2.3 Epilogue

 March 21. 2011

                                         

Dear my friend

I am now in Minami Sanriku Cho (South SANRIKI Town) in Miyagi prefecture.

It is a quarter to 5 in the early morning.

I am writing you laying myself on the seat of Honda StepWagon, in which I slept through this night, as is the second time in this travel.

(The first time was on the parking of Tohoku highway service area.) I woke up very early, because it was too cold.

Yesterday night I arrived in this ghost town after very long and time consuming drive.  It took more than 24 hours totally for the drive from Yokohama to Minami Sanriku Cho.

On the way to this town, I visited Miyagi Prefectural Office in Sendai City to confirm how I should reach to Minami Sanriku Cho.  Toward Minami Sanriku Cho, I went through Wakabayashi Ward of Sendai City, Sendai Airport in Natori City, Shiogama City and harbor, Matsushima, Ishinomaki City, etc.

I saw many important things.  I would like to convey you some of them in the separately attached photo files.

The list of photos:

(1) My StepWagon with the boxes of eatable articles and my lovely mountain bike.

(2) Empty shelves of a convenient store in Sendai City which is the capital of

    Miyagi prefecture.

(3) The catastrophe of Sendai Airport.

(4) A shoe without owner in Airport.

(5a) A fishing boat on the entrance of Daihatsu car dealer at Shiogama.

(5b) A Matsushima sightseeing boat on the city park.

(6) A survivable family in Ishinomaki (?)

(7) A beautiful and peaceful Matsushima bay and islands who do not remember Tsunami.

    (Famous Haiku poet Basho has composed:

     Matsushima ya, Aah Matsushima ya, Matsushima ya.) (It would be noted that the copy right belongs to Hajime Yoshino and the privacy in the photo is to be protected.)

It was already dark when I arrived in this town.  In darkness, however, I could estimate that this town is a ghost town.  All houses were carried away by Tsunami and only wreckage of houses are remaining.

I came to Asahiga-oka Community Center, which is one of harbors of refuges in this town.  Asahiga-oka is a small living area with houses on the hill. ("oka" means hill.) The small community center is used as a temporally harbor of refugees. Around 50 people are staying here. 

I came here because I was informed that the station is so small and isolated that The help from outside has not enough reached here.

I handed over the eatable articles to the refugees, which I carried here in StepWagon from Yokohama.  They pleased very much and thanked to me for carrying those articles from such a long distance.  I was also very pleased to see that they were pleasing.

At 7 am, Mrs. Ohtaki Councilwoman of this town, will come to me to go with me to the center of countermeasures in this town, where I would like to ask a responsible person to let me know what I could do for the people here.

I am waiting for her now.

With best wishes,

Hajime

吉野一

Hajime Yoshino

明治学院大学名誉教授

Professor of Law Emeritus
Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo