Visit to Taro

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Taro Bosai (disaster prevention) tour

The train brought us to Taro at 13:34. Having seen four people carrying suitcases, a young lady, who was waiting at the end of the subway, asked if we were the Yamato. She had brought one of her colleagues so they would show us round with two cars. One of the tourists appeared at the same time as us; she was interested in joining the bosai tour.

At Taro, we were shown harsh realities as we came out from the station. Pointing at empty ground where weeds were growing, the female bosai guide, Ms Hirai, said: ‘Until the morning of 11^th March 2011, there used be a travel inn and the supermarket selling fresh fish and vegetables. Also there was a building called “Taro Kanko (tourist) centre” underneath the bank of Sanriku railway but that building was badly damaged and has been demolished. These illustrate that the devastation spread through the area around the station, which is far away from the coast.

As I was to translate for Mark, he and I got in her car, and my parents and the fellow tourist got in her colleague’s car. On the way to the No.1 seawall, she showed us a few remaining pine trees of the pine grove and the former baseball ground by the No.3 seawall.



We got out of the car and climbed up the No.1 seawall. Having looked around, there weren’t very many buildings which had been standing before 11^th March 2011. I’ve heard there were some houses remained behind the No.1 seawall but were badly damaged and have been demolished.

Ms Hirai said that Taro’s harbour and residential areas were situated at the backdrop of the bay facing to the Pacific, and had suffered huge tsunamis since ancient times, and explained why the seawall was built as follows:



‘Having experienced two big tsunamis and the total destruction in 1896 and 1933, from 1934, residents started building up a 10-metre-height earth bank including the base below the sea level with stones. Construction was once suspended during the war time, but resumed shortly after 1945. With skilled labourers and sufficient funds, a long-distance (1,350m) stone earth bank was built up, and by 1957, the stone earth bank was filled with concrete – the No.1 seawall was completed. Later, No.2 and No.3 seawalls were added and an x-shaped seawall was completed in 1979: Taro town was to be protected by the double-barrelled wall with the total length of 2,433m, and it was once called the Great Wall of Japan.’



The population of Taro was between 4,000 and 5,000 as of 2010, and they had undertaken regular fire-drills in case of the tsunami. However, Ms Hirai admitted that their preparations for the tsunami might have decreased a bit as a result of the double-barrelled seawall being built and the town of Taro was merged with the city of Miyako in 2005. And then, she talked about the Great Eastern Earthquake in 2011 as follows:



‘We experienced quite a big earthquake on 9 March 2011, which later on, proved the warning sign of Great Eastern Earthquake. Nothing happened on that day, and this might have made Taro’s residents relieved but made them less cautious about the tsunami.

In the afternoon on 11 March 2011, a huge earthquake hit the northeast coast of Japan: it was one of the strongest and long-lasting earthquakes that many people had remembered in their life. The 14:46 earthquake caused frequent afterquakes. With the extraordinary earthquake, people started evacuating to higher grounds and the designated shelters. However, there were quite a few people who had strong faith in the seawall, and didn’t evacuate; they felt it would be safe if they would stay on the first floor (the second-level floor in Japan). Unfortunately, the 14:46 earthquake caused a power-cut in a large area: the only information they had was the warning of 3 metre of tsunami – they believed in the earliest, less severe level of the tsunami.

One of the most devastated places was the No.2 seawall and the residential area behind that wall. At that time, all the water gates were closed. Because of the wall, residents weren’t able to see extraordinary features on the surface: after the earthquake, the sea had receded abnormally, but the water level increased rapidly soon after the first wave had come. Monstrous second and third waves appeared around 15:25. The people, who had glanced in the direction of the sea, saw the water splash which looked like white smoke behind the wall, and started evacuating. However, the second wave relentlessly engulfed Taro, overtook the seawall and it instantly inundated the residential areas. At Taro, a series of waves hit the No.2 and No.3 outer seawall. On the 11th March 2011, it was said that, the waves which had hit against the No.3 seawall, became even more powerful and destroyed the No.2 seawall. Behind the No.2 seawall, almost all the houses except five-storey building, Taro Kanko Hotel, were washed away. Sadly, there were a lot of victims in that district. As of 2015, there are still 41 missing: they all lived in that district.

The gymnasium of Taro Daiichi Junior School was the designated shelter. After the earthquake, many people including school children, patients, nurses and administrative staff from Taro Medical Centre evacuated to there. Frequent afterquakes occurred and made them feel agitated. Some people went out and found the water splash, which appeared like white smoke in the air, and realised that tsunami was on the way, and then urged all the evacuees to climb up to the mountain. The evacuation route was accessible from the back of the gymnasium. 300 people had evacuated to the gymnasium at that time, and these people included bed-ridden patients, disabled people and wheelchair-bound people. Young people and school children prioritised to let those less mobile people go to the mountain by pushing wheelchairs and beds with wheels, and carrying elderly people on their backs on the mountain slope. It was said that the massive black waves with debris came to the grounds of Taro Daiichi Junior High School one minute after everybody had left there. Some people’s excellent judgement and leadership skills saved 300 people’s lives.’



Ms Hirai said that it has been decided that No.1 seawall and Taro Kanko Hotel would be kept as memorials for the tsunami disasters on the 11^th March 2011, and that people are not allowed to live in the former residential areas behind the No.1 and No.2 seawall, and their residential areas will be relocated to higher ground. Not only houses but roads were damaged and inundated after the tsunami. She pointed at the road in the direction of Taro’s general office building and said that road had been recently opened after building an embankment around there.



Afterwards, we walked down the seawall, and she headed for the former doctor’s house. We found the No. 2 seawall, which was shown as it was destroyed. In contrast to the episode provided by Ms Hirai that the No.1 seawall had been built with stones, No.2 seawall was built with sand and gravel. The latter concrete-covered wall made people feel safe to live but wasn’t as solid as the No.1 seawall.

More than 80%!o(MISSING)f the houses were washed away and have been demolished in Taro. As of October 2015, a series of building works were carried out. Our guides were driving through the restricted routes in the former residential area. When our car arrived at the former doctor’s house, she found that her colleague’s car wasn’t following; he was lost and reached the destination with 5–10 minutes of delay: even the local people seemed to find it hard to get round Taro.



At the former doctor’s house, we watched two videos of the tsunami: one was taken by Yuki Matsumoto, who ran Taro Kanko Hotel until 11 March 2011 and the other one was taken by one of the residents in Taro. On that day, after letting his mother and staff evacuate to the mountain on the back of the hotel, he went to the top floor, 5^th floor, and started taking the video. Unlike other people’s videos, his video showed when the tidal waves had already arrived – the water level behind the No.2 seawall was nearly as high as the wall. At that time, the residential district looked normal – there were several people walking on the street. However, by seeing the rising water behind the wall, he was urging them to evacuate to higher ground as quickly as possible. The video also showed fire-brigade cars – Ms Hirai said that fire-fighters in those cars shown around 15:20 were sadly reported to have died. At 15:25, the giant tsunami appeared from the shore and relentlessly engulfed the town, overtook the x-shaped seawall, and swept through the town within a few seconds. Around Taro Kanko Hotel immediately turned into the sea, and the residential district disappeared. The water reached the third-floor level of that building. He seemed to be shocked to see such a dreadful scene of his hometown that he once stopped running the video. In one minute later, the video was resumed and it showed the water had gradually started receding, but it appeared a drastic scene of the total destruction with piles of debris.

After showing two videos, she concluded the tour of disaster prevention programme as follows:



‘Although Taro was once called the model town of preventing the tsunami disasters and residents had carried out the fire-drills on a regular basis, the town lost 181 (41 missing) people in the Great Eastern Earthquake. When you have experienced long standing and strong earthquakes, you should immediately evacuate to higher ground but not further field, and never approach the shore or go back home until the warning is changed to the caution. To sum up, never underestimate the natural disasters.’



She took the lady, who joined the tour with us, to the station, and then took us to our hotel, Taroan. On 11 March 2011, she was caught by the tsunami while driving around the residential areas. Luckily, she managed to find the start of the slope to the mountain. She left her car and ran for higher ground. She remembered several fire-fighters going down to the town to rescue people whom she had seen in the town. Sadly, those people and fire-fighters have not come back. She felt not only scared of people who have never come back, but guilty that she only had survived herself. Having had such a sad experience, she has been doing the disaster prevention guide to teach people about the threat of natural disasters and reduce the numbers of fatalities in case of the extraordinary disasters in the future.



Nagisatei Taroan

We arrived at Nagisatei Taroan just after 3 o’clock. As a result of the devastation of Taro Kanko Hotel, Mr Matsumoto had to close his old hotel and decided to re-start his business by re-building a new hotel on higher ground, 1 km away from the coast. The new hotel, Nagisatei Taroan, was opened on 1 June 2015.

We were invited to the Japanese-style room – a sleeping room where futon & blankets were laid and a drawing room which contained a low standing table, sofas and kitchen unit facilities including a fridge, kettle, glasses, mugs and coffee and tea bags. The balcony was accessible from the drawing room, and allowed us to overlook pine woods and Sanriku coastline. The en-suite bathroom was divided into three: first room had a wash-basin and was used for changing room, second one was a shower room and third one housed a bathtub in parallel with the balcony, and we could see the outside if we opened up the sliding windows. We were able to adjust the temperature of the hot water by pressing the button installed in the changing room. The toilet facilities also amazed me; once the user entered a room, the lid of the toilet automatically opened: latest version of the toilet in Japan.

We decided to sit on the balcony to have hot drinks and Santetsu akaji senbei, rice crackers, which I bought at the souvenir shop. Because they were red, I thought they were hot and spicy ones, but they were rather sweet and were like biscuits. While sitting on the balcony, I recalled what Ms Hirai was talking about on the way to Taroan and translated her personal experience of the tsunami for Mark.



Walking course

Around Taroan we were able to access the walking course along north Sanriku coast. My mother, Mark and I followed the course by climbing up and walking down several times, and saw a beautiful coastline and rocks which reflected the sunset, and Taro’s main attraction, Sanogan, consisting of three named rocks: otoko (man) iwa, onna (woman) iwa and taiko (drum) iwa. Even after the huge tsunami, those rocks remained intact. Pine trees, grown on the golden coloured rocks, looked stunning. Ms Hirai said that, following the tsunami, the fire ignited the flammable liquid or crashed cars, and the fire burnt down a number of pine trees. Nevertheless, pine trees on Sanogan and along the walking course were thriving as though the dreadful day had not happened.



Dinner & breakfast at Taroan

We had decided to have dinner at 6:30, and were invited to the private dining room. We found a note – Oshinagaki, details of courses on the table. Having read the details, my father suggested we would have wine.

Mr Yuki Matsumoto, the owner of Taroan brought dishes to us. Having recognised his face, I talked to him, ‘Good evening. Are you Mr Matsumoto? Nice to meet you. I’ve read about this hotel in Asahi Shimbun.’ He said, ‘Thank you very much.’ When he brought dishes, he explained to us where each fish was caught – scallop from Yamada Bay, stomach of ocean fish from Miyako Bay, abalone from Taro – and how each dish had been cooked. At Taroan, chef and cooking staff use fish and shellfish taken around Sanriku coast, aquatic plants, e.g. ceratophyllum demoesum: the plant doesn’t have roots; can be found on the water, organic vegetables and dairy products directly sent from the local farms, and cook original dishes. All the dishes were beautifully presented and well cooked. There were a wide variety of fish and shellfish – mytilus galloprovincialis, Mediterranean mussel; pseudocardium sachlinense, Sakhalin surf clam; vellitor centoropomus; opregnathus punctatus, spotted knifejaw; seriola lalandi, yellowtail amberjack; and sebastolobus macrochir, broad-banded thorny-head rock fish, which lives in the deep sea. We hadn’t even eaten some of those fishes and shellfish, and I couldn’t translate every single of them for Mark on the spot. I checked the details when I came back to the UK. He didn’t seem to have been bothered about not knowing the details of the food; he commented: ‘All the dishes served at Taroan were delicious!’ We were offered seven courses. On the whole, it was a mixture of Japanese and French meals.

Like dinner, we were invited to the private dining room. We found the menu on the table, and understood that we would be provided dishes cooked with fish and aquatic plants taken from local fishermen and locally produced vegetables and daily products such as omelette, bacon, sausage and Yoghurt. I ordered a vegetable juice for drink. All the vegetable juices I had drunk were orange and flavoured as a tomato juice but I was served a moss-green coloured one at Taroan, and it was subtly flavoured of cucumber, lettuce and other green vegetables. A cooking pot was placed on each table for us to cook a shabu-shabu meal individually. Instead of beef, we were offered slices of octopus, seaweed and water leaves. We put them in the boiled water and ate them with sauce.

Various types of meals were provided for our breakfast. We enjoyed eating breakfast and didn’t check the time. It was 7:45 when we finished our breakfast. As we were going to leave at Taroan at 8 o’clock, we had to do packing in 10-15 minutes.



We were offered a wide variety of amenities and facilities run by the latest technology in our room and delicious meals at Taroan. It was one of the best hotels in which I had ever stayed. At the newly opened hotel, Mr Matsumoto didn’t seem to have the network system for payment: my mother had to pay by cash. She kindly treated us at Taroan.



Departure

After packing our luggage, we headed to the car park. A taxi, arranged by Mr Matsumoto, was waiting for us. He drove through the former residential area where a series of building works were being carried out, and took us to the station. The taxi fare would be reimbursed by Mr Matsumoto.

We overlooked a large empty place and ongoing construction work at Sanriku Railway’s platform on top of the earth bank – one of very few artificial buildings that remained after the tsunami. Ms Hirai said that it took over two and half years to clear up debris in Taro, and the restoration work was started last year. Taro-cho, the town of Taro, administered by the city of Miyako, was seriously affected by the tsunami. One of the bad things is the authorities seem a bit reluctant to help this small fishing town: it seems Taro has been struggling to have sufficient labourers and engineers. Having looked at the progress of the restoration work, my father commented: ‘It would take over 10 years to get this town to restore the community and to recover its economy. The authorities should consider using this town as a part of Tokyo Olympics in 2020; in doing so, it would allow this town’s restoration work to be carried out more speedily.’ It sounds a little ironic but I agreed.

We took the 8:21 train and arrived at Miyako at 8:41.

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Photos

No.2 seawall
This concrete-cover wall was destroyed by the tsunami.

Taro harbour
Prefabricated temporary warehouses have been built.

Sanogan
This rock withstood the tsunami in 2011!

Taroan
The hotel, re-built on higher ground, 1km from the coast.

1st course
Assorted fish flavoured with kiwi sauce.

a vegetable juice
This should be a real vegetable juice.

Taro eki - Sanriku Railway
One of few artificial buildings that remained after the tsunami. We felt this station's earth mount was higher than the seawall in Taro.

3rd course
Abalone with cheese.