We’ll Never Forget

13th year since the Great East Japan Earthquake

This is transcript of the news.

Video footage of the tsunami that hit Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture was released in the fall of 2021. The video was shot by a 15-year-old junior high school student at the time. We interviewed him about his thoughts on the video, which was released to the public 10 years later.

This is a video of a tsunami, so please stop watching if you feel stressed.

This is a video of the tsunami that hit the Sannohama area of Kesennuma City on March 11, 2011, the day of the earthquake. The black waves were recorded over the sea wall and swallowing houses one by one. This video was shot by Ryo Hatakeyama, a restaurant manager in Kesennuma City. He was 15 years old.

The Sannohama district of Kesennuma City, where Mr. Hatakeyama lives, is a village at the foot of the Kesennuma Oshima Bridge, which connects the mainland of Kesennuma with Oshima. He was at his home that day.

Hatakeyama: It was a slow, small tremor at first, and then suddenly became so violent that it was an earthquake I had never experienced before.

A tsunami of up to 1.2 meters reached the Sannohama area during the Chilean earthquake that occurred one year before the disaster. From that experience, Mr. Hatakeyama thought, “There is no doubt that a tsunami will come.’’ While evacuating to higher ground, he witnessed the tsunami and photographed it with his portable music player with camera, which he always carry with him.

Sea levels were rising rapidly. The tsunami quickly reached the height of the roof of the house. Mr. Hatakeyama continued to photograph while evacuating.

Hatakeyama: The waves were constantly swirling in the bay, with white waves off the coast and tsunami waves flowing with great force toward Kesennuma Bay.

A tsunami several meters high hit the Sannohama area. Mr. Hatakeyama’s home, located on a hill, was safe, but the houses along the coast suffered damage, including being washed away.

Hatakeyama: The houses were getting more and more destroyed, and the sounds of things being destroyed were amazing. The cars were destroyed by the tsunami and the horn kept blaring. I was already in despair. It looked like everything was being destroyed. It was a place filled with so many memories, so when I saw the current situation, I couldn’t believe it at first.

The Sannohama area has suffered damage from tsunamis such as the 1896 Meiji Sanriku Earthquake and the 1933 Showa Sanriku Earthquake.

At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, people in this area evacuated to higher ground about 20 meters high. The video taken by Hatakeyama also records the voices of residents calling on each other to “Go to higher ground”. The Sannohama area suffered devastating damage. However, no one died. The lessons of the past have come to fruition.

After the earthquake, Hatakeyama never looked back at the videos he had taken.

Hatakeyama: Basically, I haven’t seen anything. After all, I won’t forget it the next day or the day after that, and I don’t want to remember it either.

The turning point came in the fall of 2021. Mr. Hatakeyama disclosed the existence of the video to an acquaintance who lost his family in the tsunami. Then, he was advised, “Rather than keep it away, we should make it public for posterity”.

Hatakeyama: I remembered all kinds of things, such as people who saw the tsunami and people who were hurt, and I thought about whether I was being unscrupulous.

After much consideration, Hatakeyama decided to release the video. It was uploaded to the video publishing site YouTube in November 2021. Over 7,000 comments were received, including “I think we should never forget” and “I was able to fully understand the fear of tsunami”.

Mr. Hatakeyama says, “I hope that the video I shot will be useful in saving as many people’s lives as possible during the next disaster”.

Hatakeyama: When a disaster, whether an earthquake or a tsunami, strikes, I want people to run away. It is too late to do anything about it, and by the time you are thinking about what to do, the tsunami will have already arrived. That is how we should feel, or how we should prepare ourselves, for tsunamis and other natural disasters.

Thank you for reading.