Japan commemorates 10 years of the triple catastrophe of March 2011: earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident

Japan This Thursday commemorates the tenth anniversary of the triple catastrophe of March 11, 2011 – an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear accident – that has forever traumatized the country.

The gigantic tsunami it was the main cause of the 18,500 deaths or disappearances. Waves as tall as buildings hit the northeast coast of Japan shortly after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.

It was followed by a nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was flooded. The cores of three of the six reactors melted, leaving entire cities uninhabitable for years due to radiation and forcing tens of thousands of people to leave.

It was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl (Ukraine) in 1986.

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This Thursday at dawn, Toshio Kumaki, 78, prayed in Hisanohama, in the coastal city of Iwaki (department of Fukushima), on the concrete anti-Tsunami wall built after the 2011 disaster.

“I come to walk here every morning, but today is a special day”, he affirmed, praying towards the rising sun.

This picture taken by a Miyako city official on March 11, 2011 shows a tsunami breaking an embankment. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / JIJI PRESS / AFP). (JIJI PRESS /)

Restricted ceremonies

Numerous public and private ceremonies are planned in the region, as in Tokyo, and a minute of silence will be observed at 2:46 p.m., the exact time of the 2011 earthquake, one of the most violent in the world.

In Miyagi, one of the three most affected northeast departments, residents will carry out search operations in the hope of finding someone they love.

The probability of their success seems slim, but the truth is that last week the remains of a woman dragged by the tsunami ten years ago. Her son was freed from an unbearable uncertainty and can, at last, grieve.

On February 13, an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 recalled the permanent seismic risks on the coast of Japan. More than a hundred people were injured in this earthquake, considered a distant replica of the one in 2011.

Nozomi Sabanai Together with her sister, she watches a tourist catamaran that was thrown by the tsunami into a two-story building in the city of Otsuchi. (Photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP). (YASUYOSHI CHIBA /)

On Thursday, in Tokyo, still in a state of emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic, low-attendance ceremonies are planned at the National Theater of Japan, where Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will deliver speeches.

The coronavirus will also influence other commemorations, such as in Taro (Miyagi department), where the inhabitants usually pay tribute at the top of the anti-Tsunami wall, with their hands joined. This year they will apply physical distancing.

These commemorations are held just two weeks before departure, in Fukushima, from the Olympic torch relay for Tokyo 2020, baptized the “Reconstruction Games”.

The pandemic has clouded these Games, postponed until this year, but the Japanese government and organizers hope that the relay will refocus attention on this mortified region.

People light candles in glowing characters that say “memory” and “connected future” at the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum in Futaba City. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP). (KAZUHIRO NOGI /)

“The day I lost my companions”

Nayuta Ganbe, a student from Sendai, the capital of Miyagi department, often participates in disaster prevention events, based on her personal experience.

But on March 11 he prefers to remember it in private. “It was the day I lost my classmates. There were people who died before my eyes. It is a day that I hope I never have to live again ”, declares this 21-year-old.

This year, however, he will participate in a ceremony: “Exactly 10 years later, I hope to face the catastrophe with a new perspective.”

The nuclear power plant of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi. (Photo by Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP). (KAZUHIRO NOGI /)

For many, this anniversary is the occasion of a moment of personal reflection on a still very painful and present national tragedy, with tens of thousands of displaced people and 2% of the area of ​​Fukushima declared a forbidden zone.

Pastor Akira Sato, who preached in several Baptist churches and chapels that are still in the forbidden zone, will go to one of these abandoned places to pray.

“My wife and I are going to quietly meditate on the days of the disaster and offer a prayer,” he told AFP earlier this month.