Wednesday 11 May 2011

Miyako to Yamada

Going south from Jodogama.  The pictures below are in Miyako and Yamada.

A ship still there, but a lot of debris cleaned, the roads have been
totally cleared.

Piles of rubbish, but very neatly cleaned.

A couple of  km down the road

The houses are all marked with paint to say they have been
checked - either by the Japanese Self Defence Force or the
US military.

Driving along, there was no way to know the fate of
occupants of any of the buildings.

road barriers bent

destruction... had the houses been built up the hill.....

the sea walls did not protect, though looking at the towns
it is possible that they may have reduced damage - I haven't
read anything about it yet.  It was one of my unanswered questions.

With the sea walls, some tsunami gates were broken, I am not
sure to what extent they served as a hindrance by trapping flood water
inside the villages.

Nothing left...

there has been a fantastic effort made with the roads.
The road has been rerouted ahead here.

A chilling aspect was the total lack of people in much of the area.
I had an idea people would be out cleaning up... there was no
excess of volunteers anywhere - there were no volunteers anywhere that we saw.
I don't mean all people were dead, they aren't, though many are,  many
also survived.  It would be an utterly heartbreaking sight for any survivor.

2 comments:

J.D. Gibbard said...

I will be cycling most of Rt 45 in July with the plan to stop and volunteer every couple of days. There are lots of towns that don't seem to be getting much help so I will try to help there more than places with lots of volunteers.

I hope rainy season is mild this year :/

Cecilia said...

Despite the destruction, it's a beautiful coastline. There are without doubt some places receiving much better attention than others. If you are coming through Tokyo, feel free to get in touch.