Three Years After That Day: Yuriage

Another look at the tsunami affected area near Sendai

Justin Velgus Mar 11, 2014 - 1 min read

<p>Yuriage Middle School was the evacuation center of the area. Many rushed to the rooftop that cold day to escape certain death. However, many citizens, including fourteen students from this school, did not make it to the roof or another safe place.</p>

<p>The approach to Yuriage Middle School. The steel guard rail is bent at an impossible angle from the force of the rushing debris-filled water.</p>

<p>A small monument in front of the school provides a place to pray and reflect. Meanwhile a clock on the outside of the building has not moved since March 11th, 2011 2:46PM, the time the earthquake struck. </p>

<p>Children's toys left at the memorial.</p>

<p>The approach to the shrine on the man-made hill. That small stone poking out of the ground on the left was part of the original tori gate. </p>

<p>Praying at the shrine at dusk. One lucky soul escaped the tsunami by clinging to that tree for his life as the wall of death licked at his feet. </p>

<p>These aged stone tablets were collected from an old temple after the tsunami and placed on the back of the hill. Past generations wrote a warning  that this area is prone to tsunamis. </p>

<p>Flowers left on top of the hill in hopes of peace for those that are no longer here. In the background where houses once stood: nothing. </p>

Yuriage was the most devastated part of Natori City in the follow up tsunami of the March 11th, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. This seaside town lost over a thousand people with much of its fishing and agriculture industry, and countless households to the 8 meter high tsunami that struck 45 minutes after the biggest quake in Japan's history. Driving around the area you'll see flat areas where houses once stood but now there is just cement, as well as a few battered and bruised houses that survived the tsunami but seem to be beyond repair. Highlights of the area are Hiyoriyama, a man-made hill with a shrine once used as a lookout for incoming ships, and Yuriage Middle School, an evacuation area and now a memorial for the fourteen students that did not survive that day.

View pictures of nearby Arahama here. Or learn more about the affected areas outside Sendai here.

2011 Tohoku Disaster

Justin Velgus @justin.velgus

Justin Velgus (ジャスティンベルガス) is the Miyagi Prefecture expert for Japan Travel and a long-term contributor since 2012 with a focus on the Tohoku region. Justin has written extensively for JT, and other publications such as VisitMiyagi and Sake Today, amassing over 350 published articles...