Japan will be marking 10 years on March 11, 2021, this was the day when the country was shaken by an Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster that has traumatized the country for a decade.
18,500 people were killed and left missing in the Tsunami, most of them lost their lives to the tall waves that swept spread across the northeast coast after one of the strongest quakes ever recorded in the history of Japan.
The rise of the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant which covered the nearby areas with radiation, caused towns making it deserted for years and displaced tens of thousands of residents.
Hope for recovery from the Trauma of the Survivors
One of the survivors of Japan’s destructive 2011 Tsunami recalls his feelings and experience of the natural disaster for Nayuta Ganbe. He survived by taking shelter at his school. The Tsunami had hit the city of Higashimatsushima, Miyagi.
The children who survived the tsunami lost their families, homes, schools, and entire communities. For some, the experience ignited in order to work in disaster awareness and help children like them who have lived with tragedy, experienced emotional pain, and trauma.
Even a decade gone the devastation Naganuma suffered is raw and unhealed. He said that he lost his family, his community. He felt that the tsunami took away half of his body,” he said as he stood outside the Okawa Elementary School in northeast Japan, where his eight-year-old brother lost his life due to the Tsunami.
Naganuma was just 16 in 2011. He is filled with regret and survivor’s guilt as he lost his little brother and grandmother in the disaster. He said that he felt maybe if his brother did not deserve to lose his life. Had he warned people in the community, they would have been alive.
Today Japan will have private and public ceremonies, with a minute’s silence marking nationwide at 14.46 local time, the exact moment when a 9.0-magnitude quake struck on March 11, 2011, causing the disaster.
78-year-old Toshio Kumaki marked his respect for the victims where the giant sea wall is built after the tsunami. He said that he came here every morning for a walk, but today is a special day. Hee pressed his hands together and prayed in the direction of the morning sun.
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