By SHOKO RIKIMARU/ Staff Writer
October 3, 2020 at 07:10 JST
NAMIE, Fukushima Prefecture--The sounds of laughing children at play are nowhere to be heard at Ukedo Elementary School in this coastal town devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Instead, visitors are greeted by empty window, bent window frames, scattered kitchen equipment and items left as they were nearly 10 years ago.
The two-story reinforced concrete building stands just 300 meters inland from the Pacific Ocean and is currently undergoing maintenance work to transform it into a lasting reminder of the events of March 11, 2011.
Towering tsunami triggered by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake reached as high as the building’s second floor.
Eleven first-graders had already gone home when the disaster hit. However, 82 pupils and 14 teachers and staff were still on the premises.
They all managed to flee to higher ground for safety, finding refuge about 1.5 kilometers away.
The subsequent triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant forced all residents of Namie to evacuate.
Self-Defense Forces personnel dispatched to Namie on a search and rescue mission wrote messages on blackboards in the abandoned classrooms, according to the town’s board of education.
Residents who later temporarily returned to the town also left uplifting messages.
“Don’t worry. It’s going to be alright,” one message reads.
“Look ahead and live strong,” reads another.
The messages are expected to be preserved and put on display when the facility opens to the public in fiscal 2021.
In February 2019, a local committee formed to discuss ways to pass on memories of the triple disaster urged the town government to preserve the school building and use it so future generations can learn from the tragedy.
Construction work to make the building safe began in mid-September.
Visitor routes and exhibition panels, as well as safety nets to prevent pipes from falling from the ceiling, will be added to the facility.
“Many lives and properties were lost in the town's coastal areas,” said Junichi Kasai, head of the secretariat for the town’s education board, who also noted that the subsequent nuclear accident was the wallop to disaster victims.
Town authorities in the meantime decided to officially close and delist the school next spring, along with four other elementary schools and a junior high school, as children have been unable to attend them for almost 10 years.
Prior to the disaster, there were six elementary schools and three junior high schools in Namie with more than 1,700 children enrolled.
Kasai said he hopes the preserved Ukedo school building will teach two things to future visitors: That the disaster was a watershed moment for “our everyday life” and a natural disaster “is not somebody else’s problem.”
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Sewing kits and other items lie scattered on the floor of a classroom at Ukedo Elementary School in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, on Sept. 4. (Shoko Rikimaru)
