On March 11, 2011 a 9.0 earthquake occurred off the coast of Sendai, Tohoku, Japan that triggered a huge tsunami that hit the eastern coast of Japan shortly there after. Thousands of people died, several thousand are still missing and many, many more lost their homes or had their homes damaged. Many people have been helping in the affected area for the last year, but there is still much work to be done. On the 1st anniversary, Brisky bear went with a classmate and her family to the area. Here are the photos and comments from Brisky and Yuki. (The Tohoku area is about a 6 hour drive from Tokyo where Brisky lives.)
Brisky slept in the car all the way there. We traveled at night.
March 10, 2012 – Brisky saw trash left from the tsunami a year ago.
A big magnet. (It goes into the sea and it sticks to other things in the sea.)
Brisky said, “Why didn’t the people run away from tsunami?”
I said, “The people didn’t think the tsunami would come there.”
We saw this house. 1/3 of the house was broken.
This building was knocked over by the tsunami.
We also saw another building knocked over by the tsunami.
We also saw a road that was half broken.
(The earthquake happened at 2:46 p.m. Students were still in school. Even at our school in Tokyo we felt the tremors and were evacuated from the buildings. Most of our students were picked up by parents or family friends within a few hours but a few stayed at teachers’ homes who lived by the school. They were picked up the next day. The trains were not running and roads were extremely crowded. Many people had to walk home from offices in Tokyo or spend the night downtown. Our business manager was at a meeting and walked for 4 hours to get home.)
We saw a school that the 1st floor was boarded shut. We thought the tsunami came to the school.
When we were going back to our hotel we saw a big can laying on the ground.
March 11. 2012
We went to Ishinominato church and took a photo in front of the church.
This is a photo of the people who attended the church service. We listened to stories of people who had run from the tsunami and had nothing.
(Thank you to Yuki and her family for traveling to Tohoku to help and encourage the people living there and sharing their story.)
