That day, caught between life and death

These are work clothes that were worn by a victim of the tsunami at the time of the disaster.

The day the earthquake struck, the person in question, who would never before have experienced such shaking, turned around the car he had been driving and headed towards his home in the Minamihama area of Ishinomaki. It was on his way there that his car was swallowed up by the tsunami.

He immediately exited the car, scrambling up a tree directly in front of him. There he survived by spending a freezing cold night in the snowfall with his clothes soaked through.

“My precious family was still at our house by the seashore. With a tsunami of that size . . .”

The number of people who lost their lives in the Great East Japan Earthquake or remain missing: 22,288 [As of March 1, 2020]

Fire and Disaster Management Agency, “The State of Damages from the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 (Report No. 160)”