3.11 disaster survivor students put up the 21st tsunami warning sign “1000 years”

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Members of the “Onagawa Society for the Protection of Life After 1000 Years” and others smile in front of the stone monument No. 21 erected in front of Onagawa Elementary and Secondary Middle School, in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, on November 21, 2021. (Mainichi / Natsuki Nishi)

Onagawa, Miyagi – In the wake of the devastation caused by the great East Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011, high school students in this eastern Japanese port city began installing stone monuments that would continue to “protect life after 1,000 years”, activities recently reached a landmark Main.

The Onagawa Life Stone Monument project in Onagawa Town, Miyagi Prefecture completed the 21st Target Monument, and a unveiling ceremony was held on November 21 for alumni of a local middle school who had worked together for the past 10 years, thanked project participants for the support that enabled them From achieving their goal, they pledged a fresh start.

The 21st memorial was erected next to the school buildings of Onagawa Municipal Primary and Secondary School, newly built in 2020, in a corner overlooking Onagawa Bay. The memorial is engraved with instructions to others in the event of a tsunami, such as, “When a big earthquake comes, please run to a place higher than this monument.”

Students who attended Onagawa Daiichi Junior High School (later Onagawa Junior High School) immediately after the earthquake all lost loved ones or were swept away by the tsunami. They discussed countermeasures in a social studies class and came up with the idea of ​​installing stone monuments, hoping that people who would live in the future wouldn’t feel the same way they did.

The students raised more than 10 million yen (about $87,600) through fundraising, and with the help of adults around them, the first memorial was established in November 2013. After graduation, they continued to work together as a group they called “The Society” to Protect Life 1000 Years Later. In Onagawa’, a memorial will be erected at the highest point of the 2011 tsunami at every beach in the city.

At the November 21 ceremony, the members invited the people involved in the project to express their gratitude for the support. After unveiling the memorial, they took a commemorative photo with smiles on their faces. Among those pictured was Kazuhiko Abe, the current principal of Mono Junior High School in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, who has supported them since their middle school days.

All 21 monuments were engraved with haiku poems written by middle school students right after the earthquake, while the 21st building contains the same haiku as the first: “Only my dream / Undestructible / Because of the great earthquake.”

The members were happy to realize their “dream” of erecting 21 monuments, and engraved a new dream in their hearts.

“This is just the beginning, and my dream is to continue this activity up to 1,000 years from now and reduce the number of casualties (in disasters),” said Shu Yamashita, 22, who works at the Kisnuma Coast Guard Station.

Another member, Yui Ito, 23, who lives in Yokohama, said, “My dream has never been shaken because we continued the project together. I teach children as dancers, and I hope I can continue this activity and dance in a way to express empathy for others.”

In addition to installing monuments, the group continues its activities including creating textbooks to preserve memories related to the earthquake and talk about their experiences of disasters, and will consider installing a new memorial.

(Japanese original by Nobuyuki Hyakutake, Ishinomaki local office)

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