Wednesday 11 May 2011

Yamada-Otsuchi-Kamaishi

It's still a beautiful coast - we stopped for a break just south of Yamada


Otsuchi - the mayor of Otsuchi was among about 2,000 of the
17,000 people of Otsuchi who are dead or missing.

I don't have words to describe the destruction here. These are
temporarily constructed barriers at the side of the road.

A drug store

Otsuchi

This picture in part answered one of my questions.  Along the  coastline, almost without exception the 'tsunami inundation zone' signs were pretty accurate indicators of the areas that were affected by tsunami. When I was up here in before, I was surprised by how far away from the coast the signs were. I was also surprised that the towns were mostly in these areas. I concluded the evacuation plans were very good.    This sign marks almost exactly the extent to which the tsunami reached.  On the other side of Otsuchi,  just north of this sign, however, the tsunami inundation zone sign was at a guess 500 before the end of the tsunami affected area.  The inaccuracy of that sign seemed to be an aberration.   That's no consolation for the people who there who may have assumed they were beyond the reach of tsunami.  See the next posting about Ishinomaki's Okawa primary school.

The space between the coast and the hills is so narrow in places.


Piles and piles and piles of rubbish.....

Jietai, what a tough job.  They have been doing a remarkable job.
They are underpaid, under appreciated, and at the moment absolutely
stretched beyond the extent of their capacity.  We saw them working in Kamaishi, this is at  a 
michi no eki in Tono, inland  in Iwate. They have been doing an exceptional job.


Reposted from http://ponkanchan.blogspot.com/2011/05/yamada-otsuchi-kamaishi.html

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