Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone Read online

  2: ‘The children were murdered by an invisible monster … It has no human warmth.’ – Ikegami, op. cit., p. 20. The rest of the quotations in this passage are from my interviews with Sayomi and Takahiro Shito.

  Predestination

  1: she was evolving into what Japanese call hotoke-sama – for more on the hotoke-sama, see Smith, op. cit., pp. 50–56.

  There May Be Gaps in Memory

  1: the symbolic ruins – Richard Lloyd Parry, ‘Tsunami survivors face dilemma over its haunting ruins’, The Times, 24 August 2012; Eugene Hoshiko, ‘Legacies of a disaster dot Japan’s tsunami coast’, Associated Press, 10 March 2016; ‘Residents divided over preservation of remains 5 years after disaster’, Kyodo News, 10 March 2016.

  2: ‘The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima was preserved …’ – ‘Alumni of tsunami-devastated Miyagi school ask for support to preserve building’, Mainichi Shimbun, 5 December 2014.

  3: Tetsuya spoke at a symposium at Meiji University – recording in the collection of Hideaki Tadano.

  Consolation for the Spirits

  1: the story of a man named Fukuji – Kunio Yanagita, The Legends of Tono, tr. Ronald A. Morse (Lanham, 2008 [1910]), pp. 58–59.

  Save Don’t Fall to Sea

  1: None of the towns destroyed by the wave had been rebuilt – Zoning regulations were introduced which banned the construction of residential property in areas inundated by the wave. Businesses could still operate there, but homes were to be relocated inland, or to higher ground.

  2: nothing that mattered would be significantly changed – This is not to say that the actions of the education board are to be excused. Masaki Ikegami’s trenchant conclusion is worth quoting at length: ‘What the City Board of Education should have done from the beginning was to listen thoroughly and carefully to the parties involved, reliably document and record everything, disclose information obtained in the investigation to the bereaved families, … verify the facts one by one, and investigate the truth.

  ‘Furthermore, they should sincerely apologise for sacrificing the lives of children under the management of the school, and discuss punishment of officials who have been neglectful in their responses and oversight.

  ‘On top of that, they should make public the lessons learned from the worst such accident in history to parties such as prefectural boards of education and the Ministry of Education, and create the opportunity to reconsider fundamentally disaster management in Japan. These actions should be performed with speed, and shared with the bereaved families to the greatest extent possible.

  ‘By acting in such a lackadaisical and untransparent manner, the City Board of Education has made the problem worse.’ Ikegami, op. cit., p.83.

  3: But there could hardly have been less sense of triumph – It was further undermined a few days later, when the defendants announced that they would appeal against the verdict in the High Court. The plaintiffs responded by making an appeal of their own, on the grounds that the damages awarded were inadequate. A verdict is expected in 2018.

  4: Masaru knew this – Masaru Naganuma declined to speak to me. This account is based on conversations with Naomi Hiratsuka and Miho Suzuki.

  5: A friend of Kaneta, who was present at one of the exorcisms – The religious studies scholar, Hara Takahashi, who corroborated Kaneta’s account.

  Acknowledgements

  Many of the people who helped me most in the writing of this book are named in its pages: I thank all of those who agreed to talk to me, sometimes repeatedly and over the course of several years, and often at times of overwhelming grief. Among those who are not named, I am grateful to Kazuyoshi Abe, Yuko Kaneta, Akio Kumagai, Akemi Miura, Minoru Ota, Tsugio and Mayumi Nakamura, and Ken Sakashita.

  For practical, professional, intellectual, and personal support of diverse kinds, I thank Lucy Alexander, Regis Arnaud, Lucy Birmingham, Peter Blakely, Azby Brown, Clare Bullock, Kyle Cleveland, Jamie Coleman, Margot and Bill Coles, Martin Colthorpe and the Japan Foundation, the Currie family, Alissa Descotes-Toyosaki, Toby Eady, Max Edwards, Natasha Fairweather and Rogers, Coleridge & White, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Dan Franklin and Penguin Random House, Rob Gilhooly, Mandy Greenfield, Kuni Hatanaka, Jennifer Joel and ICM Partners, Chris Jue, Nagisa Kato, Angela Kubo, Leo Lewis, the Lloyd Parry family, Justin McCurry, Sean McDonald and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Hamish Mackaskill and the English Agency Japan, Levi McLaughlin, David McNeill, Koichi Nakano, the staff of Oiwake Onsen, Kyoko Onoki, David Peace, Peter Popham, Roger Pulvers, Zaria Rich, Junzo Sawa, Shuji Shibuya, Iwayumi Suzuki, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, Hara Takahashi, Bunei Takayama, Chika Tonooka, Rick Wallace, and Fiona Wilson.

  From the beginning, my employer, The Times, energetically sponsored my reporting of the disaster and graciously gave me time off for writing and research. I thank my colleagues there, past and present, especially the late Richard Beeston, James Harding, Anoushka Healy, Roland Watson, and John Witherow. Sections of this book first appeared in the London Review of Books. Among its editors, I thank especially Daniel Soar and Mary-Kay Wilmers.

  There are numerous charitable organisations for victims of the tsunami. The Momo-Kaki Orphans Fund helps children who have lost their parents: http://www.momokaki.org.

  Lines from ‘Shock’ from Collected Poems by Anthony Thwaite, published by Enitharmon, 2007. Reprinted by permission of Anthony Thwaite.

  The excerpt from ‘The Web’ from Le Citta Invisibili (Invisible Cities) by Italo Calvino. Copyright © 2002, The Estate of Italo Calvino, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.

  The photograph here is reproduced with the permission of the Tectonics Observatory at the California Institute of Techonology.

  Photographs here provided by Tohoku Regional Development Association.

  The photograph here was taken by a survivor of the tsunami, who wishes to remain anonymous.

  Index

  The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

  Abe, Fumiko 39

  Abe, Mai 39, 40

  Abe, Nao 39, 40

  Abe, Ryosuke 38, 39–40, 57–8

  Abe, Shinzo 178–9, 181

  aftershocks 6, 7

  Aikawa Primary School 82–3, 124

  Akasaka, Norio 182

  Akemi 191

  ancestor worship 21, 22, 101–3, 130, 191

  Basho: The Narrow Road to the Deep North 49

  Buddha, the 241–2

  Buddhism/Buddhists 50, 92, 100, 101, 145, 190n, 222, 223, 240; see also Kaneta, Reverend Taio

  bullet trains (shinkansen) 50, 51

  butsudan (household altars) 101, 102, 192, 244

  Café de Monku 98–9, 225–7, 232, 240, 245

  Calvino, Italo: Invisible Cities 158–9

  Chiba, Masahiko 166, 167, 183–4

  Chiba, Mrs 166–7, 183–4

  Christians/Christianity 100, 101, 222, 223–4, 224

  earthquakes 2–3, 5, 9, 156, 181, 242; ‘intensity’ 136n; ‘swarms’ 3; see also Tokyo

  Endo, Junji 32–3, 77, 82–7, 91, 115, 121, 124–5, 150, 162, 165–8, 183, 184, 203, 215–16, 217, 236, 238

  Endo, Miki 209–10

  evacuation centres 30, 32, 40, 74, 125, 169, 175, 176, 177, 208, 226, 227

  Fear, Mount 50

  floods 181

  Fuji, Mount 3

  Fuji lake 30, 68, 69, 104, 105

  Fukuji (hamlets) 18, 22, 24–5, 30–31, 57, 77, 113, 185

  Fukuji (man) 227–8

  ‘Fukuji group’ 162–3, 169, 170, 173

  Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant vii, 9–11, 76n, 177, 249

  gaki (hungry ghosts) 103

  gaman (endurance) 181, 182, 183, 198, 241

  ganbaro (persevere) 182

  gareki (rubble) 213

  ghosts 92, 99–100, 103, 105, 227–9, 231, 239, 247, 249

  Gourevitch, Philip 11
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  Great Kanto earthquake 153, 154

  Hamayuri (catamaran) 210, 211

  Hashiura 53–4, 56

  Hijikata, Masashi 228–9, 231

  Hiratsuka, Koharu 59, 60–61, 63, 64–6, 68, 69, 161; communicates through mediums 103–6, 108, 192–3, 194–5; her body found 110–12, 161, 188, 191

  Hiratsuka, Mr 60–62, 63–4, 67, 183

  Hiratsuka, Naomi 59, 60–61, 62–4, 67; searches for daughter 64–7, 103–4, 161; learns to drive digger 69–70, 162–3; communicates with dead daughter 103–6, 108–9, 192–3, 194–5; finds her body 110–12, 188; life afterwards 159–60, 183; mutual dislike of Sayomi Shito and ‘Fukuji group’ campaign 161–2; friendship with Miho Suzuki 66, 188–9, 190–91, 195–7, 244; returns to teaching 192–4, 243; and the school ruins 210, 244

  Hiratsuka, Sae 60, 106

  Hiratsuka, Shinichiro 64–5, 68, 105, 111, 112, 196, 197, 213

  Hiratsuka, Toma 60, 106, 243

  Hiroshima 37, 154, 155, 179; Atomic Bomb Dome 210, 212

  Honshu 49

  hotoke-sama (enlightened soul) 195

  ihai (memorial tablet) 101, 102–3

  Ikegami, Masaki 115, 267

  Irikamaya 32, 34, 36, 39, 42, 149, 150

  Ishinomaki 50, 51, 52, 56, 64, 190; schools 64, 77, 127, 171, 193, 197; paper mill 208

  Ishinomaki City Board of Education 80, 115, 162–3, 164–5, 168-72, 173, 197, 236, 243

  Ishinomaki City and Miyagi Prefecture 162, 168, 172, 173–4; legal action against 174, 196–7, 198–206, 214–17; judgment and damages 234, 235–8

  Ishinomaki Kitakami General Branch Office 135–9, 143

  Ishizaka, Toshiya 121–2, 123, 124, 127, 132, 147, 201–2, 203, 204–5, 215

  Japan Self-Defence Forces 31, 68, 69, 89, 94, 108, 146

  kabuki theatre 6–7

  kaidan/kaidan-kai (weird tale/weird-tale party) 229, 231

  Kamaishi 71, 72, 74

  Kamaya 19, 57–8, 119, 123–4, 127–8, 129–30, 132–3, 147, 183, 201; after tsunami 36–40, 58–9, 68, 208; death toll 58; see also Okawa Primary School

  Kamiyama, Yuichiro 109–10

  Kan, Naoto 177

  Kaneta, Mrs 250–51

  Kaneta, Reverend Taio 92–3, 96–9, 100, 221–6, 232–3, 239–42, 245–8

  Kashiba, Teruyuki 77, 81, 121; and updating of Education Plan 123; after the tsunami 77–8, 79; at ‘explanatory meeting’ 80, 81–2, 87–9, 90–91; interviewed by Education Board 164; receives letter from Endo 167; apologises to parents 170–72; defends legal action 201, 202–6, 236, 238

  kashitsu (negligence) 170, 201

  Kato, Shigemi 83, 165, 173–4

  Kawabata, Ms (school secretary) 121, 122

  Kawakami, Naoya 226–7

  Kawasaki 154

  Kesennuma 50, 210, 229

  Kitakami River 17, 18, 30, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61–2, 129, 140, 185, 201, 222

  Konno, Daisuke 27, 32, 33, 38, 42, 43–5, 46, 82, 113, 125, 132–3, 165, 214

  Konno, Hiroyuki 27, 42, 43, 44–5, 202

  Konno, Hitomi 27–30, 31–2, 36–8; and Endo 32–3, 77, 82, 87; lays out bodies 39; finds husband 42, 43; and loss of her children 42–5, 114, 161; joins ‘Fukuji group’ 113; and legal action 202

  Konno, Mari 27, 28, 42, 43, 44–5

  Konno, Mr (from Board of Education) 80–81, 87, 88, 89–90

  Konno, Mr (father-in-law) 27, 42, 43, 44

  Konno, Mrs (mother-in-law) 27, 42, 43, 44

  Konno, Ms (teacher) 120, 121

  Konno, Rika 27–8, 42, 43, 44–5

  Konno, Teruo 135–44, 222

  Kumagai, Sadayoshi 53–4, 55, 506

  Kurihara 92, 98

  Kyoto 100, 185

  Kyotoku-maru (boat) 210, 211

  landslides 181

  Liberal Democratic Party 176, 177–8

  looting 176, 182

  Magaki 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 43, 69, 147

  Matsubara 128, 129

  mediums/psychics 103–5, 106–7, see also Sumi

  Meiji University, Tokyo: symposium 212–13

  Meteorological Agency, Japanese 121, 122, 127, 136n, 137

  Minami-Sanriku: school 76

  Minami-Sanriku Disaster Prevention Centre 209–10, 211

  Monk, Thelonious 225, 226

  monku (complaint) 225

  Mutsu 54

  Naburi 69, 109–10

  Nagano, Hideko 134

  Nagano, Waichi 129–30, 134–5

  Naganuma, Koto 66, 112, 188, 244

  Naganuma, Masaru 66, 69, 188, 191, 244

  Nagasaki 37, 154, 155

  Nagatsura 57

  Nagatsura lagoon 69, 128, 188

  Nakamura, Kichiemon 7

  Nankai Trough 153

  Natori 8

  New Kitakami Great Bridge 19, 36, 58–9, 128, 132, 145

  nintai (endurance) 181, 182

  Ofunato 50

  Ogatsu 28, 109

  Oikawa, Toshinobu 127–8, 131, 135, 137, 146–7, 148–50, 181–2

  Okawa 11, 19, 52–3, 56; election campaign (2012) 181–2

  Okawa Primary School 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24–6, 27, 30, 33–4, 50, 125, 185, 207–8; Education Plan/manual 122–4, 173, 202, 204–6; and earthquake and aftershocks 15, 45–6, 119–21, 122, 124–7; the tsunami and after 36–7, 59, 62, 65–6, 76, 114–16, 130–33, 145–6, 147, 148, 172–3, 186, 214, 215, 237–8; survivors 160; ghosts 103; restoration 108–9; battle for its preservation 209, 210–14; see also Endo, Junji; Kashiba, Teruyuki

  Okawa Primary School Incident Verification Committee 172–3, 174

  Okinawa 53, 67, 194; battle 194n

  Onagawa 23, 24, 100

  ‘Ono, Takeshi’ 93–8, 99, 223

  Onoe, Kikugoro 7

  Onosaki 57

  Ooms, Herman 101

  Oppa Bay 50, 52, 109, 141

  Osaka 49

  Oshika 54

  Otsuchi 50, 210

  Popham, Peter 157, 158

  psychics see mediums/psychics

  Rikuzen-Takata 50, 210, 211, 232

  Sadako (film) 105

  Sanriku Coast 50, 53, 55

  Sanriku tsunami (1896) 55–6, 227–8

  Sasaki, Nagomi 87, 88

  Sasaki, Takashi 46, 125, 126, 214, 215

  Sasaki, Tetsuma 87

  Sasaki, Toshimitsu 87–8

  Sato, Fuka 125

  Sato, Katsura 77, 78–9, 113, 171–2, 212, 243

  Sato, Kazutaka 45, 46, 113, 114–15, 166

  Sato, Kenta 113

  Sato, Mitsuhiro 113, 114

  Sato, Mizuho 77, 113, 243

  Sato, Soma 119, 125–6

  Sato, Tomoko 113, 114

  Sato, Toshiro 113, 243

  Sato, Yuki 45–6, 113, 125, 165, 214

  schools, Japanese 76,82–3, 124, 242–3; in Ishinomaki 64, 77, 127, 171, 193, 197; see also Okawa Primary School

  Sendai 50, 51, 100, 156, 212, 228, 229

  shamanism 103

  Shimokawara, Minoru 72, 73, 75

  Shimokawara, Takashi 71–5

  shinkansen (bullet train) 51

  Shinto 100, 101, 223, 224; shrines 123, 178, 185

  Shirota, Miss (teacher) 120

  Shishido, Kenetsu 170–72

  Shito, Chisato 15, 16–19, 20, 21, 22, 24–6, 34–5, 40–42, 77, 160, 161

  Shito, Kenya 16, 19, 20–21, 22, 245

  Shito, Sayomi 15–16, 77, 184–5; on her daughter 15, 16–17, 18–21, 112–13; and the earthquake 21–2, 119; and the tsunami 23–4; awaits news 24–6; no hope 34–5; finds Chisato’s body 41–2; and formation of ‘Fukuji group’ 113–14; mutual dislike of Naomi Hiratsuka 160–63, 196; campaigns against city officials and Education Board 162–3, 169, 170; begins legal action 199–200; and Endo 215, 216, 217; suicidal 244–5

  Shito, Takahiro 18, 184–5, 186; and the earthquake 22, 23; prepares for rescue helicopter 26, 30; finds daughter’s body 33–4, 41–2; and formation of ‘Fukuji group’ 113; and campaign against city officials and Education Bo
ard 169; interrogates headmaster 170–71; gives talks on the disaster 186–7, 232; and legal action against city officials 199–200, 202, 235

  Shito, Tomoka 16, 21, 212

  Shizugawa 224

  Shizugawa Bay 221

  Soma 99

  Sugawara, Hideyuki 146–7

  Sumi (medium) 105–6, 112, 192–3, 194, 195

  Suto, Ayane 229–31

  Suto, Tsutomu 229–31

  Suzuki, Hana 66, 106–7, 112, 161, 188, 189, 191, 192, 196

  Suzuki, Kento 66, 161, 189, 190

  Suzuki, Miho 188; and loss of children 66, 161, 188; friendship with Naomi Hiratsuka 66, 69, 188–9, 190–91; visits mediums 106–7, 189; communicates with daughter 106–7, 189–90; searches for daughter 191; relationship with Naomi sours 195–6, 197, 244; takes part in legal action against city 198, 202; finally moves out of temporary home 244

  Suzuki, Mitsuko 141–3

  Suzuki, Ms (teacher) 121

  Suzuki, Nana 148

  Suzuki, Shinichi 120

  Suzuki, Yoshiaki 188, 190, 192, 198, 202, 244

  Suzuki, Yuto 112, 161, 188

  Tada, Keizo 74, 75

  Tadano, Hideaki 202, 208, 209, 211–12, 213, 238, 243

  Tadano, Mina 119, 127, 208, 209

  Tadano, Shiroe 127, 132, 207, 208

  Tadano, Tetsuya 32, 119, 120, 127, 132–3, 145–6, 148–50, 165, 183, 202, 207–8, 209, 211–13, 238, 243

  Tagajo 99

  Takahashi, Hara 249

  Takahashi, Kazuo 131–2, 135, 148

  Takahashi, Kohei 32, 145–6, 148–50

  Takahashi, Toshio 126, 132

  ‘Takahashi, Rumiko’ 233, 245–50

  Takeyama, Yui 112, 188

  Tales of Tono, The 227–8

  Tanabata, Festival of 104

  Taniyama, Yozo 102–3

  Tohoku 5, 10, 49–50, 51, 53, 89, 103, 155, 182, 183, 221, 234; folklore 227–8

  Tokyo 49, 53, 157–8, 179; earthquakes 2, 153–4, 155–7, 159; March 2011 earthquake 2–8, 9, 156; primary school 242–3

  tsunamis: past 54–6, 75, 136, 181; March 2011 8–11, 23–4, 36–8, 128–30, 133, 134–5, 136–42, 146–8, 187, 242

  typhoons 181, 242

  Ukitsu, Amane 45–6, 125, 212, 214