Earthquake Damage

Since coming back to Japan, a lot of the conversations with people have focused on the earthquake...where people were, what it was like, how things are progressing, the latest with the nuclear reactors. Especially since coming back to Yamagata, which is only about 50 miles from the coast that got hit the worst. But besides losing power and having food and gas shortages, Yamagata avoided the worst of things. Everyone has said that although the earthquake was strong, it did very little damage compared to the tsunami.

Some of my snowboarding friends live in Sendai, only about a half of a mile from where the edge of the water reached. They still have their homes and didn't lose any close friends or family, but are still amazingly positive. They all said how lucky it was that the earthquake happened on a Friday afternoon when people were at work or school. If it had happened on a weekend or in the middle of the night, even more people would have been swept away.

I don't want to be a tourist and just go take pictures of the loss suffered by other people, but I think that it is important to remind those not in Japan that things are a long, long way from returning to normal. The news tends to focus on one thing excessively, and then just move right on the next. Unfortunately the people here can't do the same.

So, here are a few of the pictures from Natori, which is outside of Sendai. When I lived here I used to come to the beach here every so often, and it is really hard to believe it is even the same place. Natori didn't get the worst of the damage, but it was hit pretty hard.

If your house looked like this, or even part of it was left, you were actually really lucky. Most of the houses in the area where destroyed completely.

This area used to be all houses.

Now all that is left is the foundations.

It is probably hard to tell, but my friends said that things have been cleaned up so much in the two months since the tsunami. So it is hard to think of what it was like before.

There are of course boats washed up on shore. As you move away from the coast, you think, oh, this are must not have been affected, but then you will see a random boat along the road.

I was most surprised by all of the cars. If you imagine the worst car accident you've ever seen, there are thousands of cars that look like that. They have started moving them all to one area, and I wonder what they will do with all of them after that.

Another interesting thing I learned is that earthquake insurance in Japan doesn't cover tsunamis. So although the tsunami was directly caused by the earthquake, without additional coverage you will receive nothing from your insurance company.