Even 14 years after 3-11, there are surreal images from that disaster that I can’t forget—countless pictures of death and destruction that I doubt even the surrealist Salvador Dali could have conceived of: the huge fishing boats tossed onto highways, clogging streets wedged between buildings, cars and entire houses bobbing like toys, that inky black, ominous wall of water that rolled with shocking ease over retaining walls, deluging entire fishing villages and towns. The panic and horror of it all was palpable as friends contacted friends in Canada and Japan, concerned about the safety of loved ones in that utter devastation, desperate to learn any news.
Witnessing all of the events unfold on TV and YouTube videos from here in Canada, there was a great sense of helplessness. The videos were horrifying: huge waves of incredible power, almost 40 meters (130 feet) hitting Iwate, mercilessly wrecking the coastline of Tohoku Region, washing away fields of rice, fishing villages, businesses with unimaginable speed, force, totally unmoved by the suffering it was inflicting.
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July 2024: It had been 15 years since I had last visited Sendai. Everything has changed in so many aspects of my life and, honestly, I did not know how well my friendships there had weathered that long stretch of time.
Renewing my friendship with Senji Kurosu and his family was seamless. While we’d all grown older, speaking and commiserating with Senji was just as it had been in 2009 when we’d last met. Communicating by email has not been an effective way of maintaining our friendship.
Senji has been guiding me through the cultural maze of Japan since I first met him at his Kawaramachi hair salon that has been in operation for more than 100 years. Our friendship deserves to be the subject of a long story. We’ve gone through a lot together. Meeting him, stepping back into a friendship so easily, not missing a beat after so much time. It is uncanny.
Today, he was driving me to Arahama in his small K-car on a crappy, rainy day. We were surprised that the rainy season lasted so long. He drove through the series of narrow unmarked back roads, laneways, allowing cars coming the opposite way to pass when necessary, making our way through a maze of rice fields, weaving around busier roadways for commuters, eventually making our way to a clearing that indicated that we’d arrived at the ocean. It was the same idyllic stretch of coastline that took a direct hit from the tsunami.
We’ve all seen the YouTube videos: the wave barrelling over the flat landscape, swallowing up everything in its merciless wake, with nothing to stop it from rolling all of the way inland to downtown Sendai, 10 km away. Today, if one didn’t know any better, this area of the Sendai coastline looked as idyllic as ever. Getting closer to the ocean, small monuments to honour the 3-11 victims were pointed out to me.
Today, Senji has arranged for me to meet the school principal, Kawamura kocho sensei (principal), who was working at Sendai Arahama Elementary School on the day when the earthquake and tsunami changed the Tohoku region forever.
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Kawamura-sensei had just started as the principal at Arahama Elementary School on April 1, 2010 and was wrapping up what had been a successful year at the school that served a community of around 800 households, 2,200 people, who lived and worked as fishermen and farmers in the area around the historical Teizan Canal that runs along the coastline.
Arahama Elementary School, located 700m from the Pacific, was established in 1873. In March 2011, the school had 91 students.
How did Friday, March 11, 2011 begin? Was it like any other school day?
The children were shouting “Good morning!” as they arrived at the school like every other day.
The only thing different from usual was that they were attending the graduation ceremony at the nearby Shichigo Junior High School, which began at 10 a.m. Shichigo Junior High School is located 4 km inland from the sea and is the school to which many of the students who graduated from Arahama Elementary School go on. The ceremony went smoothly and ended safely at around 12:30. The junior high school students also returned to their homes in the Arahama area.
Please tell us about the moment the earthquake occurred shortly afterwards at 2:46 p.m.
I was in the principal’s office.
It suddenly started shaking. There had been an earthquake two days before, so I thought it would stop soon. However, this earthquake was on a completely different scale. Just when I thought the shaking would stop, it started shaking even stronger. The computer and printer I had been using had fallen off the desk without me noticing.
The chair I was sitting on moved from side to side, so I stood up and put both hands on the desk to stop my body shaking.
The wall of the principal’s office was decorated with pictures of past principals. The pictures fell to the floor one after another. The window frame continued to rattle. I felt an indescribable fear.
In the schoolyard, children were crouching and teachers were trying to protect them.
I looked out the window of the principal’s office at the schoolyard. The second and third graders, who had just gathered to go home, were gathered in the center of the schoolyard and crouched. The teachers spread their arms wide to protect the children. They looked like parent birds spreading their wings to protect their chicks.
Just when I thought it would calm down, it started shaking even more violently, and this happened over and over again.
It felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper into the ground. I felt as if I was sinking into a bottomless swamp along with the ground, and I just endured it. We weren’t able to gather or transmit information.
As the shaking continued, I moved from the principal’s office to the staff room. There were three staff members in the staff room: the vice principal, a teacher, and a female engineer. The other staff members were in their classrooms or at their posts.
When a disaster occurs, the staff room becomes the disaster headquarters. The role of the headquarters is to gather information and decide on a response, and to give instructions to the entire school (disseminate information).
So, I immediately began my duties to gather information and decide on a response. I gathered information. The main way to do this was through the TV. This was because I wanted to check the earthquake’s intensity and various warnings and advisories. I immediately turned on the TV, but it didn’t work at all. I thought, “The TV is broken.”
Next, I tried to make a phone call to a nearby school. I put the receiver to my ear, but there was no sound. Looking around, I noticed that the lights in the rooms were not on, as I hadn’t noticed during the day. I realized that the entire area had lost power. There was no information from the “Tsunami Disaster Prevention Information System Speaker” installed in the staff room. It seems that it had lost power and lost function. A few minutes later, a large tsunami announcement was apparently made, but I only found out about it that night.
As a result, we were unable to gather any information about the earthquake or tsunami. However, I recognized that it was an abnormally large tremor. Deciding that evacuation was necessary, I grabbed the emergency broadcast microphone in the staff room. This is a device that is also used in regular training. However, it did not work at all. I realized that it was due to the power outage. At this point, most of the means of collecting and transmitting information that we had used during training were no longer usable. My mind went blank. I was really in trouble.
I suddenly looked around the staff room and saw several handheld microphones. I picked up one of them and gave instructions from the balcony of the staff room to the schoolyard. “Enter the school building!” After that, I called to each floor and gave instructions to “move to the classrooms on the fourth floor.” Thanks to the instructions, the evacuation to the classrooms on the fourth floor was completed by 3:10 p.m. During the training, the evacuation was to the rooftop. We switched to the classrooms on the fourth floor to protect against the cold.
I told the homeroom teachers and students who had been evacuated to the fourth floor, “We will not evacuate to any other places (secondary evacuation), so please wait in the classroom.” Arahama is located in the center of a low-lying area, about 4 km away from the neighbouring school, and it takes about an hour to walk there. Therefore, I had decided to stay on the fourth floor of the school building in the event of a disaster.
After that, I moved to the entrance on the first floor with some of the staff and waited there. This was to guide the residents. Many residents evacuated. Some of them were still holding their pets (dogs), some were sick and still sleeping, and some were in wheelchairs.
I received a report from a staff member saying, “Parents have requested that we hand over the children to them,” and I agreed. In the event of an emergency, a handover system had been established for pre-registered families. I don’t know the exact number, but several children were handed over to their parents. Many of them evacuated safely, but a third-grade parent and child were swept away by the tsunami on their way back home and died. Many schools still have a handover system in place, but the decision to implement it is difficult and remains an issue.
Were the parents able to contact the school?
Immediately after the earthquake, the area suffered a power outage and all telephone services were out of service. Mobile phone lines were also crossed and had no power, making them almost unusable.
It was about four days before mobile phones were able to be used normally again.
© 2025 Norm Masaji Ibuki
