Miyako to Yamada

Going south from Jodogama.  The pictures below are in Miyako and Yamada.

A ship still there, but a lot of debris cleaned, the roads have been

totally cleared.

Piles of rubbish, but very neatly cleaned.

A couple of  km down the road

The houses are all marked with paint to say they have been

checked - either by the Japanese Self Defence Force or the

US military.

Driving along, there was no way to know the fate of
occupants of any of the buildings.

road barriers bent

destruction... had the houses been built up the hill.....

the sea walls did not protect, though looking at the towns

it is possible that they may have reduced damage - I haven't

read anything about it yet.  It was one of my unanswered questions.

With the sea walls, some tsunami gates were broken, I am not

sure to what extent they served as a hindrance by trapping flood water

inside the villages.

Nothing left...

there has been a fantastic effort made with the roads.

The road has been rerouted ahead here.

A chilling aspect was the total lack of people in much of the area.

I had an idea people would be out cleaning up... there was no

excess of volunteers anywhere - there were no volunteers anywhere that we saw.

I don't mean all people were dead, they aren't, though many are,  many

also survived.  It would be an utterly heartbreaking sight for any survivor.

Reposted from http://ponkanchan.blogspot.com/2011/05/miyako-to-yamada.html