disasters

Japan is still recovering from the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, but it is well prepared to minimize the damage during such disasters in the future.

The Fire Rescue Task Force, nicknamed "Hyper Rescue" was formed after the Great-Hanshin Awaji Earthquake in 1995, when the establishment of highly advanced rescue units was considered a critical issue.

They are headquartered in Adachi-ku in eastern Tokyo, and respond to emergencies at home and abroad. The team consists of 63 people, who are specially trained firefighters with advanced rescue gear.

Unity is their strength, and they improve the quality of rescue operations through repeated training and discussions. This training was to evacuate smoke in the room with the help of ventilation units, and it was completed within a minute.

The forces are equipped with many special vehicles and apparatus.

"We have to work in severe disaster areas. So, it's important for us to take every possible measure to prepare for different types of disasters. We always keep our eyes open for disasters all over the world, and discuss them. In case we have to respond, what kind of apparatus we should use," said Seiichi Kaneda, fire lieutenant, Support Task Force Chief.

Japan is well-prepared for disaster management.

Located at Meguro-ku in Tokyo, POSCO Corporation is Japan's one of the largest geospatial companies that collects satellite and aerial photography, and supplies it after analyzing and processing the data for geo information systems.

They use leading edge-technology such as PALS or Portable Aerial Photography and Locater System.

"We have to work speedily at the time of a disaster. When we took aerial photos and give one of it to the ministry, they asked for the location. Then a professional engineer with experience of 20-30 years worked on it to locate the place. It took almost half-a-day for him to establish the location of the picture. We want to assist in disaster relief activities and I want to set up an efficient system to save time in locating disaster areas," said Tsuneki Sakakibara, Manager, PASCO Corporation.

In a time-sensitive situation they have to use helicopters and portable cameras. Sometimes, it gets difficult to locate a place. But, PALS has made this possible.

The orange dots in the picture are the photographed places and white dots are the locations of the helicopter.

The data is automatically collected by PALS. This is the disaster area hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake.

PALS clicks about 3,000-5,000 images in 2 hours flight.

"We created this portable system not only for Japan but also for the whole world. Actually, we have already done tests abroad. So, I want people overseas to use it, and experience its usability," said Tadao Shimada, senior GIS engineer, PASCO Corporation.

Disasters like tsunami and earthquake are widespread, and the use of technology can help in better managing them.

Tuesday 04 March 2014

http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/japan-ready-to-deal-with-disasters-114030400707_1.html

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Navy sailors have radiation sickness after Japan rescue

Navy sailor Lindsay Cooper knew something was wrong when billows of metallic-tasting snow began drifting over USS Ronald Reagan.

“I was standing on the flight deck, and we felt this warm gust of air, and, suddenly, it was snowing,” Cooper recalled of the day in March 2011 when she and scores of crewmates watched a sudden storm blow toward them from the tsunami-torn coast of Fukushima, Japan.

The tall 24-year-old with a winning smile didn’t know it then, but the snow was caused by the freezing Pacific air mixing with a plume of radioactive steam from the city’s shattered nuclear reactor.

Now, nearly three years after their deployment on a humanitarian mission to Japan’s ravaged coast, Cooper and scores of her fellow crew members on the aircraft carrier and a half-dozen other support ships are battling cancers, thyroid disease, uterine bleeding and other ailments.

“We joked about it: ‘Hey, it’s radioactive snow!’ ” Cooper recalled. “I took pictures and video.”

But now “my thyroid is so out of whack that I can lose 60 to 70 pounds in one month and then gain it back the next,” said Cooper, fighting tears. “My menstrual cycle lasts for six months at a time, and I cannot get pregnant. It’s ruined me.”

The fallout of those four days spent off the Fukushima coast has been tragic to many of the 5,000 sailors who were there.

At least 70 have been stricken with some form of radiation sickness, and of those, “at least half . . . are suffering from some form of cancer,” their lawyer, Paul Garner, told The Post Saturday.

“We’re seeing leukemia, testicular cancer and unremitting gynecological bleeding requiring transfusions and other intervention,” said Garner, who is representing 51 crew members suing the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima Daiichi energy plant.

“Then you have thyroid polyps, other thyroid diseases,” added Garner, who plans to file an amended lawsuit in federal court in San Diego next month that will bring the number of plaintiffs past 70.

Senior Chief Michael Sebourn, a radiation-decontamination officer, was assigned to test the aircraft carrier for radiation.

The levels were incredibly dangerous and at one point, the radiation in the air measured 300 times higher than what was considered safe, Sebourn told The Post.

The former personal trainer has suffered a series of ailments, starting with severe nosebleeds and headaches and continuing with debilitating weakness.

He says he has lost 60 percent of the power in the right side of his body and his limbs have visibly shrunk.

“I’ve had four MRIs, and I’ve been to 20 doctors,” he said. “No one can figure out what is wrong.”

He has since retired from the Navy after 17 years of service.

Even as the Reagan was steaming toward the disaster, power-company officials knew the cloud of steam they were releasing — in order to relieve pressure in the crippled plant — was toxic, the lawsuit argues, a claim that has also been made by the Japanese government.

Tokyo Electric Power also knew that radioactivity was leaking at a rate of 400 tons a day into the North Pacific, according to the lawsuit and Japanese officials.

“We were probably floating in contaminated water without knowing it for a day and a half before we got hit by that plume,” said Cooper, whose career as a third-class petty officer ended five months after the disaster for health reasons.

The toxic seawater was sucked into the ship’s desalinization system, flowing out of its faucets and showers — still radioactive — and into the crew member’s bodies.

“All I drink is water. You stay hydrated on that boat,” said Cooper, who worked up to 18 hours at a time on the flight deck loading supplies onto a steady stream of aid helicopters for four days, all the while drinking out of the two-gallon pouch of water hooked to her gear belt.

By the time the Reagan realized it was contaminated and tried to shift location, the radioactive plume had spread too far to be quickly outrun.

“We have a multimillion-dollar radiation-detection system, but . . . it takes time to be set up and activated,” Cooper said.

“And then we couldn’t go anywhere. Japan didn’t want us in port, Korea didn’t want us, Guam turned us away. We floated in the water for two and a half months,” until Thailand took them in, she said.

All the while crew members had been suffering from excruciating diarrhea.

“People were s- -tting themselves in the hallways,” Cooper recalled.

“Two weeks after that, my lymph nodes in my neck were swollen. By July, my thyroid shut down.”

Cooper, the single mother of a 4-year-old girl named Serenity, says her biggest worry is that she will get cancer. Her own mother died recently of breast cancer at age 53.

“This isn’t about financial gain,” Cooper said of the lawsuit. “This is about what’s going to happen while I’m sick, and then after I’m gone.”

“I worry,” she added, her voice choking, “because I have a daughter. And I’m so sick.”

Monday 23 December 2013

http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-by-radiation-after-japan-rescue/

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Families of disaster victims demanding answers

Thought-provoking article:

Families of some of the victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster are refusing to accept the idea that the loss of loved ones was due simply to fate.

They have been fighting court battles to find convincing answers to questions about the tragedies even though they know that doing so prolongs and could even magnify their agony. They believe that the lives of their loved ones could have been saved.

Two and a half years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. I visited some bereaved families in Miyagi Prefecture, where more than 10,000 people perished in the epic disaster.

There is little debris left in areas engulfed by the tsunami. Dump trucks were coming and going, while heavy machinery was being operated noisily.

But lurking behind banners of “rebuilding” was deep sorrow that is refusing to abate.

Five children of the Hiyori kindergarten in the city of Ishinomaki died after the pickup bus carrying them was swallowed by the tsunami. Families of four of the victims have filed a lawsuit against the kindergarten. The first ruling in the case is expected shortly.

In the town of Onagawa, 12 employees and staff members at a branch of the 77 Bank, a regional lender, died or remained unaccounted for after they took refuge on the rooftop of the branch building. Families of three of them filed a suit against the bank just one year ago.

At Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, a total of 84 children, teachers and school staff members died or went missing. An investigative committee set up by the municipal government at the initiative of the education ministry is looking into the tragedy.

Discussions with bereaved families point to a common element in all these heart-wrenching tales.

As details about what the people at these disaster sites actually did on that day in March 2011 have emerged, it has become clear that the victims could have been saved if a different course of action had been chosen.

What if, for instance, the pickup bus of the kindergarten had stayed put with the children at the facility after the earthquake, instead of heading toward the sea (to take them to their parents at home)?

What if the bank employees had taken refuge on elevated ground that was just a few minutes' walk from the branch building, rather than going up to the rooftop?

What if the children at the Okawa Elementary School had fled to a hill at the back of the school, which even children could have climbed, instead of staying at the schoolyard for up to 50 minutes until the tsunami arrived?

The question haunting the bereaved families is why these alternatives were not chosen.

The answers they have received so far from the institutions boil down to one point: It was not expected that the facilities would ever be hit by a tsunami.

Meetings to explain what happened were held, but not much vital information has been offered, according to bereaved families. If the claim that it could not be helped is accepted, they think, the same mistake could be made again.

Lawsuits over these cases inevitably focus on the issue of liability for damages. There is no guarantee that the plaintiffs will get what they really want: truth, sincere apologies and soul-searching to ensure that such tragedies will never happen again.

Some of the people who led the evacuations also died.

Whatever the outcomes of the lawsuits, the court battles alone may not lead to improved safety and better preparedness for natural disasters.

Despite being well aware of all of this, the bereaved families felt compelled to take legal action. One of the plaintiffs asked, “Are we acting out of line?”

The only thing society can do for them is to keep making serious efforts to understand the depth of their sorrow and learn lessons from the calamity to prevent similar tragedies.

Thursday 12 September 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/AJ201309120043

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Remembering Koreans massacred after Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923

As Tokyo prepares to mark the 90th anniversary on Sept. 1 of the Great Kanto Earthquake, a citizens group is trying to remind people of another tragedy that accompanied the terrible loss of life: the mindless slaughter of thousands of ethnic Koreans as rumors swirled in the capital that looting had broken out.

The Great Kanto Earthquake of Sept. 1, 1923, left an estimated 140,000 people dead. Many died in firestorms that overwhelmed open areas in which people took shelter.

On that day 90 years ago, rumors quickly spread that Korean residents in Japan had poisoned wells that provided drinking water or attempted to foment rioting through attacks of arson.

The government declared martial law, which led to a wave of killings of Koreans in the disaster areas. According to some sources, as many as 6,000 Korean people were murdered at the hands of vigilante groups comprising citizens, police and soldiers.

A member of a citizens group in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward was thunder-struck when he first heard accounts of butchery 20 years ago. Masao Nishizaki, who belongs to Hosenka, a group set up to get to the truth of what really happened, later published a book based on statements by witnesses. He later built a monument to the victims at a site of the massacre.

"I don't want people to forget the tragedy that occurred 90 years ago," he said.

The memorial he erected is at the foot of the Arakawa river bank near his home reads: "The incident deprived many Koreans who lived in Japan, having left their Japan-occupied homeland, of their precious lives without their names being acknowledged."

Nishizaki, 53, said, "It is a little known fact that many people were killed here."

In 1982, when he was a university student, Nishikazi was part of a local fact-finding survey into the massacre of Koreans after the 1923 earthquake. He listened to statements from witnesses with other members of a history study group that was started by an elementary school teacher.

One witness said, "Soldiers machine-gunned and killed about 10 (Koreans) who were lined up on the riverside."

Another said, "A vigilante group murdered them with Japanese swords and bamboo spears under a bridge."

Nishizaki was shocked by the graphic descriptions.

The group collected accounts from about 150 local witnesses, which were later compiled into a book.

About 100 Koreans were said to have been killed around the area the monument stands. Their ashes were never found. The police apparently removed the bodies so there was no evidence of the atrocity that had been committed.

Now, 90 years since the earthquake struck, it is almost impossible to find a surviving witness. The number of people who have heard about that dark chapter is also declining.

To prevent the tragic memory from fading, Nishizaki built a monument in August 2008 on a plot of land one of his friends provided.

"I thought we should leave something visible on the site of the incident to transcend history," Nishizaki explained.

Fake rumors spread again after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 through Twitter and e-mail exchanges.

Hate speech in Japan directed at specific ethnic groups continues to generate headlines.

Nishizaki is worried that the same tragedy might be repeated.http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/AJ201309010017

"If a great earthquake strikes now, can we say the same tragedy will not be repeated? As one who has listened to testimonies, I have a responsibility."

Nishizaki has been busy collecting written accounts related to massacres and false rumors recorded in celebrities' autobiographies and diaries of nameless citizens.

Each Sept. 1, the Tokyo metropolitan government organizes drills across the capital to encourage citizens to be prepared for the next Big One.

Monday 2 September 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/AJ201309010017

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Memorial erected to 84 tsunami victims of Okawa Primary School

A cenotaph for 84 Okawa Primary School students who died or went missing in the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami has been erected at its schoolyard in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.

The cenotaph is composed of three sections. The words “love and affection” are carved on the central section, as well as the names of all the victims, while an image of the school building before the quake and the lyrics to the school’s official song are carved on the right and left sections, respectively.

About 200 people, including the parents of children who were lost, attended a memorial service in front of the cenotaph on Sunday. “Twenty-nine months has passed since the earthquake, but many of us still feel we’re not living in reality. Although our emotional scars will never be healed, let’s move forward hand in hand together,” said Kiyokatsu Otsuki, 38, chairman of a group of bereaved families. Otsuki lost his son, a second-grader at the school, in the March 2011 disaster.

Many parents placed flowers in front of the cenotaph while looking at the names of their children. Kazutaka Sato, 46, whose sixth-grade son was killed in the disaster, said with tears in his eyes, “As I looked at every one of the names on the cenotaph, I felt sharply how many people lost their lives.”

Sato added, “While some people say the creation of a cenotaph helps them leave the tragic past behind, it makes me feel intense regret about the lives we might have been able to save.”

Katsura Sato, 48, who lost her sixth-grade daughter, said she told the cenotaph, “I hope you’re nice to each other as good friends and watch over your parents from heaven.” She said she also swore “not to let your deaths go to waste” by never letting the same kind of tragedy happen again.

Tuesday 27 August 2013

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0000495880

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Japan: Remains of 114 victims still unidentified from 3/11 Tsunami disaster

With more than 2,600 people still missing in the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the remains of 114 victims are still awaiting identification in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.

With the passage of time, almost two and a half years after the March 11, 2011, disaster, it is becoming more difficult to find clues to identify them.

At Kichijoji temple, located on a hill in the Kirikiri district of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, chief priest Eigo Takahashi says, “Good morning,” to all of the 22 wooden boxes being kept there every morning. At that time, he raises his right hand in front of his chest as in prayer and places his left hand on each box.

Each box contains an urn holding ashes that are part of the remains of a victim of the 2011 disaster. Fifteen of the 22 boxes also contain a skull. Each of the other seven boxes contains the bones of body parts from below the neck.

The ages and genders of the 22 sets of remains are unknown. The boxes are identified by number.

On July 20, a person came to the temple to pick up an urn whose remains were identified through a DNA test. It was the first time since November 2012 that an urn placed in the temple was claimed.

“I was very surprised by the visitor because I was thinking that it may be almost impossible to identify remains,” Takahashi said.

In Otsuchi, unidentified remains are currently kept in three temples, including Kichijoji. Takahashi is proposing that the Otsuchi town government build a charnel house at a side of an evacuation center on the hill and place all of the unidentified remains there so that town residents can pray for the victims.

In Rikuzentakata, a grave site was constructed to accommodate the unidentified remains.

“There will be no recovery (of our town) without mourning the dead. I feel that unidentified ashes are asking us not to forget the victims who were killed by tsunami,” Takahashi said.

According to the National Police Agency, the number of remains of unidentified victims of the 2011 disaster stood at 71 in Iwate Prefecture, 42 in Miyagi Prefecture and one in Fukushima Prefecture as of Aug. 9. All of the 114 sets of remains contain skulls. If remains that do not contain skulls are added, the total will be larger.

Temples are keeping those unidentified remains at the request of local governments.

From DNA, teeth, surgical scars, clothing and other materials, police identified the remains of 348 people during the second year from the disaster--from March 11, 2012, to March 10, 2013. Since then, the remains of only 18 victims have been identified.

The number of new clues for identification is decreasing. In addition, there are cases in which missing persons reports were not made to police or DNA was not available for matching because all the family members have died, or the victims had no close relatives.

Showing the difficulty in identifying victims, on Okushirito island, off southwestern Hokkaido, which was devastated by a 1993 earthquake and tsunami, the remains of an unidentified person are still being kept at a temple there more than 20 years later.

Horyuji temple, in the Aonae district in the southernmost part of Okushirito island, is still keeping the remains of an unidentified person found about one kilometer off the coast four days after an earthquake and tsunami struck there on July 12, 1993.

According to police, the remains are those of a woman who is 149 centimeters tall and her blood type is A. She is believed to have been 55 to 85 years old at the time of the disaster.

After the body was found, no one contacted police to report that she could be a family member or relative. After more than one month passed, the remains were cremated. Then, the ashes were placed in Horyuji, the only temple in the Aonae district that survived the disaster.

“I hope that her family members appear as soon as possible. It is best for her to return to her family. I think that she is also thinking so,” a 51-year-old priest of the temple said.

Sunday 18 August 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ201308180028

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