As the world awakes to the rising sun in each brand new day, in our own rebirth, in this healing time on our mother earth. -John Denver “Healing Time”

Today marks 1.5 years since the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami occurred. During my summer vacation, I had the opportunity to travel to some of the effected areas. While a tremendous amount of progress has been made in cleaning up, the road to recovery will be very long. Many former neighborhoods lie in abandoned ruins because people are either too afraid to move back to the area or having nothing left to move back with, for or to. For others, memories of former homes and lives are too painful to try to rebuild.

A memorial marker for the family that lived in the house which used to fill this lot.

A Wider shot of the lot with the memorial marker.

Many foundations remain, but show that entire houses were ripped from the ground and washed away.

 

Remnants of dishes, trays and pottery that used to be in someone's kitchen.

Some houses survived the tsunami, but were flooded and consequently molded to the point of being uninhabitable.  

After the tsunami hit the shoreline and the water receded, entire neighborhoods sank. The extent to which this happened wasn't all that apparent until you came across a manhole cover in the middle of the street or a sidewalk that was significantly higher than everything else around it.

 A collection of debris from several neighborhoods in the area.

Trees less than 100 meters from the beach.

“Tsunami Evacuation Area”

 

Former park area near the ocean.

 Close-up of the right side of the above picture.

Abandoned warehouse.

Up to this point, the pictures I've posted were taken in Shichigahama, which is just a little bit north of Sendai.  My friend Azusa was in Ishinomaki (still in the Sendai area, but slightly northeast of where I was) a few weeks before me.  She took some wonderful pictures and was kind enough to let me post here.

 Debris along the waterfront.

More waterfront debris.

Memorial site in Ishinomaki.

Okawa Elementary School

Kadowaki Elementary School

 Children practicing baseball outside of Kadowaki Elementary School.

 Elementary school, amidst sunflowers.

 A vacant house that has since been decorated.

 As I said, it has been eighteen months since the earthquake and tsunami. To date, the confirmed death toll is 15,870. However, another 2,846 people are still listed as missing. Families of the missing people have had to face the challenges of trying to pick up and move on with their lives without actually knowing the fate of their loved ones. By Japanese law, under normal conditions, a person has to be listed as missing for seven years before they can be declared dead and the family can collect life insurance. During times of natural disaster, the legal “waiting period” is twelve months. Because of the severity of the March 11^th earthquake/tsunami, the government shortened that period to three months from the time paperwork is filed to declare a person missing. Filling out said paperwork involves answering the question “Do you or anyone in your immediate family have any reason to believe ______________ is still alive?” For some families, saying “No.” is still too difficult, so in spite of the time that has passed there are still close to 3,000 people listed as missing.  

Japan still needs positive thoughts and prayers.  A lot has been done, but there is still a long, long way to go.